Hurricane Katrina, the most deadly and destructive storm to hit the United States, caused 1800 deaths and an estimated $81 billion in damages. Most of the loss was not due to the storm's high winds, but the accompanying storm surge and flooding. Imminent climate change and sea level rise could possibly make these mega storms more frequent and intense, and especially disastrous to those living on the coast. While it's challenging, beginning to quantify future loss from storms may help communities start planning to prevent unnecessary death and destruction. Francisco Olivera, associate professor of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University, is evaluating the impact of hurricanes and coastal flooding on the Gulf Coast. His group's assessment of the damage caused by current and future hurricane storm surges has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Climatic Change, and Ocean and Coastal Management. These studies represented the first of their kind to explore how the coastlines would change from rising seas. To read more, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/computing-the-cost-of-catastrophe.