A New Home for Extreme Storm Research at Florida International University

A natural extension of the NSF NHERI Wall of Wind, the proposed NICHE facility would be the world’s largest testbed for exploring extreme weather

Published on July 2, 2026

This article originally appeared in the Florida International University Research Magazine, March 2, 2026.

It’s a familiar dynamic we’ve seen play out across news organizations and social media platforms: A powerful storm makes landfall in a densely populated area of the United States. Full-scale disruption follows – to the built environment, natural systems, the rhythms of daily life. Lives are lost, families displaced. Communities and ecosystems are destabilized, sometimes irreversibly. The effects linger, shaping people and places for generations.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Katrina. Ike. Sandy. Harvey. Maria. Irma. Ian. Helene. An infamous roll call, each name signaling a reckoning with vulnerability.

More than 125 years after the Galveston Hurricane killed an estimated 6,000-12,000 people in a single night making it the deadliest natural hazard-related disaster in U.S. history, the sequence of events surrounding extreme storms remains unsettlingly familiar. What is changing are the storms themselves. Weather patterns are intensifying; in some cases, storms are strengthening at unprecedented rates. Hazards are compounding. Wind, water and surge are converging in ways that increasingly strain existing infrastructure, ecosystems and emergency response systems.

If the risks are evolving, shouldn’t the way we study these storms evolve?

A team led by FIU of the nation’s top wind, wave and surge scientists and engineers thinks so. The goal: create a new scale of research that will shift the storyline of extreme storms from one of recurring disaster to one of informed resilience.

If the risks are evolving, shouldn't the way we study these storms evolve?

A house, center, lies toppled off its stilts after the passage of Hurricane Milton, alongside an empty lot where a home was swept away by Hurricane Helene, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Credit: AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A legacy that began with Wall of Wind

NICHE is not an isolated achievement. It is the next chapter in FIU’s decades-long leadership in extreme-event engineering – a legacy anchored by the university’s internationally recognized Wall of Wind (WOW). Born in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, WOW grew from a two-fan prototype into a 12-fan, 157 mph hurricane simulator – the only university-based facility in the nation capable of testing full-scale structures in Category 5 winds. Today, the WOW is part of the NSF-supported Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure grant, NHERI.

Over the past 20 years, WOW has transformed how the world understands wind risk. Its research has informed building codes across the globe, strengthened roofing standards and shaped engineering guidance used by designers, insurers and regulators. Even before the inception of WOW, FIU’s International Hurricane Research Center discovered that ring-shank nails dramatically improve roof performance, changing Florida’s building code.

WOW’s reach extends far beyond roofing. Researchers have tested solar panels, canopies, power systems, vegetation, elevated homes – even Milan’s famed Bosco Verticale towers. Its data have refined national risk models, contributed to ASCE 7 provisions and supported innovations like rooftop turbines that both mitigate wind load and generate clean energy.

Together, NICHE and the Wall of Wind position FIU as the epicenter of extreme-event research in the United States. With unparalleled tools and decades of expertise, FIU is charting a future in which communities – not storms – shape their own resilience.

Innovation and Product Development

Since 2013 WOW has hosted product testing from 29 private industry clients and research from 17 external academic institutions and 11 federal and state agencies. In that time, WOW has tested dozens of products including:

Roofing products

Tiles
Pavers
Decking
Secondary water barriers
Green energy products
Solar panels
Wind turbines
Fenestration
Windows
Shutters
Sliding glass doors
Balconies
Shade systems
Structures
Gazebos
Canopies
Vegetation & landscaping

Resilience Science gets a Makeover

As stronger storms, rising costs and growing coastal populations reshape the nation’s understanding of risk, FIU is leading the most ambitious leap forward in resilience science in a generation.

With a U.S. shoreline population of approximately 131 million people (39% of the population), natural hazards now inflict more than $100 billion in damages annually – impacting homes, economies, infrastructure and national security. Amid these realities, FIU is spearheading the creation of the National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events – or NICHE – a groundbreaking facility that, when built, will redefine how researchers study the forces behind extreme events. The facility design is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation as part of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NHERI.

When built, NICHE would be the world’s largest testbed for exploring the combined effects of extreme wind, storm surge and waves on full-scale structures and coastal processes. For the first time, scientists and policymakers would be able to quantify natural and built infrastructure response under conditions that mirror the power of hurricanes.

“The envisioned NICHE responds directly to one of the biggest societally driven challenges of the 21st century, addressing the vexing impacts from natural hazards to ensure communities, infrastructure and natural environments continue to thrive,” says Arindham Chowdhury, principal investigator of NICHE.

NICHE is being designed as a full-scale facility to solve problems of scaling. Conventional testing, for example, may produce inaccurate results when scaling down a coastal low-rise building to investigate hazard impacts or miniaturizing sand particles to study beach erosion. This is because a wooden beam or a nail or a window cannot be scaled down properly to investigate damage under wind and water, explains Chowdhury, just as a sand particle cannot be scaled down without losing its inherent properties that govern particle transport.

Designed to produce 200 mph winds and 16-foot waves, the facility would allow experts to evaluate structural performance and coastal processes in ways no laboratory has done before. Its immersive physical-digital visualizations, including regional simulation tools, would enable stakeholders to step inside simulated storms to understand their impacts on communities while determining the efficacies of innovative solutions to impart resilience. They’ll be able to test mitigation strategies and even preview how proposed building-code reforms might perform when extreme weather strikes, making it a decision-making platform for communities, industry and government.

“NICHE’s combination of full-scale testing capabilities and a robust Artificial Intelligence component will be unmatched when built, really setting this facility apart,” says Jack Puleo, associate vice president for strategic initiatives in coastal engineering and resilience at FIU.

When built, the testing capabilities and impact of NICHE will be unrivaled anywhere in the world.

“We need unscaled capability so that we can attempt to solve engineering problems as they exist in reality. AI can be used as a predictive tool, but importantly, AI is data hungry. Predictions are only as good as the data being fed to the learning algorithms,” he continues. “Thus, the AI aspect will be iterative as new physical simulations are conducted, leading to improved and never-before-obtained observations/data.”

NICHE promises meaningful economic impact. Advancing hightech building materials, accelerating product commercialization, strengthening the nation’s resilient construction sector and innovating nature-based coastal protection, the facility would help position the United States as a global leader in disastermitigation technologies. Its insights could influence insurance models, reshape policy discussions and ultimately support safer, stronger and more prosperous coastal communities.

Proposed National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events (NICHE)

The NICHE Team

The $12.8 million National Science Foundation grant to design the world’s most powerful wind- wave-surge testing facility brings together the nation’s leading subject-area experts:

Wind

Arindam Chowdhury, Ph.D.
Amal Elawady, Ph.D.
Ioannis Zisis, Ph.D.
Florida International University

Kurtis Gurley, Ph.D.
University of Florida

Franklin Lombardo, Ph.D.
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

Paul Vasilescu
Aerolab

Surge

Jack A. Puleo, Ph.D.
Navid Tahvildari, Ph.D.
Florida International University

Herman Fritz, Ph.D.
Georgia Institute of Technology

Pedro Lomonaco, Ph.D.
Oregon State University

Computational Fluid Dynamics

Catherine Gorle, Ph.D.
Stanford University

Workforce Development & Stakeholder Engagement

John van de Lindt, Ph.D.
Colorado State University

Tracy Kijewski-Correa, Ph.D.
University of Notre Dame

Kristin Taylor, Ph.D.
Wayne State University