Hurricanes have a great potential to cause loss of life and damage to the human and physical landscape. Literature about human vulnerability has established methods of predicting vulnerability using additive GIS layers but has not been able to test those methods or weight the importance of different variables. This thesis tests a model of predicting vulnerability by comparing it to actual storm damage for the case study in New Orleans, Louisiana using GIS. This study found that the model of vulnerability established by researchers did not predict storm damage for about 80% of the study area.
Weighting variables made some improvements in the ability of the model to predict vulnerability. Future research will need to tailor models of vulnerability to the unique geography of a place and explore new ways to measure storm damage.