Florida is regularly exposed to hurricanes and often suffers severe damages often leading to fatalities. The location of Kennedy Space Center makes it particularly vulnerable and exposed to hurricanes. Hurricane storm surge, high winds and torrential rainfall could impose severe damage to facility infrastructure consequentially crippling operations of the space program in general. While no severe hurricanes have had direct landfall at Cape Canaveral, the risk of a category 5 hurricane making a direct hit cannot be written off.

To assess the risk and determine the potential flood levels and wave impacts, NASA commissioned a hurricane impact damage assessment at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. The study used one local historical hurricane Erin (1995) as well as 6 synthetic events to determine and map the hurricane storm-surge levels for the coastal areas surrounding Cape Canaveral, including overland areas, inlets and inland waterways. The study took into account the astronomical tide, storm-surge generated by wind stress and atmospheric pressure variations, wave set-up from the breaking of offshore waves, and overland propagation of local wind-generated waves.