1. Elizabeth C. English, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo, Cambridge, Ontario, N1S 2H4 Canada. E-mail: ecenglish@uwaterloo.ca 2. Carol J. Friedland. Assistant Professor, Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. E-mail: friedland@lsu.edu 3. Fatemeh Orooji, Assistant Professor, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101. Email: fatemeh.orooji@wku.edu Combined Flood and Wind Mitigation for Hurricane Damage Prevention: The Case for Amphibious Construction Elizabeth C. English 1 , Carol J. Friedland 2 , and Fatemeh Orooji 3 Journal of Structural Engineering, 143(6), 2017 Special Issue on Recent Advances in Assessment and Mitigation of Multiple Hazards for Structures and Infrastructures Abstract Some initiatives that are intended to mitigate extreme flood events do not fully consider the impact of less catastrophic but more commonly occurring wind-induced damage, which is a significant issue particularly in regions that are prone to hurricanes. The policies of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) encourage homeowners to implement permanent static elevation to increase their flood resilience. However, substantial elevation can increase a structure’s vulnerability to wind. In effect, by protecting against a rare but catastrophic flood occurrence, these houses are made considerably more vulnerable to less severe but more regularly occurring wind events and thus face an increased likelihood of wind damage. This study introduces amphibious construction as an innovative retrofit flood mitigation and climate change adaptation strategy. It also evaluates the increased vulnerability to wind damage that accompanies permanent static elevation (PSE), to which amphibious retrofit construction is an alternative. The results of our investigation suggest that amphibious construction could provide a beneficial alternative solution to mitigating hurricane damage, as it is a strategy that can reduce vulnerability to flood damage without increasing vulnerability to wind damage. Keywords: hurricane damage reduction; flood mitigation; wind damage; multi-hazard mitigation; permanent static elevation; amphibious construction; buoyant foundation; damage risk reduction; non-structural floodproofing; adaptive flood risk management; climate change adaptation.