Investigating the Collapse of the Puerto Colombia Pier (Colombian Caribbean Coast) in March 2009: Methodology for the Reconstruction of Extreme Events and the Evaluation of their Impact on the Coastal Infrastructure

ABSTRACT Ortiz, J.C.; Salcedo, B., and Otero, L.J., 2014. Investigating the collapse of the Puerto Colombia pier (Colombian Caribbean Coast) in March 2009: methodology for the reconstruction of extreme events and the evaluation of their impact on the coastal infrastructure. On March 7, 2009, a 200-m section of the Puerto Colombia pier collapsed when a cold front passed through the Atlantico Department of Colombia on the Caribbean coast. Herein, the most important meteo-marine event of the last 10 years in the Colombian Caribbean area was reconstructed using SWAN software and the WAVEWATCH III global wave model, which uses wind fields as input. The modeling method involved a nested grid approach for wave generation and propagation in a particular sector of the central Caribbean coast of Colombia. To validate the numerical model, the time series for the event generated using modeling data was compared with the recorded wave data from two buoys: buoy 42058, which is located in the Caribbean Sea and operated ...