Herbert Saffir

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Herbert Saffir (born 29 March 1917 in New York City), is the developer of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, for measuring the intensity of hurricanes. As of 2005, Saffir was the principal of Saffir Engineering[1] in Coral Gables, Florida. He has published articles on designing buildings for high wind resistance.[2]

Saffir graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1940 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering.[3] Saffir worked for Dade County, Florida beginning in 1947 as an assistant county engineer, and worked on updating the county building code. In 1969, while working on a study of windstorm damage on low-cost housing commissioned by the United Nations, Saffir developed a scale to measure the intensity of hurricanes. Robert Simpson, then-director of the National Hurricane Center, added information on the damage done by storm surge, resulting in the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.[4]

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