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Regional Assessment of Tsunami Potential in the Gulf of Mexico: Report to the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program
From the Executive Summary: "The following summary is based on our observations and modeling results: (1) There is sufficient evidence to consider submarine landslides in the Gulf of Mexico as a present-day tsunami hazard, as there are clear observations of large landslides along the continental margin of the gulf; (2) Three geologic landslide provinces are de fined in the Gulf of Mexico: Northwest Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi Canyon and fan, and Florida/Campeche Margin; (3) Parameters for the maximum credible submarine landslide were determined for each of the provinces, except for the Florida/Campeche Margin where data are unavailable; […] (4) Mobility analysis suggests that constitutive parameters of the East Breaks landslide in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico are similar to the parameters for other landslides that have recently been analyzed (Palos Verdes and Currituck); (5) The largest landslides are found in the submarine canyon and fan provinces extending from present (Mississippi) and former larger rivers that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; […] (6) Hydrodynamic modeling of potential maximum tsunamis from landslide sources was conducted for the East Breaks slide (south Texas) and for hypothetical slides along the Florida/Campeche margin. Conservative initial conditions related to tsunami generation efficiency, were used; […] (7) It is likely that seismic seiche waves resulting from the 1964 Gulf of Alaska earthquake are nearly the highest that ca n be generated owing to a predominantly continental ray path for seismic surface waves from Alaska to the Gulf Coast; (8) There are no significant earthquake sources within the Gulf of Mexico that are likely to generate tsunamis, despite recent seismic activity in the area."
Geological Survey (U.S.)
ten Brink, Uri; Twichell, David C.; Lynett, Patrick J. . . .
2009?
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LLIS Innovative Practice: Project Safe Haven: Tsunami Vertical Evacuation Systems on Washington State's Pacific Coast
"Washington State's Pacific coast faces the threat of large-scale earthquakes and tsunamis. To mitigate the risk, Washington is providing technical assistance to cities, counties, and tribes for construction of the Nation's first vertical evacuation structures capable of withstanding 9.0+ magnitude earthquakes and 30-foot waves. The project provides residents and visitors in coastal population centers a means of seeking safety without having to travel considerable distance to natural high ground."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency; Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS)
2014-09-30
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Napa County, California, Needs Additional Technical Assistance and Monitoring to Ensure Compliance with Federal Regulations
"On August 24, 2014, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck northern California. FEMA expects eligible damages in Napa County, California (County), from the earthquake and aftershocks to exceed $6 million. We conducted this audit early in the grant process to identify areas where the County may need additional technical assistance or monitoring to ensure compliance with Federal requirements. FEMA should disallow about $1 million in ineligible contract costs and direct California, as the grantee, to provide the County additional technical assistance and monitoring, and review contracts for compliance with Federal requirements."
United States. Department of Homeland Security. Office of Inspector General
2015-08-28
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FEMA Mitigation Best Practices: Public School Retrofit Program Efforts Prompted By Parents and Staff
"It was April 29, 1965, when the last major earthquake struck western Washington State. While aware of the possibility of another event, locals had been lax in their efforts to take action. With population growth over the years, and the building of more schools in the Lake Washington School District, parents and district staff members began vocalizing their concern about the risk of earthquake and what would happen to their children in such an event. In early 1992, local engineers assessed the safety of the school buildings. Since schools did not have a lot of money, local funds would be used, and a plan was developed. The plan would determine the cost to complete structural and non-structural projects for seismic retrofit." This and other individual FEMA Best Practices documents are also combined in 'Mitigation Best Practices: Public and Private Sector Best Practice Stories for All Activity/Project Types in All States and Territories Relating to All Hazards [August 10, 2011],' which can be accessed at the following link: [https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=683132]
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
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LLIS Good Story: The Virginia Task Force 1 Family Support Services Team
"Fairfax County, Virginia, Fire and Rescue Department's urban search and rescue resource, Virginia Task Force 1 (VATF1), developed the Family Support Services Team (FSST). The FSST provides a variety of support services to VATF1 team members and their families before, during, and after deployments. […] VATF1 is a group of about 200 dedicated men and women from multiple emergency disciplines, including firefighters, physicians, engineers, and others, who rapidly deploy around the world to provide search and rescue assistance. VATF1 has been deployed nationally to provide assistance during Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia Recovery Mission, the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. The team has also been deployed internationally by the United States Agency for International Development/Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) to provide search and rescue support. These search and rescue missions include assistance to the 1998 American Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya; major earthquakes in Izmit, Turkey; Duce, Turkey; and Touliu, Taiwan in 1999; and the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran. VATF1 first incorporated the FSST into its deployment protocol just before the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. The Fairfax County, Virginia, fire chief recognized the growing need for a support system for the VATF1 team and its families and incorporated the FSST into the department's general orders and policies. The FSST relieves other department staff from having to care for the families during deployment. The VATF1 relies on the FSST to provide the necessary resources, services, and support to the entire VATF1 family."
Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS)
2004-07-09?
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Exercise LANTEX16 Participant Handbook: A Western Atlantic Tsunami Warning Exercise, March 16, 2016
From "Background": "NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) are providing the framework for the LANTEX16 tsunami exercise, which is being conducted to assist tsunami preparedness efforts throughout the northern Atlantic region. Recent earthquakes and their associated tsunamis, such as those in Samoa-2009, Haiti-2010, Chile-2010, Japan-2011, and Chile-2015, attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response. Similar recent exercises in the Pacific and Caribbean Basins have proven effective in strengthening preparedness levels of emergency management organizations. This exercise will provide simulated tsunami alert messages from the NOAA/NWS [National Weather Service] National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) for the eastern coasts of Canada and the United States. The alert is based on a magnitude 6.8 earthquake located approximately 130 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia and 400 miles east of Boston, Massachusetts at 42.7ºN, 63.2ºW (Figure 1) which triggers a sub-sea landslide. The sub-sea landslide in turn generates a tsunami."
National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (U.S.)
2016-03-16
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MMWR: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, August 6, 2010
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [It] is the agency's primary vehicle for scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. This issue of MMWR contains the following: "Launching a National Surveillance System After an Earthquake -- Haiti, 2010"; "Rapid Establishment of an Internally Displaced Persons Disease Surveillance System After an Earthquake -- Haiti, 2010"; "Any Tobacco Use in 13 States -- Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2008"; "Vital Signs: State-Specific Obesity Prevalence Among Adults -- United States, 2009"; "Errata: Vol. 58, No. SS-10"; and "QuickStats: Death Rates for the Three Leading Causes of Injury Death -- United States, 1979-2007". Notifiable Diseases and Mortality Tables from this issue can be accessed at the following link [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index2010.html]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
2006-01-20
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FEMA Mitigation Best Practices: Redlands Schools Seismic Mitigation
This document is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Best Practices Portfolio. The Best Practices Portfolio is a collection of true stories about people and communities who have experienced disasters, and what mitigation they used to survive, rebuild, and prepare for disasters. From the document: "The Redlands Unified School District has a year-round campus program that results in virtually continuous high occupancy and use of all school facilities. The district has 21 buildings. Of these, 19 are schools and offices, and two are for support services. In July of 1992, two earthquakes struck the area an hour apart, both over 7.0 magnitude on the Richter Scale. Landers was the epicenter for one earthquake while the other was in the Big Bear area. Both were felt at Redlands' schools as well as others in San Bernardino County. Redlands Unified School District facilities sustained damage and items were shaken from shelves, causing life safety hazards. The San Bernardino County Office of Education, working on behalf of both the Redlands and Colton Unified School Districts, applied for a grant through FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). The grant and was awarded, and the school district embarked on a non-structural mitigation program." This and other individual FEMA Best Practices documents are also combined in "Mitigation Best Practices: Public and Private Sector Best Practice Stories for All Activity/Project Types in All States and Territories Relating to All Hazards [August 10, 2011]," which can be accessed at the following link: [https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=683132]
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
2005-01-01
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Foreign Disaster Response: Joint Task Force-Haiti Observations
"The devastation in Haiti caused by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on 12 January 2010 prompted the longest and largest U.S. military effort in a foreign disaster relief operation. The earthquake destroyed vast areas of Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital, as well as a number of communities to the west of the capital, killing an estimated 230,000 persons and leaving thousands trapped in the wreckage and over two million without shelter. At the peak of Operation Unified Response, 1 February 2010, Joint Task Force-Haiti (JTF-H) consisted of over 22,000 service members, 58 aircraft, and 23 ships. With the stand-down of JTF-H on 1 June, Operation Unified Response lasted nearly five months. This article contains our initial observations and recommendations to after action reviews and lessons that our military and interagency community should learn from as we prepare for the next foreign disaster."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Elledge, Matthew G.; Keen, P.K. (Ken); Nolan, Charles W.
2010-11
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Map and Data for Quaternary Faults and Fault Systems on the Island of Hawai'i
"This report and digitally prepared, GIS [Geographic Information Systems]-based map is one of a series of similar products covering individual states or regions of United States that show the locations, ages, and activity rates of major earthquake-related features such as faults and fault-related folds. It is part of a continuing the effort to compile a comprehensive Quaternary fault and fold map and database for the United States, which is supported by the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program. [...] The primary intention of this compilation is to aid in seismic-hazard evaluations. The report contains detailed information on the location and style of faulting, the time of most recent movement, and assigns each feature to a slip-rate category (as a proxy for fault activity). It also contains the name and affiliation of the compiler, date of compilation, geographic and other paleoseismologic parameters, as well as an extensive set of references for each feature. The map (plate 1) shows faults, volcanic rift zones, and lineaments that show evidence of Quaternary surface movement related to faulting, including data on the time of most recent movement, sense of movement, slip rate, and continuity of surface expression."
United States. Department of the Interior; Geological Survey (U.S.)
Cannon, Eric C.; Burgmann, Roland; Crone, Anthony J.
2007-12
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ShakeMap-Based HAZUS-MH Loss Estimation Maps: Intermountain Seismic Belt, Utah
"This FEMA-sponsored project produced a catalog of loss estimation map products based on an earthquake scenario called ShakeMaps using HAZUS-MH, FEMA's risk analysis software. ShakeMaps provide the ground-shaking intensity in an area to facilitate effective emergency response in the event of a catastrophic earthquake. The addition of preliminary loss estimates will allow emergency personnel to respond more appropriately to the areas of immediate need."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
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QuakeSmart Toolkit [website]
"Actionable and scalable guidance and tools to the private sector, its owners, managers, and employees about the importance of earthquake mitigation and the simple things they can do to reduce the potential of earthquake damages, injuries, and financial losses."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
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Averting Surprises in the Pacific Northwest
"Scientists recently discovered strong evidence that great earthquakes (magnitude 8 to 9) have repeatedly struck the Pacific Northwest in the past several thousand years, most recently about 300 years ago. This discovery has spurred the reinforcement of existing structures and changes in building codes in the region--measures that will save lives and reduce damage in future earthquakes."
Geological Survey (U.S.)
1995
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Pay a Little Now, or a Lot Later
This fact sheet addresses the potential threat of an earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. "Odds are 2-in-3 that at least one disastrous earthquake will strike the San Francisco Bay Area before 2020. Faced with this threat, corporations and government agencies have stepped up efforts that will reduce future losses by billions of dollars."
Geological Survey (U.S.)
Bakun, W. H. (William H.)
1995
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PNSN-Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network
This fact sheet describes the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network. "The Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network (PNSN), an integral part of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), locates earthquakes in Washington and Oregon and communicates earthquake information to the public."
United States. Department of the Interior; Geological Survey (U.S.)
2004-08
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GIS-based Vulnerability Assessment of Pacific Northwest Ports and Harbors to Tsunami Hazards
"Recent research suggests the Pacific Northwest could experience catastrophic earthquake and tsunami events in the near future, both from distant and local sources, posing a significant threat to coastal communities. Typically built on fill and located in low-lying areas prone to inundation, ports and harbors are especially vulnerable to these hazards. A collaborative, multi-year initiative is presently underway to increase the resiliency of Pacific Northwest ports and harbors to earthquake and tsunami hazards, involving Oregon Extension Sea Grant, Washington Sea Grant, the NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] Coastal Services Center, and the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey] Center for Science Policy. As part of this initiative, a Geographic Information System (GIS) assessment model has been created, including 3-D system visualization, hazard scenario simulations, and resource vulnerability analyses. This vulnerability model will be reviewed, using the ports and harbors of Yaquina Bay, Oregon, as a case study. Analyses suggest that while t he port and harbor area of Yaquina Bay will be greatly impacted by an event, it may need to be the primary site for community-wide relief and recovery operations. The model and subsequent analyses facilitate the development of site-specific strategies that protect port and harbor resources and provide a foundation for post event planning."
United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Stein, David; Wood, Nathan (Nathan J.)
2001-08-07
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Measured Maritime Responses to Disaster Relief Scenarios in the Pacific
From the thesis abstract: "This paper attempts to determine whether the United States has appropriately scaled its maritime response to humanitarian disasters within the Pacific Region. The presence of excess capacity presents a number of difficulties and may indicate a failure to properly anticipate the operational environment due to the distinctive humanitarian nature of disaster assistance operations. By examining the maritime responses to the 2011 Great Japan Earthquake and tsunami, as well as the 2004 Aceh Earthquake and tsunami, I will look for consistencies in response and possible instances of excessive force laydowns in light of each respective disaster scenario. I believe this paper will indicate instances within which U.S. maritime assets do not undertake the role as primary agent in delivering aid and therefore fill operational space with capability that is either excessive or ill suited to the host nation."
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Ray, Richard S.
2012-12
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Other Business Tools
"The following document provides a list of tools to help businesses plan, prepare, and mitigate the effects of earthquakes. Each section includes a short description of the organization that created it as well as a link that will take you to the respective page of each resource. Some of the materials listed are not specifically for businesses, but could still be found useful by the private sector in that they promote earthquake preparedness and mitigation in homes and therefore increase a community's disaster resilience and ability to recover quickly after a disaster. The quicker the recovery period within a community, the faster businesses will be fully functional and operating. This list is not intended to be all inclusive, rather a collection of the tools created by FEMA and its partners."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
2013-02
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Seismic Waves: Map Your Neighborhood
Seismic Waves is a newsletter published by the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. "The Northridge earthquake shook the greater Los Angeles area at 4:30 a.m. on January 17, 1994. At the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, the first floor of a building collapsed, killing 16 occupants and trapping others. Neighborhood volunteers began search and rescue efforts, and 'by the time fire and rescue teams arrived, as many as 180 occupants had already gotten out of the building on their own or with the aid of their neighbors.' Such reports of spontaneous altruism and self-help are common following disasters. Generally, it seems, people want to help their neighbors in these situations. How well they can and do help varies, however. Common sense suggests that persons who have prepared in advance for disasters are more likely to know what needs to be done and how to do it--and to do it in a timely manner--than are those caught unprepared. This is the rationale behind the award-winning Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) program implemented by the State of Washington's Emergency Management Division (EMD)."
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (U.S.)
2008-05
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Seismic Waves: Unearthing the Secrets of the San Andreas: A NEHRP-Related Success Story
Seismic Waves is a newsletter published by the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). "Thoughts of standing atop an active fault can conjure primal fears and imaginings--of, for example, the ground falling open like a trapdoor and dropping like a rock into the deep, dark recesses of the earth. For centuries, native peoples living near present-day Seattle appear to have associated local faults with equally alarming imagery, passing down cautionary tales about a huge and dangerous serpent, a'yahos, that could arise in certain locations to shake the earth and cause landslides. Although scientists who study earthquakes now know that such images are inaccurate, faults have remained largely mysterious and unreachable. That is beginning to change, however, thanks to a scientific investigation under way on California's infamous San Andreas Fault. And in an eerie coincidence, a greenish mineral called serpentine (a name derived from the Latin word 'serpentinus', which means 'resembling a serpent') is figuring prominently in this project."
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (U.S.)
2007-12
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Seismic Waves: Bridging Boundaries to Reduce Risk
Seismic Waves is a newsletter published by the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program [NEHRP]. "Earthquake risk reduction efforts are, metaphorically, all about bridge building and boundary breaking. NEHRP operates not only across multiple agencies, but also across multiple environments (natural, built, social), disciplines (earth sciences, engineering, social sciences), and interests (e.g., research, policy making, hazard mitigation, disaster response). The bridge that is the most fundamental to NEHRP is that between research and practice, mediated by public- and private-sector policy making. The Natural Hazards Center (NHC), located at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has for many years played a unique and critically important role in strengthening and sustaining this bridge for NEHRP."
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (U.S.)
2013-06
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Seismic Waves: ROVER: New End-to-End Software for Managing Seismic Risk
Seismic Waves is a newsletter published by the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program [NEHRP]. "The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has teamed with the Applied Technology Council (ATC) and private-sector partners to create a new tool to screen and evaluate buildings for seismic risk. Now available online and on CD-ROM, the Rapid Observation of Vulnerability and Estimation of Risk (ROVER) software automates two international standard paper-based methodologies: FEMA P-154, 'Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) of Buildings for Potential Seismic Hazards, and ATC-20, Post-earthquake Safety Evaluation of Buildings.'"
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (U.S.)
2011-09
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Documentation for the 2014 Update of the United States National Seismic Hazard Maps
"The national seismic hazard maps for the conterminous United States have been updated to account for new methods, models, and data that have been obtained since the 2008 maps were released (Petersen and others, 2008). The input models are improved from those implemented in 2008 by using new ground motion models that have incorporated about twice as many earthquake strong ground shaking data and by incorporating many additional scientific studies that indicate broader ranges of earthquake source and ground motion models. These time-independent maps are shown for 2-percent and 10-percent probability of exceedance in 50 years for peak horizontal ground acceleration as well as 5-hertz and 1-hertz spectral accelerations with 5-percent damping on a uniform firm rock site condition (760 meters per second shear wave velocity in the upper 30 m, VS30). In this report, the 2014 updated maps are compared with the 2008 version of the maps and indicate changes of plus or minus 20 percent over wide areas, with larger changes locally, caused by the modifications to the seismic source and ground motion inputs."
Geological Survey (U.S.)
Petersen, Mark D.; Moschetti, Morgan P.; Powers, Peter M.
2014
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Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst-Geographic Information Systems Software for Modeling Hazard Evacuation Potential
"This paper provides installation instructions for the Pedestrian Evacuation Analyst into Esri's ArcGIS desktop Advanced (ArcInfo) version and describes the steps to run the software and produce evacuation-time maps and population counts. Example maps shown in various figures throughout this report are based on pedestrian-evacuation analyses related to the local tsunami threat in the U.S. Pacific Northwest associated with a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake (Wood and Schmidtlein 2013). Tsunami-wave arrival time in south¬west Washington is estimated to be 20--30 minutes after initial ground shaking from the earthquake (Walsh and others, 2000)."
Geological Survey (U.S.); United States. Department of the Interior
Jones, Jean M.; Ng, Peter
2014
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Department of Defense Support to a Catastrophic Event
This report discusses coordinating national response efforts in the occurrence of a catastrophic natural disaster. Depending on the magnitude of the disaster civil responders may not be sufficient, and the President would have to deploy military units. The report highlights the creation of "Joint Task Force Complex Catastrophe" to coordinate response efforts between civil authorities and deployed military forces should the scenario occur. From the Document: "The worst case scenario is an earthquake registering 8.5 or higher on the Richter scale. An earthquake of that magnitude would ravage most of the western coastline and inland states and will be recorded as the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States (U.S.). […] Emergency responders will encounter significant challenges with the lack of access to specific areas because of ruptured gas and pipelines, devastating fires, inoperable medical facilities, impassable bridges, highways and railroads and substantial damage to port facilities and airport runways. First line responders could be slow to respond and have limited or no access to communities that depend on highways for access. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that the initial responders would encounter an estimated 570 burning fires, 1.8 million homes without potable water and electricity and over 600,000 people are believed to be left homeless. […]The Department of Defense recognizes a gap within DOD response to civil authorities for an unprecedented natural disaster and is addressing this problem by creating the new terminology and assessing DOD policies, capabilities and resources to assist in response to a complex catastrophe."
Army War College (U.S.)
Smith, Spencer L.
2013-03
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National Level Exercise 2011- Federal Partner Participation
"National Level Exercise 2011 is a Tier 1 exercise that is White House directed, policy focused, and employs a U.S. government wide-strategy. Tier 1 exercises are mandated by Congress and coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The functional exercise component of National Level Exercise 2011 began with a simulated earthquake along the New Madrid fault line. It included participants from various federal, state, and local agencies, as well as private sector and nonprofit organizations. The exercise lasted 4 days and included more than 4,000 federal employees from 43 departments and agencies. Exercises play a critical role in preparing our Nation for future disasters. National Level Exercise 2011 consisted of a 2-year planning, execution, and evaluation cycle that included various smaller discussion- and operations-based exercises leading up to the May 16--19, 2011, functional exercises. The exercise had eight objectives developed by state and federal partners, seven of which were realized during the functional exercise; the final one was completed during a recovery exercise in September 2011. The exercise identified issues that hamper our Nation's ability to respond to a catastrophic earthquake. To expedite improvements in disaster response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency compiled an initial findings report from the exercise reviews, identifying issues federal agencies need to address. Additionally, two federal agencies that were expected to participate in the functional exercise did not take part. This report provides information on federal participation in National Level Exercise 2011 to encourage federal Inspectors General to assess their own agency's preparedness for disaster response. This report is not an evaluation of National Level Exercise 2011. In addition to this report, we will be releasing a review of National Level Exercise 2011 and the incorporation of lessons learned from previous exercises and disasters."
United States. Department of Homeland Security. Office of Inspector General
2011-11
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Social Network Collaboration for Crisis Response Operations: Developing a Situational Awareness (SA) Tool to Improve Haiti's Interagency Relief Efforts
"The earthquake in Haiti represents an event of catastrophic scale. Relief efforts were thwarted by blocked roads and ruined runways. Relief organizations assisted in the effort using adhoc approaches but could have benefitted from improved Situational Awareness (SA). This thesis develops a new model and methodology, based on data collected following the Haiti earthquake that combines both text-mining methods with 3D graphics. This interpretive approach provides a qualitative improvement on the currently available graphic depictions of such data. Text mining is performed using Lexical Link Analysis (LLA), which tracks and links word pairs, and then visually depicts correlations between discovered words, themes, and entities, thus revealing how they are related to each other in terms of both relationship and content. Our findings reveal discovered patterns of self-organization within this crisis situation, and can demonstrate a dynamic, situational awareness tool that can be executed by a thin client to analyze and determine social-organization collaboration and self-organization for leaders to leverage. This effort can eventually help to create a real-time feedback loop to inform decision maker's organizational awareness, improve organization-to-organization collaboration, and perhaps better allocate resources to areas requiring relief operations."
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Reid, Elaine D.
2011-06
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FEMA Mitigation Best Practices: Water Storage Tank Seismic Retrofit
"This document is part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Best Practices Portfolio. The Best Practices Portfolio is a collection of true stories about people and communities who have experienced disasters, and what mitigation they used to survive, rebuild, and prepare for disasters." From the document: "Mercer Island in Lake Washington is a busy community with a population of 22,000 and high median income. Located east of Seattle, it is accessed only by the Interstate 90 floating bridge. The islanders are totally dependant on two aboveground steel water reservoirs, four million gallon capacity each, as their main water source. This water supply is also essential for fire fighting. The City of Mercer Island recognized that there was a potential life safety problem due to the fact that the island is in an earthquake hazard area. Should the tanks fail due to an earthquake, 12 homes, schools, a church and several public buildings situated downstream would be inundated. The Island would lose the primary water supply and the water flow would cover I----90, the main transportation corridor. The City of Mercer Island applied for and was granted funding through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) for seismic restraints and structural improvements of the reservoirs and pump station." This and other individual FEMA Best Practices documents are also combined in "Mitigation Best Practices: Public and Private Sector Best Practice Stories for All Activity/Project Types in All States and Territories Relating to All Hazards [August 10, 2011]," which can be accessed at the following link: [https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=683132]
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
2005-01-01
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Natural Hazard Assessments Could be More Risk-Informed, Report to Congressional Requesters
"On March 11, 2011, an earthquake triggered a tsunami wave that exceeded the seawall at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to the release of radioactive material into the environment. The disaster raised questions about the threats that natural hazards, such as earthquakes and floods, may pose to U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors. NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] licenses and regulates U.S. nuclear power reactors. NRC criteria for licensees to assess natural hazards were developed using an approach that required reactors to be designed according to a set of potential accidents using deterministic analysis. Since the 1990s, NRC has been encouraging the use of PRA [Probabilistic Risk Assessment] as part of a risk-informed, performance-based approach. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked to (1) determine the extent to which PRA is applied to natural hazards at operating U.S. reactors and (2) describe expert views on and suggested changes, if any, to NRC processes for assessing natural hazards at such reactors. GAO reviewed documents; analyzed responses from 15 experts in assessing nuclear reactor risks and/or natural hazards; visited five selected nuclear power plants; and interviewed NRC officials and industry and public interest group representatives. […] GAO recommends that NRC analyze whether licensees of operating reactors should be required to develop PRAs that address natural hazards. NRC agreed with the recommendation and stated it will conduct the analysis in the context of ongoing initiatives."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2012-04
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Seismic Waves: From Prescriptive to Predictive
Seismic Waves is a newsletter published by the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. The topic in this edition of Seismic Waves is moving from prescriptive to predictive building codes. "Prescriptive building codes and standards, which specify types of materials that must be used and how they must be designed and constructed, govern the design of most new buildings in the United States. Buildings designed in accordance with such regulations provide 'life safety' for their occupants. This means that occupants will normally be able to exit these buildings safely after earthquakes as powerful as those planned for in their designs. However, costly damage may still occur. Direct costs can accrue through needed repairs or, worse, demolition and replacement. Moreover, the buildings may not be able to accommodate their former occupants and functions for some time. These effects can greatly impact the resilience of a community, that is, its ability to 'bounce back' to prior levels of economic and social activity."
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (U.S.)
2011-03
