Author: Justin Krometis, Transportation Analyst, IEM
This is a very good, easy-to-understand discussion of how much radiation we are typically exposed to and what the regulatory limits are, to help put into context the radiation levels being reported in Japan and even now in the US.
Author: Justin Krometis, Transportation Analyst, IEM
I have participated in over a dozen evacuation studies over the last several years, many of them focused on nuclear plants, so I have been closely following the protective actions being taken around the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan. I wanted an easy way to look at the towns affected and the road network therein but I had not yet seen an interactive map that showed the locations of the plants and the areas covered by the evacuation and shelter orders. So I used the Google Maps API to create one.
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Author: Justin Krometis, Transportation Analyst, IEM
Highway systems are always vulnerable to large disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Resulting consequences include bridge damage, roadway structure failure, and landslides.
At 08:07 a.m. local time on December 26, 2004, a large-scale earthquake with magnitude 9.0 occurred at the western coast of Northern Sumatra Island, Indonesia. The earthquake generated a tsunami with wave height exceeding 20 m. According to a damage investigation in the city of Banda Aceh on the North Sumatra Island of Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, researchers concluded that the primary damage to the highway bridges included the washout of bridge superstructures by tsunami waves. Because of the tsunami, 56.6 km of the 250 km seaside road outside Banda Aceh became impassable and 126.7 km was seriously damaged. Eighty-one out of 186 bridges (43.5 percent) along the roads were washed out or heavily damaged. (more…)
