Author: Dr. Lloyd Blanchard, Director of Public Performance Management, IEM
We are now five days past Hurricane Irene sweeping up the east coast, and a number of communities remain flooded. This extended flooding will certainly add to the economic damages projected earlier. Based on data from the National Weather Service, we show those communities that remain flooded below as of 11am today (September 2, 2011). The water level above flood stage represents the depth of the flooding.
On Saturday, August 27, 2011, Hurricane Irene struck the eastern seaboard of the United States, starting as a Category 3 hurricane (with winds up to 130 miles per hour), but remained a Category 1 hurricane (with winds up to 95 mph) for much of its northward path, and Sunday morning was downgraded to a tropical storm.
IEM estimates a total economic impact of between $2.2 billion and $2.6 billion, distributed according to table below. These estimates account for expected damage associated with storm winds, storm surge and flooding, and represent the expected replacement and repair costs of damaged property and normal business interruption losses (e.g., they do not include potential losses associated with closing stock markets). Though this storm will touch over 28 million people, we estimate a relatively small amount of sheltering requirements. The strength of the winds will not likely cause as much damage as the resulting flooding, and this will depend on many factors (e.g. coastal development, soil saturation, flood control capacity, length and depth of rivers and tributaries).
Economic Loss Estimates
* Major cities are separate from counties, except New York City which has a number of counties.
Below are maps showing the top wind speeds in the counties affected by Irene. As we compile the data, we will show flooding in a similar manner. Stay tuned!
Click map to enlarge. Divisions in map represent designated census tract areas on August 26, 2011
Click map to enlarge. Divisions in map represent designated census tract areas on August 26, 2011
Click map to enlarge. Divisions in map represent designated census tract areas on August 26, 2011
For additional information, please contact Dr. Lloyd Blanchard at 703-414-8141, or at lloyd.blanchard@iem.com.
Author: Ryan Langlois, Statistician, IEM
Disaster preparedness is complicated. In the face of limited budgets, it becomes even more complicated. With lives and critical infrastructure at risk, deciding how best to use limited resources to improve protection and response can be a daunting task for public officials. How can emergency managers determine where their funding and other resources are best spent? I’ve seen this question posed in a several places recently, given the string of major disasters we’ve seen in the last decade, especially this year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Technology is one solution. Through continuing advancements in the information technology sector combined with emergency management expertise and proven analytical practices, theoretical simulations can now be used by emergency managers to analyze all possible and credible strategies in preparing for all types of disasters. Simulations can model any particular hazard in millions of different situations, factoring in existing and proposed response strategies and human behavior to predict how existing response systems will perform and how effective proposed strategies will be. For example, Japan could have used a simulation to determine optimum evacuation routes and procedures based on local populations, road infrastructure, and community demographics. States and cities can use simulations to determine whether building new roads would help with evacuation. While these answers may seem obvious, the results can be counter-intuitive.
However, simulations are only as good as the supporting data and processes behind them. Effective decision making at any stage of an emergency – from prediction to response and recovery – relies on a considerable amount of data and information. Simulations today can account for all types of data related to an emergency, from hazard data to information on human behavior such as how people will behave in response to emergency warnings, evacuation orders, and more. Accounting for how humans will behave in an emergency is critical to understanding the real effectiveness of any proposed solution. The simulations must also be configured to include specific local information such as available warning systems, evacuation routes, and warning diffusion and population mobilization times, just to name a few of the required inputs.
By creating disaster and response simulations, officials can objectively weigh the values of different protective action strategies in response to a hazard. For instance, would it be better to shelter in place or evacuate in the face of a chemical or nuclear emergency? What evacuation routes are most effective in specific situations? Would placing more sirens in communities speed response? These questions can be answered by effective disaster simulations.
With a strong simulation tool, cost/benefit analyses for disaster preparedness can be conducted relatively quickly. The results can objectively identify which strategies have the greatest effect on improving protection, pointing officials to the areas where limited funding should be spent. Having an objective, scientific analysis to back the decision also helps in communicating the decisions to the public.
See how IEM is applying simulation to improve emergency management: http://www.iem.com/case-studies/quantitative-emergency-management
Attached is Part II of a video interview with IEM’s Dr. Sid Baccam, primary author of “Mass Prophylaxis Dispensing Concerns: Traffic and Public Access to PODs” which was published in the June issue of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism. To see the first part of the interview, see Bioterrorism planning study, part 1
To read the full paper, Mass Prophylaxis Dispensing Concerns: Traffic and Public Access to PODs. See more information on IEM’s capabilities and expertise in healthcare emergency preparedness.
By Eston D. Spain, associate emergency planner, IEM
Natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami that damaged the Fukushima Daichii nuclear-power plant, flooding at the Fort Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Stations in Nebraska, and the Las Conchas wildfire outside of the Los Alamos National Laboratory remind us of the importance of emergency planning.
The wildfire outside of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) poses a threat, but state and local emergency response officials with years of wildfire experience and proven fire mitigation methods are on top of the situation. According to the InciWeb incident information system, firefighters began setting “back burns” on the west side of New Mexico State Route 501 as the fire was approaching the western boundary of LANL on Wednesday morning, June 29th. Those operations were declared complete by evening. The back burns were intended to remove available fuel from the Las Conchas Fire, which has consumed more than 60,000 acres on two sides of the 37-square-mile LANL site but scorched only one acre of Lab property itself.
Located in northern New Mexico about 35 miles (40 minutes drive) northwest of Santa Fe, the Laboratory has more than 1,800 buildings spread across 36 square miles; the facilities support research in some 50 different disciplines. According to Manny L’Esperance, Fire Safety Officer at LANL, “Los Alamos [is] landlocked atop mesas and surrounded by thousands of acres of forest—much of it dry and brittle—[it] is prime fire hazard territory.“
Wildfires are nothing new to LANL. Fire threats over the past 60 years include the 43,000-acre Cerro Grande fire that entered the town site and destroyed more than 400 homes in May 2000. Other significant fires occurred in 1996, 1977, and 1954. As a result of these threats, the Los Alamos County Long-Term Recovery, Redevelopment, and Hazard Mitigation Plan was developed in 2001. This document identified a fuels modification program for unburned county lands as the highest priority item. Following the plan’s recommendations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided a grant to Los Alamos County for the establishment of a fuel mitigation project. The FEMA grant enabled the County to immediately begin fuel reduction, treating a larger land area at a faster pace than it could have otherwise. This sort of awareness is critical in emergency preparedness planning. The County of Los Alamos and the LANL recognized that wildfire is always a threat. Through modeling and research, and by trial and error, the Los Alamos area is better prepared for their most likely hazard – wildfires. (more…)
Author: Dr. Sid Baccam, Senior Scientist – Computational Epidemiologist, IEM
IEM scientists, led by Computational Epidemiologist Dr. Sid Baccam, published a paper in the June issue of the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism entitled “Mass Prophylaxis Dispensing Concerns: Traffic and Public Access to PODs.” Points of Dispensing, or PODs, are used by emergency responders to quickly dispense post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to the public following a bioterrorism event. Any failure in PEP dispensing could have serious public health consequences, which is why IEM has focused study efforts on issues related to POD access. The project described in the paper was partially funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a larger study on PEP dispensing logistics and medical consequences.
Below is a video interview with the lead author of the paper, Dr. Sid Baccam.
Report from the Field: Maxwell AFB, ISB, Alabama Tornado Disaster, DR – 1971
Author: Eston Spain, Emergency Planning Associate, IEM
Figure 1 Before the media event, Kye took time to pose for a few candid pictures with me in front of some of the goods donated by the people of Japan.
After the recent tornado disaster in Alabama, IEM supported federal disaster logistics operations as a member of the disaster response teams stationed at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, AL, ISB (Incident Support Base). The process during this mission involved tracking over 500, 53 foot semi-trailer loads of relief goods, such as water, MREs, ice, and tarps. As part of the mission, at a local trucking facility near Maxwell AFB emergency relief supplies to support the response efforts were cross-docked from private carriers to DHS/FEMA trailers. Two of the private carrier trailers loaded with emergency relief supplies from Japan were backed into the dock and being unloaded. A representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Mr. Keiichiro Nakazawa, Chief Representative for the Washington, DC based agency was on hand to oversee the transfer of donated goods from the people of Japan to the people of Alabama who had suffered from devastating tornadoes on April 27th. Kye, as he prefers to go by, said, “Japan was grateful for the outpouring of relief efforts and compassion shown by the United States,” referring to their recent earthquake and tsunami disasters and the subsequent radiation release. We discussed how the relief efforts demonstrated by both nations are seen as positive goodwill gestures, and how that in times such as these, despite our cultural and geographic differences, we are all we are all human beings who may need help from their neighbors and friends from time to time. Mr. Nakazwa arrived ahead of another member of the Japanese delegation, Mr. Takuji Hanatani, Consul General of Japan in Atlanta, GA, who was there to officially present the donations to the State of Alabama. (more…)
Author: Eston Spain, Emergency Planning Associate, IEM
The following photos were taken during a recent deployment to Mississippi. IEM team members ventured into the storm damaged areas and often meeting with the people who were directly affected by the twisters. The pictures below capture some of the tornado’s fury and devastating power in what the storms of late April brought to Mississippi and left in their wake.
One of the first things we noticed as we entered the storm ravaged counties was the trees. At first the drive seemed scenic and relaxing as we headed south on the Natchez Trace Parkway…
Natchez Trace in Choctaw County, missed by the recent tornadoes.
Tornadoes had crossed this part of the Natchez Trace Parkway. The forests along the parkway were virtually obliterated by the force of the winds and flying debris.
Author: Phillip Doiron, Homeland Security Specialist, IEM
In this blog post, I wanted to express some thoughts on the flood that is presently moving south along the Mississippi River. I grew up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where some of the worst flooding has been observed, and my father was a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Vicksburg District. I retired from the USACE Research Center in Vicksburg.
Water flows through four open gates of the Morganza spillway into the Atchafalaya River basin in this May 15, 2011 photo. (The Lafayette Daily Advertiser/P.C. Piazza/AP Photo)
One thing that is very obvious when looking at the current situation is that the flood control system that was designed and built following the Great Flood of 1927 is working as intended. In addition to the levees that the USACE built, floodways and spillways were also constructed and have been integral to the successful operation of the flood control system.
The levees have been built along the Mississippi to protect as much rural area and as many cities as possible. The levees are not small structures. In some places, they measure 120 feet across at the base and 30 to 40 feet high. Once the USACE builds the levees, the maintenance of the levees is turned over to local levee boards. Most of these levee boards take this responsibility seriously and are very active in maintenance programs. However, when a flood occurs, there might be problem areas along the levee system. After each flood, problem areas are identified, and the USACE comes in to correct them. For example, the height of the levee may be raised following a flood. I know this occurred in several places after the 1973 flood. There will be remedial actions following this flood as well. (more…)
Author: Dr. Lloyd Blanchard, Director of Public Performance Management, IEM
By now, many Americans are aware of the major flooding of the Mississippi River. The river’s water level is reaching record heights not seen since the 1920s and 30s. How bad is it? This blog post tries to answer this question for the lay reader. In short, it’s very bad.
The news to date has been dominated by the flooding in Memphis, TN, where the nation’s largest river crested at nearly 48 feet on Tuesday, May 10. What does this mean? The level at which the river begins to flow over its bank, but not flood any buildings, is 28 feet. This is called the “action” stage by flood experts. The “flood” stage is the level above which life and property are threatened. At Memphis, the river’s flood stage is 34 feet. We are well beyond this. Damages will be severe. (more…)
