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Disaster recovery is considered one of the less-understood phases of the disaster cycle. In particular, the literature on lifeline infrastructure restoration modeling frequently mentions th...

The goal of this paper is to facilitate a community of practice for disaster recovery modeling. This community should include hazard and disaster researchers without modeling experience and...

In August 2012, Hurricane Isaac made landfall twice in Louisiana. Cumulatively, over 1 million customers lost electricity as a result of the hurricane, some for more than 10 days. As a disaster, Hurricane Isaac is relatively unique because of the opportunity to largely isolate impacts and decisions directly associated with the electricity outage and restoration from cascading impacts related to direct flood or wind damage. Louisiana emergency managers, business representatives, and public officials were interviewed to develop and analyze a case study of the outage and restoration event. Interviewees were asked about (1) the significant impacts from the outage, (2) what (if any) lasting effects would result from the outage, (3) the relative performance of power restoration, (4) the effectiveness of communication between stakeholders, and (5) factors influencing the public and political perception of restoration performance. Other collected data included content from news media, government documents...

This paper provides a review of regional-scale modeling of earthquake-induced landslide hazard with respect to the needs for disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. Based on this review, it sets out important research themes and suggests computing with words (CW), a methodology that includes fuzzy logic systems, as a fruitful modeling methodology for addressing many of these research themes. A range of research, reviewed here, has been conducted applying CW to various aspects of earthquake-induced landslide hazard zonation, but none facilitate comprehensive modeling of all types of earthquake-induced landslides. A new comprehensive areal model of earthquake-induced landslides (CAMEL) is introduced here that was developed using fuzzy logic systems. CAMEL provides an integrated framework for modeling all types of earthquake-induced landslides using geographic information systems. CAMEL is designed to facilitate quantitative and qualitative representation of terrain conditions and knowledge about these conditions on the likely areal concentration of each landslide type. CAMEL is highly modifiable and adaptable; new knowledge can be easily added, while existing knowledge can be changed to better match local knowledge and conditions. As such, CAMEL should not be viewed as a complete alternative to other earthquake-induced landslide models. CAMEL provides an open framework for incorporating other models, such as Newmark's displacement method, together with previously incompatible empirical and local knowledge.

This case study discusses post-event reconnaissance research of the September 8, 2011, power outage that left San Diego County, California, without electricity for up to 12 h. The objective of this case study is to synthesize and analyze the impacts of the outage and responses to the event. Understanding the outage’s impacts and responses helps to reveal restoration practices and contexts that promote meeting both technical and nontechnical goals. This study reveals several issues related to restoration decision-making and communication related to critical customers, particularly those responsible for health care, wastewater and potable water management, fuel provision, and food service. Restoration did not occur and was not communicated in such a way to avoid impacts to dependent critical infrastructure, reflect state restoration criteria, or meet expectations of a variety of power customers. Insight from this case study suggests three themes to guide research and development of best practices fo...

A tool that has proliferated within civil engineering in recent years is geographic information systems (GIS). The goal of a tool is to supplement ability and knowledge that already exists, not to ...