Florida's emergency relief operations were significantly affected by recent hurricanes such as Hermine and Irma that caused massive roadway and power system distributions. During these recent devastating hurricanes, the problems associated with providing accessibility and safety became even more challenging, especially for those vulnerable communities and disadvantaged segments of the society, such as aging populations were considered - that is, those who need and benefit from the emergency services the most. This complexity is magnified in states like Florida, considering the diverse physical, cognitive, economic and demographic variation of its population. As such, with a major focus on real-life data on roadway closures and power outages for the Hurricane Hermine, combined resilience (co-resilience) of emergency response facilities in the City of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, was extensively studied based on the (a) temporal reconstruction of the reported power outages and roadway closures, and (b) development of co-resilience metrics to identify and visually map the most affected power system feeders and transportation network locations. Results show those regions with reduced emergency response facility accessibility, and those power lines and roadways under a disruption risk after Hermine hit Tallahassee.
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Statistical and Spatial Analysis of Hurricane-induced Roadway Closures and Power Outages
Hurricanes lead to substantial infrastructure system damages, such as roadway closures and power outages, in the US annually, especially in states like Florida. As such, this paper aimed to assess the impacts of Hurricane Hermine (2016) and Hurricane Michael (2018) on the City of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, via exploratory spatial and statistical analyses on power outages and roadway closures. First, a geographical information systems (GIS)-based spatial analysis was conducted to explore the power outages and roadway closure patterns in the city including kernel density estimation (KDE) and density ratio difference (DRD) methods. In order to provide a more detailed assessment on which population segments were more affected, a second step included a statistical analysis to identify the relationships between demographic- and socioeconomic-related variables and the magnitude of power outages and roadway closures caused by these hurricanes. The results indicate that the high-risk locations for roadway closures showed different patterns, whereas power outages seemed to have similar spatial patterns for the hurricanes. The findings of this study can provide useful insights and information for city officials to identify the most vulnerable regions which are under the risk of disruption. This can lead to better infrastructure plans and policies.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1832068
- PAR ID:
- 10188009
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Energies
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1996-1073
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1098
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/en13051098
