Search for: All records

We develop a methodology for modeling post-earthquake hospital needs and accessibility, coupling a probabilistic regional casualty risk model with a novel agent-based human behavior model. We use it to study hospital transportation in two socio-economically distinct districts of Lima, Peru, after a hypothetical moment magnitude 8.0 event. Our work provides insights into the infrastructure and socio-economic vulnerability factors that determine timely healthcare access, across various hypothetical behavioral and policy contexts/scenarios. In the baseline scenario that assumes households respond to the emergency independently (i.e. transport only their own members to hospital) but there is coordination among hospitals (i.e. ambulance sharing), car ownership is key for rapid healthcare access. Twenty-four percent of non-life-threatening casualties in the district with 57% car ownership will arrive at hospital in the first 45 min; only 6% of such patients in the more economically deprived district (18% car ownership) will reach hospital in that time. If car-owning neighbors help transporting patients without cars, over 96% of non-life-threatening casualties will reach hospital in the first 45 min in both districts, significantly reducing intra-regional disparities in healthcare access. Arrival times would nearly halve compared to the baseline scenario if the number of available ambulances doubled. If hospitals do not share ambulances, arrival times of non-life-threatening and threatening casualties show a notable reduction in one district (by 56% and 42%, respectively) but a significant increase in the other, more economically deprived district (by 109% and 97%, respectively), compared to the baseline case. The arrival times presented in this study are specific to the studied context, and the appropriate assumptions made. We benchmark the performance of the methodology using patient arrival times from the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake, yielding an acceptable outcome (i.e. similar temporal trends in the proportion of hospital arrivals). The findings can be leveraged for planning effective post-earthquake emergency response strategies. 

Eighteen years after Hurricane Charley made landfall in 2004, Hurricane Ian made landfall in nearly the same location, also as a Category 4 hurricane. Unlike Hurricane Charley (2004), water more so than wind was the impetus behind the disaster that unfolded. Despite being a below-design-level wind event, the large windfield drove a powerful storm surge as much as 13 ft high (relative to the NAVD8 vertical datum) in the barrier islands of Sanibel, Ft. Myers Beach, and Bonita Beach. Flooding was extensive along not only the Florida coast, but also well inland into low-lying areas as far north as Duval County and the storm’s second landfall site in South Carolina. As such, Hurricane Ian will likely be one of the costliest landfalling hurricanes of all time in the US, claiming over 100 lives. The impacts from Hurricane Ian were most severe in the barrier islands from the combination of storm surge and high winds, with many buildings completely washed away, and others left to deal with significant scour and eroded foundations. Several mobile/manufactured home parks on the barrier islands fared particularly poorly, offering little to no protection to anyone unfortunate enough to shelter in them. The damage was not restricted to buildings, as the causeways out to the barrier islands were washed away in multiple locations. In contrast, wind damage from Hurricane Ian appears less severe overall relative to other Category 4 storms, perhaps due to a combination of actual wind intensity being less than Category 4 at the surface at landfall, and the improvements in building construction that have occurred since Hurricane Charley struck 18 years earlier. It is notable that extensive losses were in part driven by decades-long construction boom of residential structures in Ft. Myers and Cape Coral since the 1950s and 1960s, expanding communities and neighborhoods encroaching upon vulnerable coastlines. Beyond serving as an important event to validate current and evolving standards for coastal construction, Hurricane Ian provides a clarion call to reconsider the ramifications of Florida's coastal development under changing climate. This project encompasses the products of StEER's response to this event: Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR), Early Access Reconnaissance Report (EARR) and Curated Dataset.