Preliminary Anticipatory Recovery Impact Assessments

During natural disasters emergency managers and local officials are required to make life and death decisions based on information that is often inconsistent, anecdotal, and haphazardly collected. Normally, post-disaster impact assessments take time to accumulate actionable, location-centric data to help decision makers better allocate scarce resources. To shorten this timeframe, we applied a geodesign framework to evaluate the location and magnitude of impact to public health infrastructure before, during, and after hurricanes. We called this framework, Preliminary Anticipatory Recovery Impact Assessments. Most post-disaster impact assessments depend on windshield surveys or examinations of post-incident remote sensing imagery. While effective, these methods are not applicable to every community sector. We established a method to evaluate the known hazard values (e.g. observed rainfall, storm surge models, measurable wind speeds, etc.) to evaluate potential consequence to public health infrastructure. Prior to our work, we were not aware of a framework for evaluating preliminary impact on public health infrastructure based on real-world outcomes. By leveraging the power of ArcGIS Pro with the Spatial Analyst Extension, we used a reclassification and weighted overlay methodology using storm forecast data at the outset. The analysis was updated periodically with observational data and once more after the weather exited the region using official government observed data. We applied our framework to three major hurricanes in 2018: Hurricane Lane (Hawaii), Hurricane Florence (Carolinas), and Hurricane Michael (Florida). Geography was influential in Hawaii and the Carolinas but less so in Florida. Hurricanes Lane and Florence dropped more than 20 inches of rain, but flooding was more widespread in the Carolinas. The results informed the advanced placement of emergency response services, re-allocated resources to threatened facilities, supported patient evacuations, and established a basis from which to support federal, state, and local decision-making. We used post-disaster impact assessment data to validate the root assumptions our framework. Our work demonstrates the value of a geodesign approach to emergency management and disaster recovery. A quick scan of the literature returns mostly articles on the application of geodesign for hazard mitigation but few focus on the application of the framework in advance of or during a disaster. We believe our framework is useful for other emergency managers and disaster recovery professionals who seek approaches to improve understanding of potential long-term community needs immediately following a disaster. This is not intended to be a predictive model. Instead it provides key decision-makers an improved understanding of where to prioritize resources and conduct assessments to derive actual needs. Moreover, we believe this methodology is useful beyond the public health arena to other community infrastructure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow us on Social Media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/Esri Facebook: https://facebook.com/EsriGIS LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/esri Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esrigram The Science of Where: http://www.esri.com