Risk-Based Management of Hurricane Preparedness and Recovery for a Highway Agency

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Risk-Based Management of Hurricane Preparedness
and Recovery for a Highway Agency

• Progress review presented to the
  Virginia Department of
  Transportation Steering Committee
  by the
  Center for Risk Management
  of Engineering Systems
  December 2, 1999

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VDOT Steering Committee

• Virginia Department of Transportation
• Travis Bridewell
• Mac Clarke
• Perry Cogburn
• Jon DuFresne
• Stephany Hanshaw
• Steve Mondul
• Murali Rao
• Bob Rasmussen
• J.R. Robinson
• Gerald Venable
• Virginia Transportation Research Council
• Wayne Ferguson

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Project Team

• Graduate Students
• Richard D. Moutoux
• Claudia P. Handal
• Undergraduate Students
• Jason W. Eshler
• Ryan M. Finseth
• Clare E. Patterson
• Faculty
• James H. Lambert, Research Assistant Professor of
  Systems Engineering
• Yacov Y. Haimes, Quarles Professor of Systems and
  Civil Engineering
• Garrick E. Louis, Assistant Professor of Systems
  Engineering

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Overview of Presentation

• Introduction
• Prior efforts
• Overview of project
• Integration with the GIS
• Agency-wide HHM
• Summary and discussion

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Motivation

• Restore mobility and save lives
• Solicit aid from FEMA and FHWA
• Potential for 30-60 billion in losses if a
  category IV hits Hampton Roads, Richmond, and
  Northern Virginia (Source Post Hurricane
  Recovery Workshop, Insurance Institute, 1997)

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Hurricane Floyd

• Hurricane Floyd hit the Suffolk District in
  mid-September, causing a large amount of damage
  due to flooding
• Roads did not receive much wind damage, but
  flooding caused many roads to be closed and even
  washed away a few
• Virginia did not take a direct hit from the
  winds, but was close

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Hurricane Floyd Damage
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Project Goal

• The goal of the effort is to improve hurricane
  preparedness and recovery of the Virginia
  Department of Transportation through the
  identification of planning and management options
  and the assessment and evaluation of the
  associated costs, benefits, and risks.

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Overview of the Risk Assessment and Management
Process
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Technological Age
Risk Management ? Optimal Balance
Uncertain Benefits
Uncertain Costs

• Technology Management
• Man/Machine/Software Systems
• Planning
• Design
• Operation

Risk Management
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Risk assessment and management must be an
integral part of the decisionmaking process
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RiskA Measure of the Probability and Severity
of Adverse Effects
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Risk vs. Safety

• Measuring risk is an empirical, quantitative,
  scientific activity (e.g., measuring the
  probability and severity of harm).
• Judging safety is judging the acceptability of
  risks -- a normative, qualitative, political
  activity. (After William W. Lowrance, 1976)

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Risk Assessment and Management

• What can go wrong?
• What is the likelihood that it will go wrong?
• What are the consequences?
• What can be done?
• What options are available and what are their
  associated trade-offs in terms of all costs,
  benefits, and risks?
• What are the impacts of current management
  decisions on future options?

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Prior Efforts
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Suffolk District

• Interstates 64, 264, 464, 564, and 664
• US Routes 13, 17, 58, 60, 258, 460
• State Routes 44, 164, and 168

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Saffir-Simpson Scale
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Overview of Prior Effort

• Retrofitting Alternatives
• Spares and Reserves Alternatives
• Use of forecasts
• Priority Setting Alternatives

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Retrofitting Alternatives

• Studied effects of retrofitting signs, lights,
  and signals to withstand higher winds
• Trade-off analysis compared cost of retrofitting
  with potential risk of destruction
• Four levels of retrofitting (none, 10, 20, and 40
  mph) were considered for each of the five
  hurricane categories

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Upgrading Trade-off Analysis
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Spares and Reserves Alternatives

• Studied the trade-off between holding different
  levels of inventory
• Low levels of inventory reduce present cost, but
  may delay recovery and increase costs during a
  disaster
• High levels of inventory cost money to store, may
  never be used, and may be destroyed in a disaster
  while in storage

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Investment in Spares vs. Time to Recovery (Ground
Signs)
Option3
Option2
Option1
Status Quo
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Planning for Inventory Operation
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Priority Setting Alternatives

• Goal To prioritize intersections to restore
  based on critical facilities and conditions of
  neighboring intersections
• Restoring intersection - replacing damaged
  equipment on roads near intersection
• Critical facilities - necessary for a communitys
  well-being

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Classification of Critical Facilities

• Can weight importance of facilities
• 900 facilities in Suffolk District

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Critical Facilities by Locality
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Use of Paper Maps
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Priority Analysis Method

• Break Suffolk District into grids or sections
• For each grid
• Identify intersections on roads specified by VDOT
• Evaluate intersections based on (1) number and
  type of facility and (2) whether adjacent
  intersections are restored
• Calculate priority (in each grid and across
  grids)

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Hierarchy of Suffolk Localities
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Base Score Formula
x1 of emergency facilities w1 weight of
emergency facilities x2 of shopping
facilities w2 weight of shopping facilities x3
of military facilities w3 weight of
military facilities x4 of schools w4
weight of schools x5 of government
facilities w5 weight of government
facilities x6 of evacuation facilities w6
weight of evacuation facilities Base Score
w1x1 w2x2 w3x3 w4x4 w5x5 w6x6
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Needs for Improvement

• Electronic maps preferable to paper
• Expand from six categories of facilities
• Need to capture the entire district
• Assure all facilities are located consistently
• Optimization tools can be improved

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Project Goal

• The goal of the effort is to improve
  hurricane preparedness and recovery of the
  Virginia Department of Transportation through the
  identification of planning and management options
  and the assessment and evaluation of the
  associated costs, benefits, and risks

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Task 1 Review of Literature and Formation of
Advisory Committees

• Review and evaluation of past studies, theory and
  methodology, other agencies' experience, and
  databases
• Two advisory committees (1) Steering Committee,
  consisting primarily of VDOT personnel and (2) a
  Users' Group, made up of localities and other
  government agencies, e.g., emergency services.

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Task 2. Extension of Prioritization Tool to GIS
Platform

• Integrate the mapping of critical facilities with
  VDOT's capabilities for geographic information
  system (GIS)
• Work closely with the Transportation Information
  Management Steering Committee (TIMSC) and current
  managers of VDOT information systems, including
  GIS, to ensure compatibility.

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Task 3. Incorporation of Localities and
Additional Critical Facilities

• Local jurisdictions
• Intermodal connections (ports, airports, rail)
• Number of people served
• Logistic points (e.g., food warehouses, power
  generation facilities, water bottling plants,
  natural gas pipeline heads, collection and
  distribution points).

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Task 4. Use of Hurricane Forecasts for VDOT
Operations

• National Hurricane Center and others
• The effort will demonstrate the efficacy of
  probabilistic hurricane forecasts in support of
  various VDOT planning and management functions.
• Capture the impacts of current decisions to
  future options

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Task 5. Modeling for Agency-Wide Preparedness and
Recovery

• Hierarchical holographic modeling (HHM) will be
  used to classify overlapping and connected
  functions, divisions, and performance metrics
• Similar studies for the DoD, FBI, and PCCIP
• Foundation for resource allocation and
  coordination within and outside agency

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Task 6. Resources, Databases, and Software
Task 7. Reports, Presentations, and Workshop
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Schedule
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Current Effort Integration with GIS
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GIS Software Requirements

• Compatible with VDOTs systems
• Capable of supporting network optimization models
• Straightforward to use and to package for VDOT

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ArcviewTM Software

• Picked Arcview over MapInfo and ArcInfo GIS
  packages
• Arcview was recommended by VDOTs cartographic
  division
• Can use Network AnalystTM along with Arcview for
  optimization

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Electronic Road Map

• Use of VDOTs Network Level Basemap CD-ROM
• Contains all the roads needed for this study in
  ArcviewTM format

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Example of Arcview Map
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Example of Arcview Map (cont.)
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Locating Critical Facilities

• Adapting a digital map of the roads in the
  Suffolk District
• Gathering data on facilities and creating layers
  of facilities to overlay in Arcview
• Three undergraduate students working on GIS
  implementation and data collection
• Information about each facility will be contained
  within the Arcview database

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Locating Critical Facilities (cont.)

• Arcview will locate many facilities automatically
  with a street address
• Having the facilities in the database will give
  more accurate and updateable locations
• Fewer facilities will be missed using an
  electronic map
• Having all the facilities in a database will
  facilitate the network optimization

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Classification of Critical Facilities

• Prior effort created six categories of critical
  facilities - emergency, schools, shopping,
  military, government, evacuation shelters
• Add new categories including airports, seaports,
  train stations, food warehouses, power plants,
  water bottling plants, natural gas pipeline
  heads, and distribution point

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Optimization of Recovery
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Optimization of Recovery (cont.)
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Agency-wide HHM
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Holographic Modeling for Agency Resource
Allocation

• Goal
• To improve risk management for hurricane
  preparedness and recovery within VDOT
• Objectives
• To survey the related organizational structure
  and functions of VDOT
• To identify opportunities agency-wide to improve
  resource allocation for preparedness and recovery

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Conceptual HHM Model
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Actions for the HHM Model

• Survey the structure of relevant agencies
• Relate to their functional responsibilities and
  other areas of possible overlap
• Identify areas of deficiency and redundancy
• Identify opportunities to improve resource
  allocation across agencies
• Identify lessons learned from other sources

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Summary and Discussion

• A hurricane or other major disaster can impair
  transportation for months or years
• A prior effort established criteria and a
  methodology to prioritize the recovery
• This method will be improved by creating an
  electronic map in Arcview and using it to
  identify additional facilities and roads

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Summary and Discussion (cont.)

• The GIS map will allow for the location of
  critical facilities across the Suffolk District
• The optimization models from the prior effort
  will be integrated with GIS to address short,
  medium, and long-term recovery
• Agency-wide disaster recovery will be studied
  using Hierarchical Holographic Modeling (HHM)