SEMINARS SPRING 2008
HONR 219T: Surviving Natural Disasters: Learning from Hurricane
Katrina, Big Earthquakes, and Other Natural Hazards
MW 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Dr Gerry Galloway, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Ed Link, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The United States as well as nations throughout the world increasingly
face the threat of significant natural disasters that include hurricanes,
floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires. Hurricane Katrina clearly identified
the massive consequences of a failure to adequately prepare for a natural
disaster — over a thousand deaths and $100 billion in damages. Society
has developed structural (engineering) and nonstructural methods of mitigating
the losses from natural disasters but for a variety of reasons has not
successfully implemented such strategies. Climate variability, competing
local and national priorities, short term political actions and long term
needs and policies that lack flexibility all complicate the process. New
science and technology, advancing methods for systems approaches, both
in the political and engineering domains, and the emergence of new risk
assessment methodologies offer pathways to solutions.
The course will examine the nature of natural hazards faced in the United
States and in other countries, the risks involved with these hazards,
the strategies and tools that might be employed to deal with them, and
the challenges faced by engineers, scientists and public policy personnel
in developing and carrying out mitigation strategies. The first part of
the course will look at each of the natural disaster types, their causes
and our ability to deal with these disasters. We will examine what went
wrong during Hurricane Katrina and what general lessons can be learned
from that experience. Based on our look at the common elements found among
disasters, we will develop a framework to examine specific events. Throughout
the course, we will collectively dig into a wide variety of recent natural
disasters and their consequences and attempt to determine what could have
been done to reduce the impact of these disasters.
Student grades will be based on 1) a midterm exam covering the general background information on the first part of the course, 2) short presentations by students on their examination of recent natural disasters, 3) classroom participation, and 4) a final paper analyzing a selected natural disaster that will include recommendations to decision-makers for actions that might be taken to prevent recurrence of the significant impacts of the selected disaster.
Readings will be taken from contemporary documents concerning natural disasters including federal and state after action reports, media coverage of disaster events, and thought pieces from individuals currently involved with the natural disaster field. For example, "A Major Earthquake Is Highly Likely Soon" by the USGS (http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/future/index.html).
CORE: Physical Sciences [PS]
