| Much planning and scientific
work goes into minimizing an earthquake’s impact in an area long before
the event ever takes place. This is crucial to ensuring residents'
safety and a speedy and complete recovery. The Mid-America Earthquake
(MAE) Center, an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center based at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, carries out research in several areas
related to regional loss assessment, and then focuses that research on
the specific effects of an earthquake event in Mid-America.
The MAE Center drew on its
various research thrusts and tools to investigate the impact of a large-magnitude
earthquake originating in the New Madrid Seismic Zone on Memphis, Tennessee
and other areas of Shelby County, Tennessee. This testbed project
synthesized research on ground shaking and failure hazard prediction, inventory
collection, predicting functionality of structures and their damage state
after an earthquake, and the socioeconomic effects of such an event.
Comprehensive building, bridge, and roadway inventories in Memphis provided
the ability to investigate detailed assessments of damage to the urban
environment and transportation network.
These analyses provide a
broad perspective of the risk to the study region, ranging from direct
economic impact of repair and replacement costs to response and recovery
considerations such as transportation and utility lifeline functionality,
displaced households, and temporary shelter requirements. Social
and economic vulnerability was evaluated and aggregated for visualization
in localized zones of interest. Early results were shown to the Director
of Public Works in Memphis and a number of other officials as well as Memphis
Light, Gas and Water, the utility company of Memphis. The continuing study
forms a significant part of a FEMA project on Catastrophic Event Planning
for the New Madrid Seismic Zone Earthquake Scenario. A detailed model of
the transportation system in Memphis has been developed so that emergency
response can be informed by the likely impact on the transportation network
and where to stage rescue efforts as well as evacuation routes.
The results of this study
facilitate the development of effective strategies for mitigating damage
from an earthquake, the response, and recovery in the Memphis area.
More broadly, this work establishes a model for similar investigations
in other regions. |
