Poster Session Abstracts

Understanding spatial and temporal change in the built environment is crucial to ensure preparedness for an effective response to disasters. Several comprehensive datasets representing the built environment have been created in recent years, such as Google's building footprints, Microsoft's high-resolution settlement data, OpenStreetMap, OpenStreetMap2World, Open City Model, and Global Human Settlement Layer. 

Most of these products use remote sensing tools (including aerial imagery and light detection and ranging scans known as LiDAR) to create spatial layers depicting built-up areas at fine resolution and their change over time. However, each dataset has certain limitations, ranging from uneven geographical coverage to limited information on building characteristics to coarse spatial resolution. This poster describes a study that integrated three spatial datasets depicting aspects of the built environment in different but complementary ways. This integrated approach generates the most complete and attribute rich (e.g., built-up area, building age, building density, and land use) settlement layers for the contiguous United States over long time periods. This task involves complex processing and analytical steps to integrate property-level real estate data, parcel data, and remote sensing-based building footprint data and create gridded settlement layers. This newest edition of the Historical Settlement Data Compilation for the United States (HISDAC-US) can be widely used for the advanced study of urban form and structure at a fine scale and the assessment of the exposure and vulnerability of the built environment to natural hazards over time. 

A review of volcano communication literature from New Zealand shows that volcano scenarios have been used for many purposes, including planning during quiescence, communicating unrest (e.g., 2022-3 Taupo unrest), and for communication and decision-making during and post-eruption (e.g., 2012 Te Maari eruption). However, the nature, format, use, and definition of scenarios varies widely depending on the context and stage of volcanic activity. Given the diversity of scenarios, more work is required to better understand the different types and their utility. This poster describes a project that is focused on unpacking the different types of scenarios to understand their benefits and potential uses and to develop a typology that could be useful in guiding future planning and communication about volcano activity. For example, communication of past event scenarios can help people understand what they could expect from a new event in future; or future-focused scenarios can assist people in interpreting the probability of an event that might happen and the consequences. A literature review has been undertaken focusing on: (a) how scenarios have been used to communicate volcanic activity in the past; (b) use of scenarios for other hazards (e.g., earthquakes) and their applicability to the volcano context; and (c) whether scenarios fall under particular “types”, which can be identified as part of a typology. Following the literature review, testing of scenarios is being undertaken with focus groups to feed into typology development. These typologies can be applied to different future volcanic activity circumstances, to help guide planning, communication, and decision-making. 

Effective disaster debris management requires reasonable predictions and estimates of debris for a community to get back to normal sooner. However, there is a lack of data related to post-disaster waste quantities that could validate and improve debris predictions. This knowledge gap can be addressed by establishing reconnaissance methods for safely quantifying disaster debris promptly following a disaster using remote sensing or imaging technology. This study aimed to demonstrate and compare multiple imaging tools available for quantifying disaster debris using post-disaster data collected following Hurricane Ida. The tools used in this study are satellite imagery, high-altitude emergency response imagery, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The study found that satellite and high-altitude emergency response imagery are well-suited for debris management in the disaster response phase. They are useful for determining areas that need immediate resources, such as transportation networks that need debris cleared to facilitate the provision of emergency services, as well as detecting transported vegetation debris. UAVs and TLS are well-suited for debris management in the disaster recovery phase when debris is piled at curbs or staging sites and can provide precise volumes. Guidance is provided for selecting an imaging method based on the user’s desired application and available resources, which can assist decision making for disaster waste managers.  

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for disaster science researchers to gain insight into the underlying nature of community resilience through comparing the socioeconomic effects of government action to a common threat across urban population centers of varying economic compositions. For example, the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment in the leisure and hospitality sector of Las Vegas, NV, during the onset of the pandemic were a well-publicized consequence of public health mitigation efforts. In comparison, other population centers of similar size but with different economic sector compositions varied in the degree to which employment was affected, and in their trajectories of economic adaptation and recovery. Local economic development agencies currently use strategies designed to increase regional economic specialization to promote economic growth, however, anecdotal evidence from disaster science research shows that the promotion of economic specialization over diversification may create vulnerability. This poster describes a study which used Shannon’s Entropy as a measure of diversity in regional economic industry sector composition to quantify economic resilience through the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to employment. The study is intended to inform regional economic development organizations in building economic disaster resilience through alternative approaches to the use of existing policy tools, and to inform future research into what industry mix is most likely to promote economic disaster resilience, and how different industry sectors interact and connect an urban center to the global economic system. 

Galveston County, TX, has a long history of being vulnerable to coastal flooding and sea level rise (SLR), so researchers proposed the Ike Dike as a structural/engineered strategy for flood protection. This poster describes a study examining the following questions, (a) how well will the Ike Dike protect Galveston Island across multiple storm scenarios, with the current sea level and a predicted 2.4ft SLR? and (b) how can Galveston County increase its flood resilience through incorporating non-structural strategies such as vacant land buyout policies? 

For the Ike Dike performance evaluation, we examined the impacts via 3D landscape performance models in physio-economy, built environment, and building analysis. In sum, the Ike Dike will be more effective for smaller scale storm events (10-year storm and Hurricane Ike) than larger ones (100-year and 500-year storms), and its effectiveness will diminish with SLR over time, if certain precautions are not taken. 

To assess the effects of integrating a non-structural strategy with the Ike Dike, we developed a vacant land buyout strategy by using Dyna-CLUE to identify vacant lands from 2022 to 2037 in Galveston County. Apart from the land use prediction model, we also introduced a five-scale buyout priority system based on inundation risk. To all vacant lands in the highest risk category, it will cost $0.092 billion to acquire 11,688 acres by 2027, 11,675 acres by 2032, and 14,086 acres by 2037. These totals are much lower than the cost of Ike Dike and could help avoid new, high-risk development in flood-prone areas. 

The Earthquake Disaster Assistance Team (EDAT), Landslide Disaster Assistance Team (LDAT), and Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) are three joint efforts implemented by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and co-funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA). These groups support their international counterparts with reducing risks from natural hazards by providing training, monitoring equipment, emergency response support, and situational awareness. USGS and USAID co-founded VDAP in 1986, EDAT in 2009 and LDAT in 2019 – each with the similar goal to support and empower foreign counterparts in identifying and mitigating their natural hazards through building on their existing knowledge and capacity. All three assist foreign partners, upon their request, specifically with technical capacity. In addition to helping partners reduce natural risk, the partnerships allow USGS scientists to broaden their scientific and cultural perspectives and develop important relationships with international colleagues that promote scientific diplomacy. 

EDAT is engaged in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Tonga, Fiji, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, Albania, and Türkiye. EDAT often supports earthquake response efforts, including the recent 2023 Türkiye/Syria earthquakes. LDAT is engaged with Sri Lanka, Chile, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, and El Salvador. VDAP has responded to over 70 crises at more than 50 volcanoes since 1986 and helped strengthen response capacity in 13 countries. Current VDAP projects include Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Tonga, Guatemala, Indonesia, Peru, Solomon Islands, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 

This poster summarizes work from the National Science Foundation-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network. SSEER was formed, in part, to respond to the need for more specific information about the size, status, and expertise of the social science hazards and disaster research workforce. SSEER serves as the network home for social scientists who study the human, economic, policy, and health dimensions of disasters. Over the past five years, SSEER has grown from 648 researchers in 2018 to 1,521 members in 2023. The poster highlights key membership characteristics including geographic location, disciplinary background, methodological expertise, and disasters studied. We encourage those who are interested in learning more to visit the CONVERGE SSEER website (https://converge.colorado.edu/research-networks/sseer/) to access annual SSEER Census reports, SSEER data publications, and the SSEER interactive map. The results of this work have implications for training, mentoring, and workforce development initiatives geared toward ensuring that a diverse next generation of social science researchers is prepared to study the root causes and social consequences of disasters.  

This poster presents the use of tsunami evacuation drills within a coastal community in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) to better understand evacuation behaviors and thus to improve tsunami evacuation preparedness and resilience. Data on the spatial trajectories of evacuees were collected by Global Navigation Satellite System embedded in mobile devices. Based on the empirical trajectory data, probability functions were employed to model people’s walking speed during the evacuation drills. An Evacuation Hiking Function was established to depict the speed–slope relationship and to inform evacuation modeling and planning. The regression analysis showed that evacuees’ speed was significantly negatively associated with slope, time spent during evacuation, rough terrain surface, walking at night, and distance to destination. We also demonstrated the impacts of milling time on mortality rate based on participants’ empirical evacuation behaviors and a state-of-the-art CSZ tsunami inundation model. Post-drill surveys revealed the importance of the drill as an educational and assessment tool. The results of this study can be used for public education, evacuation plan assessment, and evacuation simulation models. The drill procedures, designs, and the use of technology in data collection provide evidence-driven solutions to tsunami preparedness and inspire the use of drills in other types of disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, volcanoes, and flooding. 

Japan is one of the most natural hazard-prone countries. It is also the country with the most corporate assets in the world. Approximately 90% of Japanese companies are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, their business resilience may be very low due to the following reasons. The rate of SMEs developing business continuity plans (BCPs) is considerably low. Additionally, financial strategies are not prioritized in current BCPs. Furthermore, the rate of SMEs purchasing disaster risk insurance remains low. Keeping these challenges in view, this study assumes that the introduction of a simplified disaster risk assessment tool may encourage companies to improve their business resilience. Therefore, it aims to develop a web-based prototype tool for SMEs that can estimate a business interruption risk. The tool will consist of the following three features. The first feature is an estimation of the baseline business interruption risk in value terms and the risk curve caused by an earthquake in which a damage function is developed based on the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The second feature is an effect measurement of introducing business continuity (BC) strategies and measures focusing on a mutual aid among companies. The third feature is a conversion of the business interruption risk into a theoretical insurance premium. In sum, the web-based assessment tool can help improve risk awareness by SMEs, encourage these companies to adopt BC strategies and measures, and enhance their business resilience. 

What role can bicycles play in disaster preparedness and response in your community? Bicycles offer advantages over other modes when transportation, power, and communications systems have been disrupted. Research has found isolated examples of first responders, law enforcement, disaster relief volunteers, and citizens effectively using bicycles for information-sharing, evacuation, search and rescue, or delivery of essential supplies. Yet the same research reveals that bicycles are rarely considered in disaster planning and preparedness efforts. Bicycles are multipurpose, adaptable, affordable, and widely available worldwide. However, how bicycles are used, by whom, and when could vary greatly based on community characteristics and needs. This poster describes research investigating the inclusion of bicycles in disaster plans, operations, and training through a literature review and interviews. The project explores the feasibility of bicycle use based on community geography, existing infrastructure, hazard types, vulnerability and risk, and potential bicycle types, uses, and users. The research proposes a methodology to evaluate the criticality and vulnerability of bicycle-related infrastructure to natural and technological hazards. Communities may leverage vulnerability assessment results to identify areas where bicycle activity is suitable to support disaster relief, as well as critical links providing access to essential relief facilities and activity centers. Ultimately, bicycle use will be unique to each disaster event and community. The research poses open questions and training needs for individual communities and organizations interested in planning for and mobilizing bicycles during disaster relief. 

Climate hazards events place intense pressure on the energy sector in the United States. Current practice for restoring power systems is to prioritize the number of outages and the size of affected populations. This practice fails to account for unequal impacts of hazard-induced and managed power outages. Research in equitable infrastructure emphasizes that certain social populations are disproportionately impacted by disruptions in the power system. Moreover, the connected network qualities of the power system suggest an element of spatial vulnerabilities. Little empirical evidence exists regarding the presence and extent of energy inequality due to the limited availability of power outage data at granular spatial scales. This poster describes research that addresses these knowledge gaps by collecting and analyzing observational data power outages during Winter Storm Uri (2021) and Hurricane Ida (2021). The research quantified the period of recovery using observational data and telemetry-based data. An equitable-focused analysis of statistics, spatial Gini, and an infrastructure index detected social and spatial inequalities. The results will bring insight into the extent of recovery through different disaster contexts, geographic regions, and demographics. The findings provide evidence of pervasive social and spatial inequality in power outages during climate hazards and highlight the importance of integrating equity into the way utility managers and emergency planners restore power outages.  

Climate change is causing wildfires to occur at unprecedented rates and locations. Departments of corrections in wildfire-prone states are responsible for providing additional firefighting labor by using people who are incarcerated. Exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with respiratory infections, all-cause mortality, various cancers, and exacerbations of chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Exposure to the fires themselves can increase the risk of injuries, burns, and deaths. Incarcerated wildland firefighters have reduced access to care compared to other wildland firefighters. Additionally, any level of incarceration during one’s lifetime is associated with an increased risk of chronic and mental health conditions as well as reduced access to care and medications. Due to the increased likelihood of underlying conditions and limited access to care associated with incarceration, and the increased exposure to wildfire smoke via prison firefighting programs, incarcerated wildland firefighters may suffer a disproportionate burden of wildfire associated health outcomes. This poster will focus on (a) summarizing literature that exists on health outcomes among people who work at wildland firefighting camps while incarcerated and (b) describing future research aims that are needed to understand disparities in health outcomes associated with wildfire exposure.  

The poster highlights what the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute (HVRI) has been up to from 2021-2023. The integration of the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA) program into HVRI in 2022 led to an expansion of HVRI expertise into climate variability and change, the development of decision-relevant climate adaptation tools, and collaborative engagements with state and regional partners to enhance capacities to plan for, respond, and adapt to climate-related stresses. Highlights on the poster include descriptions of ongoing and completed projects, outreach and engagement activities, and student research accomplishments. For example, 

• Our signature products SHELDUS, SoVI®, and BRIC were updated and used in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Risk Index. 

• Partnered with the National Weather Service (Columbia, SC forecast office) and the state’s Public Health Preparedness Coalition to advance heat warnings to underserved populations and understand heat risk perception. 

• Provided geo-spatial data and analysis for South Carolina’s Multi-Hazard mitigation plan update, and the mitigation action plan for U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Group (CDBG-MIT) program. 

• Conducted a nationwide geostatistical analysis of COVID-19 outcomes considering county-level vulnerability, resilience, and mitigation responses to the pandemic.  

• Part of a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional team led by the University of Central Florida to produce actionable information on disaster risk mitigation alternatives through the development of HazardAware (hazardaware.org). 

Since 2020, there have been seven master’s theses and three dissertations awarded to HVRI-affiliated graduate students. Four undergraduate research assistants also graduated with their bachelor's degrees during this time. 

In the wake of disasters along the southern coastal region of the United States, major cities in coastal areas have begun to explore and plan the imminent managed retreat of their residents from disaster-prone areas. The managed retreat of communities is often initiated by state and local government agencies in hopes of aiding and assisting communities in relocation. However, disaster-prone neighborhoods in major metropolitan areas are often occupied by Black and Hispanic communities, hence obtaining community buy-in from governmental agencies can be difficult. The struggle for community buy-in, when looking at Black communities, is a result of a nationwide mistrust of governmental agencies and their initiatives. Due to historical inequities promoted and supported by governmental agencies, getting Black communities to support managed retreat when relocation can lead to the loss of community, culture, and identity can be difficult especially when promoted from a system they already do not trust. This poster highlights various historical outcomes and present-day examples that have led the Black community to believe that government agencies do not have their best interest in mind regarding their relocation out of their communities. This analysis of the relationship between the Black community and governmental agencies aims to recommend methods and initiatives that can be utilized to repair the relationship between the two. Mutual understanding between the needs of the Black community through the managed retreat, and the intention of buyouts from governmental agencies, could lead to community buy-in and support away from disaster-prone areas.  

Losing access to lifeline infrastructure such as electricity and water disrupts people’s lives. Recent research has begun to study and understand how people react, cope, and adapt to such interruptions. A prior study by the authors used a survey of households in Los Angeles, California, to identify several adaptations people commonly adopt during these outages such as using candles/flashlights, purchasing bottled water, or moving to a hotel. The previous study also showed how the adaptations and unhappiness varied with outage and household characteristics. This poster focuses on the implications of that study, examining its practical application for infrastructure operators and emergency managers, as they would like to know the number and geographic distribution of adaptations and impact of households likely to implement different adaptations and experience for different disruptive events. We created a synthetic population with all the significant household characteristics using the data from Los Angeles city to predict, for each individual, the adaptations likely to be implemented, the likelihood that they would experience unhappiness and their willingness-to-pay to avoid the outage by applying the developed statistical models for a test scenario of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. We also conducted a probabilistic analysis, combining the results of a few hundred damage scenarios. The research approach can be applied to any community for any disruptive event. 

Hurricane evacuation studies have identified causal relationships in how households respond behaviorally to a hurricane threat. These models feature a cognitive process in which households make evacuation decisions as part of a comprehensive risk assessment based upon received information amid complicated social and environmental contexts. Nonetheless, most hurricane studies only examine the effects of individual psychological variables. Few studies consider how residents intellectually process risk assessment. This poster describes a study that aimed to bridge this gap. The study examined the data of household evacuation decisions collected from a survey of 562 households in the Houston-Galveston and Lake Sabine Study Areas in Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. In addition to informational, contextual, and psychological variables, the study measured the heterogeneity of respondent risk assessments in mirroring their cognitive process by calculating the level of interrater agreements (rWG) of respondents’ ratings on 20 concerns. The regression results indicate that even though the heterogeneity of risk assessments did not directly affect respondents’ evacuation decisions, it moderated the effects of the psychological variables in facilitating or prohibiting respondents’ evacuation decisions. These results expand the interpretation of behavioral responses in evacuation studies and benefit future computer-based studies in developing simulation models. 

Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) chapters are frequently referenced in emergency management plans and offered as a solution for managing emergence and convergence of disasters. However, there is much we do not know or understand about these organizations. While often mentioned in the disaster science literature, there is a noticeable gap in studies directly examining the role, structure, and effectiveness of VOADs. To help establish a baseline understanding of VOAD organizations, this poster will underscore characteristics of organizations formally connected with VOAD chapters in multiple Gulf Coast Region states. The poster will also highlight how VOADs are represented in state-level emergency management plans and what types of organizations are notably absent from both VOADs and formal planning documents. The poster will highlight predictors of VOAD involvement, spotlight recommendations for better engagement with VOAD chapters, and detail opportunities for future research on VOAD organizations. 

During emergencies and crises, governments provide interventions and resources to improve community responses. Ideally, these services enhance community resilience and communities return to normalcy following the event. Past research has shown that resources provided after an emergency or crisis were often distributed or utilized inequitably, which can impact the ability of all communities to be resilient. 

COVID-19 is not a traditional emergency for governments to manage, rather it is a creeping or prolonged crisis that extends over a long period of time. Initial research suggests inequities existed early in the COVID-19 vaccine administration. This study examines the relationship between social vulnerability and vaccine utilization during the first year of the COVID-19 vaccine administration. The study uses data from two main social vulnerability measures, the Social Vulnerability Index for the United States—2010–14 (SoVI®) from the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina, and the Social Vulnerability Index from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the 36 different components of both measures, a factor analysis was used as a data reduction method and the factors that emerged were included in a regression model to examine the relationship between social vulnerability and county vaccination rate during the first year of vaccine administration. 

We use the findings to develop recommendations for future pandemics and public health emergencies to improve equity in resource utilization. Emergency managers can also use the findings to improve their approaches regarding where to target outreach following emergencies and crises. 

Socially vulnerable populations are more susceptible to hazards and disasters. As disasters increase in severity and frequency it is imperative to ensure community plans and policies avoid contradictions by holistically evaluating their progress toward resiliency. The Deprogramming Housing 2016 plan of Kampen is evaluated by creating a social vulnerability index and calculating the change before and after implementation both inside and outside the effective policy boundary. It is found that across the five-year period of 2015 to 2020 there is a decrease in measured social vulnerability across the municipality following the Deprogramming Housing 2016 updates to existing land use and zoning policies within Kampen. When compared with the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard of the policy, the districts outside the policy boundary saw a slightly stronger reduction in social vulnerability. 

It is an ethical imperative that action be taken to address the changing climate and its impact on all people, especially the most vulnerable communities. We must act by elevating disaster risk management (DRM) as a vital element of the U.S. National Security Strategy to prepare for complex disasters to bring a clear and coherent leadership focus to addressing the problems with the rise in frequency, severity, the complexity of disasters, and their impact on the well-being of the people and economic prosperity of the nation. An Innovative Kingdon’s Model is used as the framework to include an analysis of the drivers involved in addressing a given problem. These drivers can help the stakeholders understand the complexity of developing, resourcing, and implementing effective disaster risk management plans. The findings of studies conducted should serve as a wake-up call for action. Better coordination and collaboration are required. Adequate financial Investment in disaster risk management must be a priority. Elevating DRM will provide a better understanding of disaster risk management and raise the President’s and U.S. Congress’s attention to act at the right time with the right resources to mitigate the loss of life, devastating economic impact, and governance stability. We must all work together to address the climate impacts and better prepare our society for the rapid changes underway. 

Socio-technical organizational factors, such as culture, training and development, leadership, and team dynamics, have been identified as key contributors to the world’s most devastating accidents, including Bhopal, Space Shuttle Columbia, Three Mile Island, Deepwater Horizon, and Fukushima. In addition, these factors can affect human activities and organizational decision-making during cascading and compounding hazards, affecting the consequences of an event. This poster first summarizes the author’s research on explicit modeling of human and organizational factors into probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) models for high-consequence technological systems, such nuclear power plants. Ongoing research by the author on modeling of human performance, including occupant response and first responder activities during one type of cascading hazard (i.e., fire following earthquakes), as well as its integration with risk models, is also presented. This integration allows for more accurate estimation of human contributions to risk, supporting decision-making processes by identifying short- and long-term impacts of decisions on event consequences.  

This poster introduces strategies, lessons learned, and several case study examples of critical issues in using Systematic Social Media Data Collection (SSMDC) techniques in disaster research. While unique methods beyond face-to-face data collection are not new, the global pandemic brought new attention and interest in how researchers can gather primary data while adhering to health requirements, such as social distancing. This method also enables researchers to be more cost-effective and flexible with other unique personal travel restrictions, including childcare. In this poster, the authors will define the basic concept and steps of SSMDC and how it can be adapted to various research topics and methodologies. Using three U.S.-based case studies for this overview, the authors also argue that SSMDC techniques have unique strengths and limitations that must be acknowledged. For example, using social media as a respondent recruitment tool can save project costs, researcher travel time, and other resources. More nuanced aspects of SSMDC should be considered, such as empowering researchers with functional and access needs. Another critical issue is the ethical guidelines when engaging in SSMDC, such as transparency, adaptive scripts for contacting closed groups, and issues related to identity and reflexivity. Limitations of SSMDC include challenges in obtaining a diverse respondent sample, limitations regarding study generalizability, and a lack of sensory aspects of data gathering. SSMDC can be used in conjunction with other contemporary methods for disaster fieldwork. Through this poster, readers will better understand the SSMDC recruitment strategy that can be applied to future scholarly research activities. 

Ensuring reliable access to critical facilities is crucial for community well-being and faster recovery in the aftermath of a disaster. During flood events, transportation systems and critical facilities often suffer from flood-induced disruptions, leaving communities inundated or isolated. This poster depicts a study that evaluates road criticality for access to critical facilities—such as emergency medical services and hospitals—during a 100-year flood event. We use flood risk maps acquired from the First Street Flood Lab and overlay them with the road network to account for flood-induced partial road failure. Using hospitals as a representative critical facility, we apply the proposed method to the Delaware road network, which has a greater proportion of land at coastal flood risk. The travel time to the closest hospital is estimated using reduced travel speeds. A modified betweenness centrality metric is introduced to calculate the criticality of roads for connecting communities to critical facilities. We also identified critical roads vital for post-flooding access to critical facilities. The findings of this research could provide valuable insights for targeted infrastructure investments and hazard mitigation strategies aimed at enhancing community resilience in a fair and equitable manner. Additionally, it can help to reduce response times, especially in the case of medical emergencies where every minute counts.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the particular vulnerabilities of children, teenagers, and older adults. Children and teenagers experienced disruptions to education, and older adults faced medical vulnerability and increased threat of exposure to the virus. Concerns about isolation, financial instability, and psycho-emotional wellness have also been reported across generations. As a CONVERGE-funded Quick Response project, a multidisciplinary research team has explored pandemic-related experiences and mobilities through mixed-method data collection (i.e., interviews, journals, drawings, surveys, podcasts, focus groups) of the experiences of children (i.e., 5-11), and their guardians, teens (i.e., 12-18), older adults (i.e., over 65), and key informants as part of a multi-year study in the United States and Canada . This poster will explore how different age groups used similar coping strategies in diverging ways to manage the challenges associated with the pandemic. Children and teens predominantly struggled with an inability to visit friends, whereas more older adults identified challenges associated with fears around being exposed to COVID-19. Results indicate that groups employ both age-specific (e.g., remote connection with classmates/teachers, pets; video games; television/reading; substance use; pandemic preparation) and shared coping strategies (e.g., remote connection with friends, family; hobbies). The use of technology for videoconferencing, video games, and media consumption contributed to a greater ability to cope with the pandemic but was associated with consequences related to self-reported overuse for some groups. Identification of age-specific challenges and coping strategies will serve to inform best practices for disaster recovery through the promotion of safe and resilient communities. 

How people experience evacuations and post-evacuations can vary drastically. Safety, comfort, and perceived reliability are all important aspects during evacuation and post-evacuation sheltering. These concepts are not captured through traditional transportation models which rely on demographics, network-based characteristics, or other metrics and data describing these factors is not easily obtained. Drawing from the accessibility and equity literature and a unique post-evacuation qualitative interview dataset from the 2018 Camp Fire, we develop metrics for evacuation quality and post-evacuation housing quality. These metrics are useful for local agency practitioners and researchers building more resilient and safe future communities while keeping a human-focused approach.  

Big-bodied people—a term used to relate size, shape, and weight and not as a euphemism for fatness—have been left behind in disasters and are conspicuously absent in disaster risk reduction planning, policies, practices, and research. This poster describes a qualitative study, framed by a pragmatic worldview, which aimed to build knowledge from the perspectives and experiences of 55 emergency managers and 17 people identifying as big-bodied in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Study participants completed an online survey and semi-structured interviews. The research team conducted descriptive and reflexive thematic analysis of the data. The findings highlight the complexities of disaster risk reduction for big-bodied people and emergency managers. Assumptions and expectations were identified that may explain why there has been scant, if any, consideration of the needs of this population in a disaster. Importantly, this study amplifies the voices of big-bodied people, so often excluded, silenced, or invisible in research. To meet the United Nation's Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 requirement for “all-of-society engagement and partnership,” the concept of vulnerability must be widened to include size, shape, and weight. Further empirical research and strong advocacy are required to ensure that big-bodied people and emergency managers are well supported and that their needs are included in future national and international disaster planning, policies, and practices. 

Disaster Risk Reduction actions struggle to include the voices of people with disabilities, despite their disproportionate exposure and the requirements of international frameworks, starting from the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. While most research has primarily focused on field projects and technical tools, this poster presents a study on disability-inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DiDRR) strategies through quantitative-qualitative policy analysis. The key findings, supported by government data and global indicators such as the Sendai Monitor, indicate that, despite multiple legal and practical instruments, there is an implementation gap in the lack of policy adoption and non-inclusive policymaking. 

To bridge the gap, this poster presents a policy framework related to four main aspects: policy adoption, policy formulation, budgeting, and governance. Without the support of a government strategy at national and subnational levels, local projects risk having a limited impact and scalability. Government action should be accompanied by multi-layered policymaking involving all the relevant stakeholders, starting from people with disabilities and their organizations, whose experience, narrative, and requirements should be embedded in the process. The study also identifies those enabling factors that can facilitate the inclusion of people with disabilities in disaster risk-related policymaking, such as accessibility, cultural change, and data collection. This participatory approach should guide policymakers in the formulation process and the collateral phases of agenda-setting, governance definition and budgeting. Thanks to the interconnections with other strategies, DiDDR policymaking can help spread an inclusive perspective across different sectors. 

As hurricanes have increased in frequency and intensity over the last twenty years, the need for data and methods to systematically track and analyze community impacts and recovery have also increased. One of the main sources of data for such analyses is to collect immediate and longitudinal post-disaster data about various aspects of impact from secondary sources. The affected communities benefit greatly in their various recovery decisions and efforts from accessing standardized, reliable, and up-to-date information about impacts, resources, and ongoing recovery initiatives. In the time between a storm’s landfall and the announcement of major federal and state assistance programs, most daily updates on damages, disruptions, and aid availability are reported by local news outlets and on social media. In this poster we will present our methodology and findings about using publicly available data from local governments, convention and visitors bureaus, economic development agencies, social media, and first responder reports in Collier and Lee counties in southwest Florida, in the six months following Hurricane Ian to document and track housing damage and recovery. This analysis is the first step in a larger housing recovery field survey study focusing on comparing impacts and recovery following disasters in coastal communities between affordable year-round housing and seasonal vacation housing.  

In February of 2021, the United States, Mexico, and Canada were affected by Winter Storm Uri. The State of Texas felt extreme effects from the storm—as a result of the failure of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s main power provider, to prepare for such an event. In 1989 and 2011, Texas experienced similar storms that exposed weaknesses within the state’s electric grid; however, no winterization mandates were enforced or acted upon. This poster describes research that aims to identify attitudes about the role of recreancy—an institutional actors’ failure to function to the extent that earns them societal trust—in the context of Winter Storm Uri. Utilizing survey data collected in Texas in April and May of 2022, we examine seven dimensions of recreancy related to ERCOT’s failure: trust; responsibility for preparedness; responsibility for impacts; response effectiveness; willingness to prevent future failures; confidence in ability to prevent future failures; and responsibility for compensation. Findings suggest that some dimensions of recreancy are more salient than others and that individual perceptions of recreancy are related to individual experiences with loss of access to utilities, communication, and basic services. 

The hurricane-forecast-evacuation system is complex and dynamic, making it difficult to diagnose potential challenges and implement effective intervention strategies to ensure successful evacuations for all. This poster describes using an agent-based modeling framework to explore how changing different components of the system affects key evacuation outcomes. Called FLEE (Forecasting Laboratory for Exploring the Evacuation-system), this modeling framework integrates high-level representations of the natural hazard (hurricane), the human system (information flow, evacuation decisions), the built environment (road infrastructure), and connections between elements (forecasts and warning information, traffic). After describing the model, we validate its simulated evacuation outcomes with real-world empirical data across two real evacuations (Hurricane Irma and Dorian). Then, we investigate the simulated effects of changing the number of cars on the road network (changing evacuation demand), implementing approximations to different evacuation management strategies and policies (contraflow, evacuation order timing), and changing population characteristics (population growth and distribution), all for two real scenarios (Irma, Dorian) and one simulated storm (rapid-onset version of Irma). Lastly, we explore how forecast errors may impact FLEE's evacuations, by changing the size of the cone of uncertainty to amounts representative of today and in the past, along with rapidly intensifying onset cases, and evaluate their impact on Irma’s evacuations. Through the experiments, we demonstrate the power of these types of frameworks as tools for exploring the forecast-evacuation system across many scenarios, including being a socially relevant forecast verification tool for the weather enterprise. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not consider dam breach inundations when it creates its flood risk maps, potentially leaving additional flood-prone areas overlooked. FEMA has also been shown to unfairly allocate more payouts to claims filed in predominately White and wealthy communities. Furthermore, loss of life and damage costs tend to be the only indicators used for measuring a dam failure’s impact, leaving demographic disparities unexplored. Acknowledging these oversights, it is necessary to determine if FEMA assistance is equitable after a dam failure disaster and ensure that those impacted and socially marginalized can recover effectively. This poster describes a case study of the 2015 dam failure disaster in Columbia, SC. The research aimed to assess if the distribution of FEMA claim payouts was equitable across race and class. Relevant FEMA claim data for the disaster was obtained and filtered using R and ArcGIS Pro. The claim data was then categorized by census tract and linked to corresponding race and median household income data. After conducting a comparative analysis, results revealed that predominantly Black and lower-income census tracts had higher percentages of unpaid claims. This disparity indicates that FEMA’s assistance was inequitable and thus could have excluded those who would need assistance the most due to social barriers. This research not only introduces an alternative way to assess the impact of dam failures but also provides findings that support the need to consider additional and more detailed impacts that tend to be overlooked.  

Among the suite of risk reducing strategies for adaptation, relocation or assisted retreat is one of the most extreme. Leaving one’s home is not equivalent to other strategies which allow one to remain in place, such as investing in one’s home or supporting construction of community-wide infrastructure. Research has established that relocation decisions depend on the complex interplay of “push” (e.g., crime) and “pull” (e.g., employment) factors affecting quality of life. This poster describes a study that extends resilience theory to the conceptualization of relocation decisions by framing push and pull factors as tradeoffs between “capitals” or resources. It presents a conceptual framework outlining the web of interacting household and community capitals involved in relocation decisions to answer: What are the capitals of place that affect the likelihood of relocation? And how do household capitals moderate effects of place-based assets in relocation? To explore these questions, this study examines original survey data collected in 2022 from the Houston and New Orleans regions. This research illuminates how household level decisions can affect community level assets by adding to or detracting from collective capital. Additionally, by targeting respondents in communities at least six months after a major disaster, this research improves upon existing literature by identifying the scope of resources households consider when choosing where to live without the pressure of displacement. Understanding how different residents experience pushes and pulls of place can inform compensating policies for sending communities to maintain resilience to future hazards. 

Varied understanding of what scientific uncertainties are, and where they come from, in natural hazards advice affects people’s trust in and use of that advice. Thus, official guidelines, such as the International Panel on Climate Change, indicate that to communicate ethically, we should be open and transparent about any associated uncertainties. This is indicated to enhance trust and credibility with decision makers, while being ethically and morally appropriate as it enhances decision‐making capability. However, critics highlight that communicating uncertainty may sometimes be inappropriate. For example, if a decision maker is averse to ambiguity (e.g., scientists communicating with civic authorities affected by political concerns), communicating uncertainty could deter protective behaviors. Further, ambiguity may affect risk perception, increasing worry and pessimistic judgements, introducing doubt, and reducing decision satisfaction. 

We seek here to continue the discussion about ethics and uncertainty communication, by reflecting on findings from a review of effective communication of model uncertainty, as well as primary research exploring people’s mental models of uncertainty associated with natural hazards science. The latter is vital as we have a poor understanding of people’s perceptions of scientific uncertainty which creates a challenge for effective communication that ethically considers needs and perspectives. Qualitative analysis highlights the wide range of perceived sources of uncertainty, the different perspectives of the role of uncertainty for natural hazard science, and the influence of governance and funding. Questions remain around how we could provide support to increase uncertainty tolerance, and how to ensure communication is relevant to enhance ethical communication practice. 

The recent increase in the number of disasters and complexities surrounding existing emergency management efforts necessitate cross-sectoral collaboration and coordinated response. While previous studies have discussed emergency management efforts from a collaborative perspective, little consideration has been given to the role that public-private partnerships (PPPs) in emergency management. Understanding the benefits of PPPs from an organizational standpoint can be particularly important for emergency managers who make decisions under uncertain conditions and complex situations. This poster describes a study that aims to examine the role emergency-management-focused PPPs in organizational resilience and assess these PPPs’ potential levels of institutionalization and effectiveness in response to disasters. Using a web survey of the emergency managers and operators from public, private, and nonprofit sectors in Florida, the research project will answer the following research questions. (a) Do factors involved in the process of PPPs in the emergency management context predict emergency managers’ and operators’ perception of organizational resilience? (b) Do factors involved in the process of PPPs in the emergency management context predict emergency managers’ and operators’ perception of PPP institutionalization and effectiveness? The results of this study will help emergency managers across all sectors and policymakers to better understand the factors that contribute to successful PPPs in emergency management and assist them in planning for, managing, and utilizing their limited resources when collaborating with other organizations in response to disasters. 

Hazard events cause an average of 20 million people to be displaced globally. Almost 80% of the displaced populations are women and children. Displacement has been linked to adverse pregnancy outcomes such as increased risk of infectious diseases, premature labor, fetal growth failure, and mortality. Available research on this topic is narrow and does not include data directly from the women during or around the time of impact. This poster describes a study that will address this limitation and aims to understand how disaster displacement affects pregnancy outcomes following Hurricane Harvey. The study will include data from Baylor College of Medicine’s PeriBank—an obstetrical database and biospecimen repository. The sample will include Hurricane Harvey survivors who were displaced and pregnant during the hazard event. Descriptive analysis will be used to describe and summarize data while multivariate analysis will be used to determine the relationship between disaster variables of interest and pregnancy and birth outcomes. Preliminary findings will be reported.  

As anthropogenic climate change rapidly increases the intensity and frequency of disasters across the United States, low-income renters and public housing residents, who disproportionately live in hazard-prone areas, are at significant risk of housing loss and displacement. Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) are responsible for overseeing housing units that their low-income residents live in, yet their roles and responsibilities in disaster risk management are largely unclear and unknown. This study aims to identify if and how state-level disaster plans integrate PHA roles and responsibilities into disaster preparedness, response, and recovery planning. A total of 85 disaster plans were collected, coded, and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Our findings revealed that state-level disaster risk management plans assigned only minimal roles or responsibilities specifically to PHAs. The roles assigned to PHAs focused solely on identifying rental housing and housing resources for residents affected by a disaster or providing housing voucher or housing waitlist prioritization to eligible, displaced residents. However, 21% of collected plans assigned roles or responsibilities to agencies other than PHAs related to preparedness, response, and/or recovery for low-income renters and/or low-income housing in collaboration with PHAs, suggesting that PHAs are still being considered in the disaster planning process. We suggest that PHAs be incorporated into state-level disaster risk management planning, involved in collaborative stakeholder disaster planning discussions, and assigned formal roles and responsibilities in disaster plans to better protect their low-income residents before, during, and after disasters.  

Information provided by people affected by an earthquake can help provide more effective situational awareness for earthquake responders and fill gaps in scientific understanding of an event. In this poster we analyze the use of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) “Did You Feel It?” (DYFI), an internet tool that crowdsources shaking intensity observations, to understand global user interaction with this system. We employ web analytics to quantify how user access DYFI and then perform inference modeling with a Tobit regression from which we predict each country’s response rate to DYFI. The panel dataset built for this model combines physical earthquake parameters from the USGS with various socioeconomic variables from the World Bank and the Central Intelligence Agency for 151 countries between 2009-2020. Our web analytics indicate that users overwhelmingly access DYFI via a mobile device. Additionally, results from the inference model reveal that socioeconomic parameters, particularly primary language spoken and GDP per capita—in addition to physical earthquake parameters such as average shaking intensity—have a significant effect on a country’s response rate to DYFI. Overall, our results support investing resources toward reimagining the design of and communication strategy for DYFI. This includes improving performance on mobile devices and increasing language accessibility to boost responses in seismically active regions of the world that both lack seismic station coverage and have historically lacked DYFI access due to language, technology, or other factors.  

In July 2021, Germany and Belgium were inundated with flood waters from the Rhine and Meuse Rivers and their tributaries. In August, only a few weeks after the storms, a Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) research team of international scholars provided preliminary post-event assessment of the impacted areas. Using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and terrestrial photography, terrestrial light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scans, multispectral photography, and on-site photography, sampling, measurements, and interviews, the team documented geotechnical and structural damage, water level measurements, erosion and sediment redeposition, scour, utility network performance, and first response information. Their preliminary data were submitted for the natural hazards research community to DesignSafe. Both the GEER and the National Hazard Engineering Research Infrastructure’s (NHERI’s) DesignSafe are supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (GEER-CMMI#1826118, DesignSafe-#2022469). Our team followed the GEER team’s tracks one year later (October 2022) using the digital and visual information archived in DesignSafe platform. This poster describes the process we used to create a similar photographic collection to extend the GEER’s original data set. The GEER team comprised of local experts and academics in engineering and geological sciences reported on structural damages. Our team of economists and an engineer looked at the same sites, at a different time and through a different disciplinary lens. This poster compares the photographic record prior to the flood, the GEER team’s assessment, and our team’s assessment to document recovery. Support by NASA under grant #80NSSC22K0048 is acknowledged. 

During public health emergencies, knowing what the public is hearing and saying about the threat is critical for providing effective health protection information. The framing of news stories and social media conversations affect public perceptions of the emergency. It also influences adherence to public health recommendations (see Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) responds to emergencies involving weather events, infectious disease outbreaks, and other large-scale or unfamiliar health threats. As part of agency-wide responses, the Research and Evaluation Team in the Joint Information Center conducts daily, ongoing analysis of current news stories and social media posts. This analysis is compiled into a concise, public health-focused summary of the “conversation” called the Communication Surveillance Report (CSR). 

The objective of the CSR is to provide communication leadership with evidence-informed insights about how the threat and the response are characterized in news and social media. It also includes questions from clinicians and the public through the CDC-INFO system and visits to CDC webpages. The findings inform the development or refinement of CDC’s communication strategy throughout the response. The CSR does not provide specific situational awareness or “ground truth.” Rather, it summarizes the overall narrative, using thematic analysis to highlight major themes, health information gaps, potentially important issues likely to emerge, circulating rumors, points of possible confusion or misinformation, and views of the public health response. The poster will introduce the CSR approach and how the team analyzes the communication environment. 

The CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center has developed a series of free online modules to train hazards and disaster researchers and practitioners, with an emphasis on students and others new to the field. Since July 2019, CONVERGE has released 11 training modules. This poster highlights the modules and details user background characteristics of more than 7,400 registrants and the impact of the modules. The CONVERGE Training Modules—which are funded are by National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Geological Survey—address foundational topics such as Institutional Review Board procedures, emotionally challenging research, cultural competence, perishable data collection, social vulnerability, and disaster mental health. There are also advanced trainings in the areas of broader ethical considerations, reciprocity, positionality, gender-based violence in fieldwork, and public health implications of research. Each module features learning objectives, interactive case studies and sliders, and links to additional resources, such as standardized measures, datasets, checklists, tools, and annotated bibliographies. These modules are often used as classroom assignments and a list of sample activities is provided through the CONVERGE Assignment Bank. Users who successfully complete the quiz at the end of the module receive a certificate, which is worth one contact hour of general management training through the International Association of Emergency Managers certification program. Registration data collected between July 2019 and November 2022 indicate that 74.4% of registrants are undergraduate or graduate students, 65.9% self-identify as emerging researchers or practitioners, and 27.4% are affiliated with the social sciences.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed socially vulnerable communities to compounded threats. Meanwhile, it has been suggested that communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to underlying factors such as income disparities, access to healthcare, insurance coverage, and baseline health conditions. Thus, to fully comprehend and reduce the danger COVID-19 poses to a community, it is critical to understand the spatial patterns of social vulnerability, baseline health characteristics, and land-use features, as well as to verify their significance on COVID-19 infection. To fully understand the COVID-19 impact on socially vulnerable populations, this poster describes a study that integrated community vulnerability assessments, public health condition evaluations, population density assessments, and land-use pattern data to identify and map spatial hotspots of COVID-19 transference vulnerability—the probability of a population to transfer COVID-19. Using Houston, TX, as a case study, it assessed the relationships between COVID-19 transference vulnerability with socioeconomic, health, and land-use factors at the Super-Neighborhood scale. Through a multivariable regression model, it found that the Super Neighborhoods with a smaller proportion of non-Hispanic White individuals, higher prevalence of coronary heart disease history, or lower medium land intensity development were expected to have higher transference vulnerability. The study concludes by discussing the results and offering recommendations to inform more effective planning policies as practitioners work toward health equity to foster more resilient communities. 

Prescribed fire operations involve multiple teams (e.g., park staff, fire departments, state agencies) working together toward a shared goal of conducting successful burns that prevent catastrophic wildfires, sustain healthy ecosystems, and protect agricultural resources. Adverse issues like climate change and wildland fragmentation have increased prescribed burn complexity, which may contribute to occupational strain. While studies on prescribed fire have examined public perceptions and the effects of prescribed fire on ecosystems and wildfires, to our knowledge no research has been conducted on the stressors and well-being of prescribed fire professionals and teams. Using multilevel resilience process, we adopt a community-partnered, mixed-method design to address our primary research question: What stressors do prescribed fire teams face when planning and conducting prescribed fires, and how do they enact resilience to overcome challenges and sustain well-being? Data include publicly available documents and semi-structured interviews with prescribed fire professionals in the state of Florida. Results will include (a) prescribed fire network maps that summarize teamwork linkages across land management plans and (b) themes in adversity faced and ways that resilience is enacted in prescribed fire teams. Findings from this study will inform our understanding of resilience in prescribed fire and other teams facing increasingly complex challenges while supporting community health and safety.

Protecting people who live in subsidized housing from natural and industrial hazards is important because their subsidy limits their mobility and because the government has an obligation to ensure housing that is decent, safe, sanitary, and in good repair. Using proprietary data from First Street Foundation and publicly available data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) recently updated National Risk Index, I examine flood hazard risks for residents of subsidized housing. This analysis builds on work by the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), as well as Climate Central. Both studies mapped risks for subsidized housing using the National Housing Preservation Database. PAHRC and NLIHC examined risks using a previous release of FEMA’s National Risk Index, while Climate Central developed their own coastal flooding model. The analysis depicted in this poster adds an additional lens by using First Street Foundation’s proprietary Flood Factor model. I estimate areas of greatest concern, where there is a combination of high flooding probability, high depth of projected flooding, and low housing quality. I also examine the demographics of residents in areas of risk to understand how they compare to those in areas of lesser risk. I conclude with recommendations for further research, with the goal of shaping policy recommendations for the federal government to better protect those they serve. 

Oklahoma is a multi-hazard environment where both natural (e.g., tornadoes) and technological hazards (e.g., induced seismicity) are significant, making Oklahoma a unique setting to better understand how to manage and prepare for multiple hazards. Previous studies have explored the drivers of natural and technological hazard adjustments, but few have focused on the overall number of adjustments undertaken. This poster describes a study addressing these gaps. We conducted a survey of 866 households in Oklahoma to understand household danger control responses (protective hazard adjustments) for tornado and earthquake risks in the state. We apply the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) to categorize respondents according to their relative level of the perceived threat and efficacy of protective actions in predicting the number of hazard adjustments they intend to or have adopted in response to tornadoes and induced earthquakes. In line with the EPPM, we found that households have the highest number of danger control responses when their perceived threat and efficacy are both high. Counter to the EPPM literature, we found low threat coupled with high efficacy moved some individuals toward the adoption of danger control responses for both tornadoes and earthquakes. When households have high efficacy, threat appraisals matter in tornado danger control responses but not in earthquake danger control responses. This EPPM categorization opens new research approaches for studies of natural and technological hazards. This study also provides information for Oklahoma local officials and emergency managers making mitigation and preparedness investments and policies.  

Recent research has demonstrated the feasibility and co-benefits of nature-based solutions (NBS) to coastal hazards, yet uptake by coastal communities has been slow. There is a need to increase community awareness and motivation using more inclusive stakeholder and community engagement techniques. NBS has the potential to bridge gaps in equitable access to “green space” and ecosystem services; however, to date, there has been significant inequity in the distribution of NBS programs, leaving many lower-income communities of color in states of environmental vulnerability. Bayou la Batre, Alabama, represents an exception. With its rich fisheries and seafood processing history, Bayou la Batre is similar to many other fishing communities characterized by generally low median household incomes, lower than median high-school graduation rates, a relatively high proportion of people of color, and a high percentage of non-English speakers. This study describes a study which aimed to engage stakeholders through collaborative modeling and stakeholder surveys to fully understand the societal responses to coastal hazards and the present valuation of nature-based solutions within this community. Specifically, the surveys focused on gathering detailed knowledge of historical trends of use and change along the shoreline and perceptions and preferences for a NBS project along the shoreline. This poster describes community meetings, surveys, and interviews with coastal residents, fishermen, and other local workers interested in a highly vulnerable road that serves as a crucial extreme weather event evacuation route, a means of access to jobs, and even “home” to coastal residents. 

Self-protection guidance for wheelchair users during an earthquake is “LOCK, COVER, and HOLD ON.” We found “HOLD ON” may be interpreted differently and cause confusion. This poster describes research with multiple aims. It first studies factors that mitigate or exacerbate the risk of a wheelchair overturning in a building during an earthquake. A follow-up study will examine protection mechanisms to prevent such occurrences.  

Building floor vibration in an earthquake can be simplified as a single frequency motion, and the acceleration peak value increases with the building’s height, so that the roof moves an average of 3 times as much as the ground motion. Floor motion frequency is the fundamental frequency of the building and is related to the total height of the building. 

Wheelchair vibration modes found from the dynamic experiments include Walking, Rocking, and Overturning. We conducted shaking table experiments with a wheelchair and a dummy on the table with the input accelerations of 300, 250, 200, and 150 gal. It was found that at low level of excitation, walking and rocking motion dominated the response around 1.5 to 2.5 Hz. However, at 300 gal, the wheelchair rocked heavily and overturned between 0.8 to 1.0 Hz. This suggested an elevated risk of wheelchairs overturning in buildings with approximately four to 13 stories, and the highest risk in buildings with nine to 11 stories. 

Individuals using wheelchairs in buildings with nine to 11 stories may need protective measures to prevent harm from overturning during earthquakes. 

The DAT/Artathon is an annual virtual workshop that brings together early career disaster researchers and practitioners from around the world who are working to visualize, create art, and tell stories with risk and resilience data. Over the course of six 2-hour sessions in three weeks each June, participants share a skillset with their cohort and gain feedback on individual visualization projects on current topics in hazards research and practice. The first week is devoted to co-teaching data visualization skill sets in a sequence of 15-minute mini-lessons—topics range from user empathy to visual encoding. After the first week, participants work on individual data art projects. The remaining virtual meetings are devoted to providing and receiving feedback on each other’s projects. Since 2020, the DAT/Artathon has convened a community of over 30 researchers and practitioners from six different countries. Through these workshops, we have developed collaborative, inclusive, and generative ways for researchers and practitioners to share technical and professional skills while building community, and participants have shared that the workshop helped them learn new skills, expand their professional network, and finish a visualization project. To find out more about the Risk and Resilience DAT/Artathon, visit: https://datartathon.com.  

According to the National Weather Service, in 2020 alone, the United States experienced 22 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, resulting in 757 fatalities, large-scale structure destruction, and a total cost of $95 billion in damages. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) plays a significant role in the disaster management and resilience community, offering a wide spectrum of decision support during risk assessment and vulnerability mapping for prevention, emergency response, damage assessment and recovery, and public communication. 

Currently, teaching high school students about natural hazards and environmental sciences remains largely dependent on textbooks. This pedagogic approach can be monotonous due to lack of interactive and inquisitive components. Inspired by this gap and funded by National Geographic Society, we developed a series of ArcGIS Storymaps for Advance Placement (AP) Environmental Science and AP Human Geography courses. These Storymaps feature rich content relevant to each textbook chapter as well as multiple interactive elements such as featured traveling world maps, programmed galleries, and multiple choice and free response questions, altogether enabling students to gain a deeper understanding. These Storymaps topics include Earth System Resources—an introduction to world climate models and earth structure, Atmospheric Pollution—a description of pollutants and climate impact, and Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes—a discussion of industrialization and climate change. Using Storymaps provides opportunities to improve youth’s comprehension of GIS and disaster science. 

Heatwaves were the deadliest climate event over the past 30 years in the United States are projected to be more intense and dangerous as global warming advances. Cities, composed of unevenly distributed populations and diverse landscapes, suffer from significant impacts of heatwaves with varying land surface temperatures across different areas. In addition to the climate, effective adaptation to heatwaves also requires an understanding and evidence regarding how natural, physical, and social processes in urban areas influence urban thermal variations. Prior studies that rely mainly on traditional regression methods have limitations in interpreting the complex interplay of multiple factors that influence fine-scale thermal variations, both within and beyond the physical boundaries of these factors. To address this research gap, we propose an interpretable machine-learning method based on Graph Neural Network to disentangle the significant factors that influence local thermal conditions. Our model can explain 35.3% extra variations compared to the baseline ridge regression model. The results of the model also inform the adaptation strategies, including nature-based solutions, such as barren and built-up replacement with tree covers for their cooling effectiveness. The proposed model helps to identify optimal adaptation strategies for current barren and built-up covers. 

Following an earthquake, near-real-time impact products provide valuable information to the public and decision-makers in emergency management, humanitarian, and finance sectors, among others. However, earthquake impact products are often designed without formal user input or a focus on socially vulnerable populations, resulting in products that may not be equipped to support equitable disaster management decisions. Our team is conducting a user needs assessment of the U.S. Geological Survey’s PAGER (Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response) system, currently consisting of the single page onePAGER product. Through a user-centered design process, we are designing the twoPAGER, a second page addition to the onePAGER that highlights social vulnerability. We began by conducting 16 focus groups with 49 participants from various sectors that use onePAGER and consider social equity in their disaster management work. Qualitative coding of the focus groups revealed that users are interested in equity-centered metrics of exposure and impacted populations disaggregated by social vulnerability characteristics, which they could use for deploying focused relief teams and targeted supplies and allocating disaster funding based on impacts and need. Focus group results informed the metrics included in the twoPAGER mockup. Next, we will conduct an earthquake scenario workshop to evaluate the usability of the mockup with domestic emergency managers to better understand use cases and assess if and how equity-centered data leads to more equitable disaster decision-making. By evaluating how equity-centered impact data could be used, we are more capable of developing actionable earthquake information that can improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.  

Climate change and the increasingly unpredictable impacts of disasters on society necessitate novel interdisciplinary approaches to understanding urban vulnerability. Along the coastline, millions of people and major economic hubs are predicted to become increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise. This threat manifests itself as a multi-faceted risk across scales, ranging from the individual to the national level. Current vulnerability frameworks, while referring to the complexity of the topic, fail to integrate these ideas in ways that are scalable or generalizable. Frequently, metrics characterizing vulnerability are bound to one scale and few studies attempt to contextualize vulnerability in terms of scaling dynamics. Drawing on insights from several fields including ecology, we propose a framework for the assessment of the vulnerability of the built environment that addresses these issues through the concept of functional groups. Using Zillow’s housing and assessment database, ZTRAX, we apply this framework to one specific case study: the damages sustained in Harris County, Texas, due to Hurricane Harvey in 2017. We establish that individual aspects of the built environment operate over different scales, and a variable's predictive power for measured damages is scale dependent. These findings illustrate the value of a framework based on functional groups as a platform for scalable and generalizable analysis of vulnerability of the built environment to natural hazards.  

Climate change is contributing to upward trends in respiratory health problems, especially among minorities and racialized populations. Research has shown a consistent relationship between respiratory disease prevalence and factors such as substandard housing, indoor air pollution, poor neighborhood conditions, and ambient air pollutants. Many studies have shown that decades of underinvestment, historical racism in housing, and unjust development policies, such as redlining and the Federal Aid Highway Act, negatively impacted the respiratory health of people of color. For instance, redlining continues to shape residents’ health outcomes in Health Zone 1, Jacksonville, Florida, although the practice has been illegal for more than 50 years. The area is also experiencing gentrification, which has increased land values and the cost of living, leading to the displacement of most current residents. This poster describes our study that aims to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic status and respiratory health among residents. Toward this end, we developed a framework that illustrates the dynamic interaction of various aspects of historical housing discrimination. Moreover, an agent-based model with three main levers, namely neighborhood, affordability, and stability, has been developed in collaboration with the local community to generate different intervention scenarios. The model makes it possible to analyze how changes in these levers can impact the asthma rate in the study area over time using a participatory approach. Therefore, this model can serve as a tool for improving future co-decisions that aim to reduce asthma while considering the concerns and perspectives of local communities.

Today's youth are expected to experience more frequent and intense natural disasters, placing them at greater risk for developing adverse mental health outcomes following disasters. Queer youth may be at an even greater risk of developing posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms due to their heightened social vulnerability. Despite this, disaster research and response often overlook the specific impacts of disasters on queer youth. This is due, in part, to methodological limitations in current disaster research. This poster aims to explore these limitations. For example, the small sample sizes of queer youth in disaster research can make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about their experiences. Additionally, the fragmentation of data sources can hinder our understanding of the impacts of disasters on marginalized communities, including queer youth. In some cases, data on sexual orientation and gender identity are not consistently collected in disaster response and recovery efforts. Addressing these gaps in research is crucial to ensure that policies and interventions are tailored to the specific needs of queer youth, who may face additional stressors and challenges in the aftermath of disasters due to societal stigma, discrimination, and limited access to resources. 

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the important roles that public health agencies play in disaster preparedness and response. However, information about the health impacts of specific hazards that these agencies need to guide their planning is often inaccessible (e.g., behind paywalls) or indigestible. To provide public health practitioners with synthesized and attainable information on health impacts of hazards of concern in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, we conducted a review of both peer-reviewed and gray literature to identify the key health consequences of tsunamis, wildfire smoke, and earthquakes, as well as the mental health effects of all hazards. For peer-reviewed articles, we used the following keywords in PubMed and Google Scholar: “wildfire smoke exposure,” “wildfire smoke,” “tsunami,” “earthquake,” “health impacts,” “health effects,” “health,” “health consequences.” Gray literature was identified through governmental, non-governmental, and academic organization websites. Themes regarding these effects were compiled into narrative text. We solicited subject matter experts at the 2022 Disaster Research Response workshop to review the text and provide feedback. We input comments in a spreadsheet and systematically resolved them. We formatted the text into four accessible factsheets for dissemination. This poster will introduce these fact sheets, which can be used by practitioners for planning and as a convenient, evidence-informed reference tool when considering the health effects of disasters that occur in their jurisdiction.  

This work was supported by the Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub Research Coordination Network Award 1940034, the National Science Foundation Award 2103713, and National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Grant #P30ES007033. 

Floods are common and costly in the United States. By investing in flood mitigation activities, communities may perceive flood risks, reduce future losses, and decrease the need for disaster response and recovery. However, disaster mitigation actions are costly and require adequate, effective, reliable, and equitable funding sources. In the United States, a considerable proportion of flood mitigation programs are funded by federal agencies. While there is a clear increase in the availability of flood mitigation programs both before and after disasters, there are few systematic analyses on the distribution and access of such investments across different communities. In this poster, we examine the trends and geographic patterns of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood mitigation spending programs against the growing risks and population along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. By analyzing twenty years of Hazard Mitigation Assistance data, we highlight the most and the least frequently funded flood mitigation projects in coastal and non-coastal counties, as well as allocated federal funds to the mitigation projects. This analysis sheds light on patterns in the access and distribution of FEMA’s disaster mitigation funds across communities. 

The purpose of this study is to structurally understand the relationship between residents’ attributes, feelings of anxiety, and intent to access medical care or welfare services after disaster. We conducted a survey in Japan, specifically in the Kirime district of Inami town, Wakayama prefecture, between September 12 and October 17, 2022. We distributed two questionnaires to each of the 640 households in Kirime district (1,280 questionnaires in total) and received 723 valid responses. We used path analysis to analyze the data. Respondent attributes were age, gender, elderly person(s), person(s) requiring special care, hospital visit, regular medication, and welfare care service. The results showed that age and gender affect feelings of anxiety and intent to access medical care or welfare services. People who required special care, hospital visits, or regular medication had more anxiety. In terms of the relationship between feelings of anxiety and intent to access services, insecurity regarding medication and welfare service continuation and concerns about infection significantly affected intent. All intention items were related to the collaboration with other districts, and also some intentions are related to the collaboration with government agencies. The results indicated that residents need ongoing support for medical and welfare activities after disaster. In addition, advance planning is important because residents need to cooperate with plural districts and government agencies to receive services. Since devastated areas may not be immediately assisted by government agencies after disaster, it is necessary to improve the plan that strengthens cooperation with multiple areas.  

People with access and functional needs (AFN) often experience a disproportionate impact from hazard events, but appropriate and holistic planning can compensate for much of this impact. This poster describes a study that aimed to evaluate the extent to which this issue area (i.e., special populations, vulnerable populations, disabled) is addressed in the largest counties from the most disaster-prone states using a revised evaluation tool. A total of 33 plans were evaluated. Analysis revealed that states with laws specific to the issue area were more likely to have plans addressing this issue area in some way; yet, overall, this issue area was not reflected holistically in any plans, even those from states where related laws exist. This failure to plan holistically for AFN raises legal concerns. It is also of moral and ethical concern. It is past time for emergency managers to be inclusive in their planning practice—it is a moral imperative. 

Data dashboards are a visual display of essential information monitored at a glance on a single screen. By providing information concisely, dashboards assist users in monitoring and analyzing data. In the context of atmospheric science, dashboards can help emergency managers and their partners monitor changes in the environment swiftly during extreme events. A well-designed (and therefore highly usable) dashboard has the potential to support impact-based decision-making. Mesoscale Network (Mesonet) websites are close approximations of operational data dashboards in the meteorological community. There is limited research that guides which features to include when designing an optimal dashboard for data monitoring. One strategy draws from principles of visual design that reduce data complexity. The Gestalt Principles of Visual Design illustrate visual cohesion: how individual design elements create a whole. 

We conducted a descriptive analysis of Mesonet websites to inform the creation of a dashboard for decision-makers during severe weather events. In this poster session, we present the results of our study of eighteen data dashboards developed to monitor meteorological observations. We also point out dashboard design characteristics, such as data consolidation, arrangement, and organization, through the lenses of different Gestalt Principles. 

Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) carried out training and community mobilization programs with the overarching goal of bringing partners together and enabling stronger and more resilient communities. MCN facilitated culturally contextual training, robust Community Health Centers’ (CHCs) emergency management planning; and, identified and engaged vulnerable populations like farmworkers, children, and isolated rural residents. Training content included a climate preparedness intervention to build tools and resources for the education of CHCs on the screening, monitoring, and evaluation of the emotional health and psychological distance from climate change because of local disasters. Other interventions included advocacy to raise awareness of climate-related health impacts and to foster stronger worker protections to prevent farmworker heat-related illness and death. This program facilitated training in the United States and its Caribbean territories for clinical staff, social workers, and outreach workers in CHCs. Program reach resulted in over 700 education and technical assistance encounters addressing climate-related disasters and prevention strategies used to protect workers and other vulnerable communities, reaching over 13,000 participants and trainees in 38 states in the continental United States and Puerto Rico. Results from this program include resources to increase and build capacity in addressing environmental risks at work and the inclusion of the mental health and psychosocial needs of the vulnerable and CHC staff impacted by climate-related disasters.  

U.S. states, territories, and tribal lands develop State Hazard Mitigation Plans (SHMPs) to assist in reducing the impact of disasters on life and property. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) approves SHMPs every five years as a requirement for funding for FEMA disaster relief grants and disaster mitigation projects. In 2023, two-thirds of SHMPs are up for review and renewal from FEMA. Additionally, FEMA recently updated policy guidance for SHMPs, calling for greater community engagement in the planning process and more robust use of social vulnerability in multi-hazard risk assessments. Such approaches are necessary because social vulnerability emerges from systemic inequities resulting in populations facing disproportionate impacts from hazards. Given the crucial importance of considering social vulnerability in mitigation planning, our research team built a novel dataset with descriptive data on the populations, definitions, and different measures of social vulnerability included in SHMPs for all 50 states and the five inhabited U.S. territories. We find that all states include at least one vulnerable population in their planning guidance, usually the elderly, children, or people with disabilities. Inclusion of other populations such as immigrants, LGBTQIA+ persons, unhoused persons, or people of color is much more varied. Similarly, the states vary widely in terms of how (and if) social vulnerability is defined and measured. For example, 47% of SHMPs use a social vulnerability index, and about two-thirds (62%) mention social vulnerability in some form. This poster addresses how SHMPs can further center equitable and inclusive planning processes that consider socially vulnerable populations. 

This poster describes a new project that will investigate the level of support for the proposition that the U.S. federal government should protect current and future landowners in coastal areas susceptible to flooding by subsidizing the cost of insurance and providing funds to rebuild housing and infrastructure after hurricanes or other climate disasters. We are testing the effect of different rhetoric or “framing” of messages urging or opposing such federal financial support. The goal is to identify the types of arguments that are most persuasive in convincing people either that the government should or should not provide such financial support. We also want to test the effects of partisanship by linking such arguments with the Republican or Democratic Parties. We want to see if simply attributing an argument for- or against- government financial support to one party or another has an independent impact on the response of Republican or Democratic respondents. The study can help provide insights into which arguments are most persuasive to different groups as well as the extent to which partisan polarization shapes public opinion on post-disaster recovery aid.  

The ability to proactively monitor post-disaster community recovery is crucial for effective resource allocation prioritization, yet there is a lack of models available for monitoring and quantifying recovery. This poster depicts a study investigating models that could predict population recovery using location-based human mobility visitation patterns to essential points of interest (POI) at the census block group level. In the context of Hurricane Harvey, we evaluated 32 features split into four categories: physical vulnerability and access, hazard exposure and impact, proactive actions, and population features. Further, we used a random forest algorithm to identify features that explain the variation. Lastly, the Spatial Durbin Model was identified as the best fit for handling direct, spillover, and total effects of features on population activity recovery. We were particularly interested in analyzing how the spillover effects influenced population essential activity recovery. The results showed that physical vulnerability, measured by road network density, prolongs population activity recovery, while access to essential facilities shortens recovery. Better preparedness, measured by the extent of POI visitations prior to the hurricane landing, is associated with faster recovery. Population attributes, including the total number of people, the percentage of minorities, and the percentage of Black and Asian subpopulations, were also significant features in predicting recovery duration. The study offers data-driven insights for understanding population recovery determinants and provides a new approach for predictive recovery monitoring. Identifying areas with slower or more rapid recovery can enable emergency managers and public officials to prioritize resource allocation more equitably. 

Created in 1983 by the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on the Sociology of Disasters (ISA RC39), the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters (IJMED) is one of the oldest and most respected disaster science journals of the world, focused on the social and behavioral aspects of relatively sudden collective stress events be they natural, technological, or human induced, typically referred to as disasters or mass emergencies.  

The central purpose of the journal is to provide a platform through which researchers, educators, practitioners, and other professionals from multiple organizations and disciplines around the world, can share evidence-based knowledge and research on a wide array of hazards and disasters across all disaster phases. While focus will remain on individuals and social systems, of critical importance will be the interactions between and amongst individuals/social systems and their built and natural environments. Hence, IJMED encourages both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, emergency management, engineering, disaster and environmental sciences, geography, and related disciplines. 

The journal highlights important issues of theory, research, planning, policy, and multiple aspects of risk, hazards, emergency and disaster prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. IJMED encourages submissions that rigorously investigate how social and economic systems and processes, policy, and inequality can shape vulnerabilities, methodological work that highlights cultural, contextual, and ethical challenges of conducting disaster and hazards research, and teaching pedagogies for experiential learning, community outreach, and curricular issues in the professionalization of emergency management and broader disaster sciences. 

The poster will include the following photos of Disaster Justice Network (DJN) partners who have developed justice-centered innovations or technology processes, the names of the processes, and their QR codes:   

• Community water testing post disaster (DJN Environmental Working Group) 

• Air testing post disaster (Naomi Yoder, Healthy Gulf) 

• Citizen radio (Cynthia Richardson, Micah68Mission) 

• Rebuilding the Boot campaign for resilient repair of structures: (1) technical brochures (Tim Reinhard, IIBHS); (2) tool lending from shipping containers for resilient rebuild (Rev. James Harris, Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church) 

• Planning for pre-positioning disaster-response resources (Joy Semien, Knowledge, Attitude, Preparedness and Skills [K.A.P.S.] Disaster Hub) 

• Small-house alternative housing post-disaster (Covington Thompson, April Ward, Prairieview University) 

• Resident implementation of case management (Laura Olson, Jacksonville State University) 

• Pre-positioning portable solar (Jack Martin, Appalachian State University) 

• Communication networking of DJN (Julie Maldonado, LiKEN) 

• Mapping petrochemical plants positioning vis a vis community protective coastal restoration projects that protect coastal communities (Sophia Mullen, University of New Orleans) 

• Satellite imaging of roof blue tarps over recovery time (Hannah Friedrich, University of Arizona) 

• Vehicle augmentation of car transportation with bicycles (Andre Angelle, Bike Kitchen) 

• Timely recovery webinars (Simone Domingue, Louisiana State University) 

• Student recruitment (Nnenia Campbell, Bill Anderson Fund) 

• Bringing together non-profit groups to encourage agency policy justice (Lowlander Center) 

• Resources distributed to women doing justice in crisis work (Lowlander Center) 

• Internet accessibility, use and repair in rural, lower income communities after disasters (Jen Liu, Cornell) 

Between 1980 and 2019, the United States experienced nearly $2 trillion in losses due to climate related disasters, half of which was attributed to hurricane events. Mitigation tools have been implemented by government and the private sector to reduce the damage and loss caused by hurricanes. However, these risk management efforts have had limited success largely because homeowners have delayed or avoided adopting the mitigation approaches. Many studies that have explored household decision-making as it relates to mitigation have largely focused on households already actively making a protective action decision. This assumption may underemphasize the importance of events that trigger a household to begin the decision-making process and overestimate the probability of protective action. 

The Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) considers homeowners who are unaware or unengaged at the first stages of the decision-making process. This poster describes a study that applies the PAPM framework to the stages of a structural mitigation grant program launched by the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (NCIUA) to examine how households in the coastal regions of North Carolina make decisions regarding retrofitting their homes to prepare for future hurricanes. The poster will depict the implementation of the PAPM framework using a multi-state model to generate transition probabilities between stages of the decision-making process to implement structural retrofits provided by this grant program. 

Public libraries are social infrastructure and play a key role in the response and recovery of communities after a disaster. They are among the most ubiquitous civic networks in the United States, making them an ideal web of resource-sharing and outreach. They serve as settings for social participation and social bonding, a feature particularly critical in today’s fragmented society. Increasingly, it is obvious that libraries are not neutral, and that their services and unconditional support provide lifelines for the most vulnerable. 

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, public libraries re-structured themselves and shifted operations to account for the drastically changing needs of their patrons. This poster presents early findings from the author’s ongoing dissertation research that examines the contributions of Delaware public libraries to the wellbeing—physical, mental, emotional, occupational/educational, and financial—of their communities. The poster displays findings from the first batch of interviews with library workers and administrators, a sociodemographic profile of the state of Delaware, and leads from document and program analysis. 

Libraries engaged in adaptation and improvisation as a means to create stability and continuity in the provision of traditional and unexpected services. Disaster research and emergency management can learn from research that explores an institution which has not yet been fully embraced as a partner in disaster response. This poster highlights the work of public libraries in Delaware during the ongoing pandemic and proposes ideas for future cooperation between research, emergency management, and library operations. 

Urbanization is increasing day by day. Data show that 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. This poster focuses on urban-rural connectivity from a disaster resilience perspective. Using Nepal as a case study, the existing status of urban-rural linkages, particularly converging on road and water connectivity, is analyzed. The poster also addresses how past disasters wedged on urban-rural tensions, including ways that conflict over common resources generated barriers to urban-rural connectivity. Available primary and secondary data, including purposive and semi-structured interviews, were analyzed and a qualitative approach with figures and tables was applied. Poor connectivity between urban and adjacent rural administration for disaster management and lack of uniformity in data management were observed as major problems. In contrast, integrated data management systems for disaster management, appropriate integrated policy by addressing road/water problems, and tax systems for water issues are suggested as ways to create disaster-resilient communities. 

Rural areas are at a higher risk of being overwhelmed by disasters than urban areas due to their low levels of risk management capacity. Building resilience in rural communities is often prescribed to improve their ability to withstand extreme events. But what does resilience mean and how can this process be observed for communities in a rural setting? Rural areas require a context-specific approach for operationalizing resilience that addresses their diverse nature. Multiple methodologies have been proposed in past literature to assess community resilience. These resilience measures use a set of indicators to represent how the resilience phenomena can be observed in a community. But most of these measures have been designed for application in a generic context and their (expert-driven) indicator selection processes do not address the place-based nature of resilience. In this poster, we discuss our methodology to identify and implement relevant resilience indicators for communities in rural areas. We apply this methodology to study community resilience in two rural counties from the Western Upper Peninsula Region of Michigan. In our approach, we seek community members’ opinions about the importance of aspects associated with resilience indicators in terms of how much they can affect the ability of their household and community to withstand extreme events. Using this data, we determine the relevance of commonly prescribed and uniquely suited indicators. In our discussion, we also describe implementation of relevant resilience indicators through a data visualization platform for our case study communities to inform local decision-making.  

Individuals with physical disabilities experience distress when faced with the threat of human-made and natural disasters, yet little is known about how to reduce that distress. This poster describes a study that used an extension of Protection Motivation Theory to longitudinally test the relationships between psychological distress and disaster-related cognitive appraisals, including perceived threat, emergency preparedness self-efficacy (EPSE), and response efficacy, within a sample of individuals with physical disabilities. A nationwide convenience sample of 106 adults with physical disabilities completed two surveys approximately five years apart. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the effects of perceived threat, EPSE, and response efficacy on psychological distress across the two waves. Our results indicate that perceived threat is positively associated with psychological distress and EPSE is negatively associated with psychological distress, and that these associations of proximal perceived threat and EPSE with psychological distress remain stable across waves. Response efficacy is negatively associated with psychological distress at Wave 1; however, this association dissipated to non-significance at Wave 2, which suggests that the effect of response efficacy on psychological distress is variable and may be more context specific. Finally, individuals who reported an increase in EPSE over time also reported an average decrease in psychological distress. In addition to broadening our understanding of factors related to psychological distress, these results have potentially important intervention implications; for example, to the extent that self-efficacy is a malleable construct, one way of reducing disaster-related psychological distress among individuals with physical disabilities may be to increase EPSE. 

Youth are at-risk for developing adverse mental health symptoms following disasters. Today’s youth are burdened with the rising frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters linked to climate change. Although disaster exposure has been associated with the development of youth mental health symptoms, existing studies are limited due to a focus on single disaster events, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and individual-level youth risk factors. Research is needed to better understand the relationship between exposure to multiple disaster events, youth internalizing symptoms, and risk factors for adverse mental health outcomes across multiple ecological systems. This poster describes a study that employs multilevel structural equation modeling to evaluate the relationship between dose of weather-related cumulative disaster exposure, disaster characteristics (e.g., type, duration, severity), individual risk factors (e.g., demographics), and environmental risk factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, other traumatic event exposure) across ecological systems. Data will include depression and suicidality outcomes from the 2019 Youth Behavior Risk Surveillance System (N=47,236 youth across 28 school districts), FEMA data (disaster declarations and characteristics), and U.S. Census data (sociodemographic). This poster will (a) explain concepts related to multilevel structural equation model building; (b) describe the individual, disaster-related, and social ecological variables included in the model; and (c) present a conceptual model of youth depression and suicidality risk following cumulative weather-related disaster exposure, taking into account moderators and mediators across multiple levels of social ecology. Results may inform interventions focused on reducing risk and bolstering resilience factors across systems for youth exposed to multiple disaster events. 

Science and data providers have a critical role gathering, analyzing, and distributing hazard data to communities and decision makers. Though the lifesaving and loss-reducing benefits of these services are clear, not everyone benefits equally. For issues of water quality, quantity, and access, it is not always clear how this information is used or where gaps exist, stymieing vulnerability reduction efforts. The U.S. Geological Survey is working to better understand the needs and challenges of our partners and the communities we serve by identifying opportunities to reduce data gaps, and to improve access and delivery of our hazard-related science and data. Incorporating diverse perspectives, this project will draw from academics, decision makers and communities to understand how and where USGS water-hazard data and expertise is used across the emergency management cycle, and to identify the gaps and opportunities for data collection, analysis, and delivery that USGS can help fill.

This poster describes a report tracing the 70-year history of the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) from the founding of its predecessor in 1951 to the present. The story of how these institutions developed and evolved can inform current strategy about EMI’s future. EMI trains primarily state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) officials in emergency management (EM). It also trains some federal officials and leaders in the nonprofit and private sectors and provides course materials for higher education. 

Emergency managers have been asked to respond to a growing number of hazards and disasters, including nontraditional missions, such as managing pandemic response and addressing homelessness. EMI will need to adapt to increasing EM responsibilities by building new partnerships and training professionals in disaster management skills applicable to a wide variety of events. EMI also has an opportunity to grow from a technically focused institution into a thought leader and educator of the next generation of EM leaders. 

The document analysis included government documents, research reports, peer-reviewed literature, and current and historical EMI materials. The primary data sources were documents, but interviews and discussions with five current or former senior EMI staff members with long tenures added context. 

The COVID-19 pandemic proliferated in many portions of the United States during March and April of 2020, coinciding with the seasonal increased risk of tornadoes in the central and eastern United States. Protective behaviors for tornadoes conflicted with the recommended COVID-19 protective behaviors. It was particularly challenging for any household that planned to seek shelter from tornado threats at a location other than home, such as a public shelter or home of a family member or friend. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, our research goal was to understand risk perception and intended sheltering behaviors among residents of tornado-prone states and analyze whether these views changed between spring 2020 and late summer that same year. This poster depicts the study we designed to investigate this topic. We collected approximately 3,000 surveys in late May 2020 and then again in late July and early August across more than 20 states. We intentionally oversampled households in mobile or manufactured homes to capture the perception of people living in vulnerable housing units. We applied the random forest classification technique to identify significant variables that explain people's risk perception and sheltering behaviors. Our results indicated changes in tornado risk perception and sheltering intentions from May to August; and influences on perception and intended behaviors related to different housing types, National Weather Service regions, urban and rural settings, political affiliations, and household demographics. The result has implications for future tornado sheltering preparations.  

In the last few years, people in Puerto Rico have been navigating multiple disaster cycles concurrently, including back-to-back hurricanes, an earthquake sequence, and the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. In this poster, we share research on risk communication in Puerto Rico. Building on that research, we also elaborate on how we are advancing an inclusive and equitable space where residents as knowledge holders, academics, citizen scientists, government officials, and non-governmental organizations co-produce convergence research to improve how disaster risk is framed and how communities are engaged to support mitigation, adaptation, and preparedness decision-making.  

Morbidity among refugees in humanitarian emergencies is not well-studied and likely underestimated. Disasters and emergencies often exacerbate existing health conditions and disparities present in countries of origin. Increasing displacement due to climate change and conflict will increase health needs of displaced persons, which are essential to understand for inclusive disaster risk reduction (DRR). Having basic epidemiologic profiles of displaced populations is imperative for effective and inclusive (DRR), but several logistical challenges impede data collection among displaced populations during humanitarian emergencies. To support the inclusion of displaced populations in DRR planning and practice, we assess between- and within-country of origin disease distribution among refugees using data from Médecins du Monde (MdM) clinics in mainland Grecian refugee camps from 2016-2017. 

Prevalence proportions for respiratory, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and endocrine diseases were calculated using clinical and prescribing data from MdM clinics. A z-test of independent proportions was used to compare prevalence among Afghan and Syrian refugees with clinical consultations. Among Afghans with MdM consultations, 49.24% had at least 1 respiratory condition compared to 33.98% of Syrians (PR: 1.45, 95% CI: 1.37, 1.53). The combined prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders was 3.62%. For non-communicable diseases, both hypertension and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) were lower for in-camp Afghan and Syrian populations relative to country of origin. The prevalence of hypertension was significantly lower among Afghans than Syrians (PR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.32 - 0.67), but the burden of NIDDM and both hypertension and NIDDM was similar between populations. 

Disaster studies have largely been focused on the vulnerability paradigm for a long time. And rightly so, as certain groups of people are more vulnerable to hazards than others. Gender is one of the markers determining the degree of vulnerability. However, it is often used interchangeably with “women” based on the binary categorization, reducing it to a demographic variable denied of any voice, context, or history. The Hijra community (oldest known ethnic transgender group in India) is one such group that has faced the consequences of this interpretation. Their vulnerabilities to hazards stem from the experience of their everyday lives, throughout which they have been “Othered” by their families and society at large. This Othering happens differently based on the prejudice and stigma inculcated by a very colonial historical narrative and the resulting exclusionary policies and practices. This poster describes a qualitative research project set in Odisha, India, which explores disasters from a Queer theory viewpoint and Social Constructivism through a critical ethnography approach. Looking at their experience of the devastating Cyclone Fani of 2019, this research tries to reconstruct the idea of disasters from their viewpoint while investigating the root causes of their vulnerabilities and the sources of their capacities. It unpacks the broad vulnerable ‘categories’ to look at the diversity and their intersectionality with other socio-economic factors beyond their Western understanding and how these categories often are at risk of turning into labels. Finally, it looks at the role of inclusive policies in propagating inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction. 

Due to climate change, disaster-related losses are rising across the United States. One of the most effective risk reduction and disaster adaptation techniques is the acquisition of hazard-prone housing and conversion of the land to open space (i.e., “buyouts”). Currently, there is a focus on educational and training materials about buyout grant programs, but there is limited guidance for communities to develop and implement an open space management strategy for buyout lands.  

The Open Space Management Guide seeks to fill that void. While this guide focuses on buyouts funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), many of the lessons are applicable to state and locally supported buyout programs. This guide is based on three interrelated parts: (1) applying land use planning and landscape design procedures and processes; (2) framing open space management design, implementation, and long-term maintenance within FEMA’s buyout rules and regulations; and (3) describing the supporting resources (funding, policy, and technical assistance) needed to develop and implement an open space management strategy. Currently, the lack of support to develop and implement an open space management strategy has proved challenging for communities with lower capacity. The Open Space Management Guide addresses this challenge by describing a broader set of resources available to empower communities to transform buyout properties into community assets that align with goals advanced by a network of partners. The guide includes checklists, tips, process diagrams, matrices, case studies, and call-out boxes spanning a range of issues and tasks associated with open space management. 

The Coastal Hazard Overlay District project is a grant-funded initiative to develop a tool to help coastal communities become more resilient to local climate hazards. Overlay districts are often used to modify aspects of building design and site planning in specific areas spanning various land uses and zoning. Coastal Hazard Overlay Districts would employ a range of risk-reduction strategies to help reduce the effects of hazards such as floods, storm surge, wind, and erosion. The purpose is to accommodate development in low-risk areas and foster more resilient development in those areas exposed to hazards. The research team worked with coastal cities in Mississippi and Alabama to test the concept of Coastal Hazard Overlay Districts, “ground truthing” ideas, processes, and specific risk-reduction techniques in actual communities to assess how well the concept works on the ground. These important lessons are being used to inform the creation of a Coastal Hazard Overlay District guidebook and other materials that communities across the Gulf Coast and other parts of the United States can use to further disaster resilience goals. Participation of the pilot communities included engagement in a series of planning workshops, one held in each participating community with city staff and other stakeholders. The goal of the workshops was to develop the Coastal Hazard Overlay District concept with each participating city and consider its geography and the desired building, infrastructure, landscape, and site-planning approaches within the defined overlay district.  

Despite their documented need for support, many underserved communities struggle to access the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grants. To increase access to these grants, FEMA asked researchers from North Carolina State University to assess the potential to develop a national network of university experts that would bolster FEMA’s direct technical assistance (DTA) program. This poster describes our research design and early results. Interviews were conducted to begin assessing the capacity to implement this network model. Interviewees were selected based on their experience partnering with underserved communities to apply for or implement a FEMA HMA grant. Interviews revealed findings focused on the following topic areas: (a) the ways in which the interviewees have successfully partnered with communities, (a) the capacities at the institution, program, or individual level that allowed them to successfully partner with communities, and (c) the barriers to providing effective support to communities. For the project's next phase, interview responses will inform a national survey of experts. This survey will evaluate the willingness and capacity of university experts to make a long-term commitment to join the DTA network. Based on the survey results, the research team will develop an implementation framework, to include how university faculty will be compensated for their efforts. While the survey results are forthcoming, this study will provide the information necessary to establish an early version of this new model of DTA, with the expectation that it will allow more underserved communities to access FEMA HMA grants and university expertise. 

In July 2021, the swollen waters of the Rhine and Ahr Rivers rushed through communities in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, destroying homes and infrastructure and claiming the lives of nearly 200 people. Our research, funded by NASA, examines the information flows from the early warnings of satellite imagery down to the community-level sirens warning people of impending danger. Warnings were issued by the German National Weather Service on July 12 describing the impending dangerous weather conditions and predicted widespread damages. Because of the decentralized governance and communication systems, the messaging was inconsistently distributed, which undermined coordinated responses. Warnings were issued for several towns along the Rhine River; however, flood risk was downplayed for the Ahr Valley. Missteps left the public uninformed and resulted in circumstances like the residents of Erftstadt experienced where sirens sounded the first warnings overnight on July 14, and firefighters went door-to-door warning residents to flee to higher ground as the Erft River flooded the town. Reasons explaining why these events unfolded as they did are complicated and intertwined with issues of governance. To explore this event, we use system dynamics modeling to describe information flow from centralized data sources through agencies, governance structures, and communication channels down to the impacted populations. People decided to evacuate or not based on the credibility, timeliness, and urgency of the messaging. Using system dynamics modeling, we identify critical points in the information flow processes and how effective, timely, contextualized, and credible feedback in those processes could improve outcomes. 

Older adults in nursing homes were extremely vulnerable to death or injury during Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters, increasing the focus on nursing home emergency preparedness. After these events, nursing home administrators and direct care employees reported the challenges involved in responding to the needs of patients in their care during emergencies and other reporting revealed numerous emergency preparedness insufficiencies in these facilities. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) added new requirements for emergency preparedness to the existing fire safety requirements for regulated nursing homes. Under the new CMS requirements, regulated nursing homes are required to submit deficiency evaluations, which are the only routinely collected source of information detailing compliance with the Emergency Preparedness Rule for regulated facilities. This poster describes a study aiming to provide a baseline assessment of nursing home facility characteristics associated with having an Emergency Preparedness Rule deficiency citation. This study will test the Organization-Based Conceptual Framework that relates internal and organizational factors to Emergency Preparedness Rule deficiencies for CMS regulated nursing homes. No research to date has presented a nationally representative picture of CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule deficiency citations in nursing homes. The resulting data can be used to evaluate facility compliance with the new federal guidelines and the overall effectiveness of the new requirements toward improving the emergency preparedness of U.S. nursing homes. Additionally, studying CMS Emergency Preparedness Rule deficiencies will provide new information on how complex resident safety issues are in nursing homes.

The aggravating effects of climate change and the growing population in hurricane-prone areas escalate the challenges in large-scale hurricane evacuations. Hurricane preparedness and response strategies extensively rely on the accuracy and timeliness of predicted households’ evacuation decisions, which currently feature psychological-driven linear models that have some significant limitations in practice. Hence, this poster proposes a new methodology for predicting households’ evacuation decisions constructed by easily accessible demographic and resource-related predictors compared to current models with a high reliance on psychological factors. Meanwhile, an enhanced logistic regression (ELR) model that could automatically account for nonlinearities (i.e., univariate and bivariate threshold effects) by an interpretable machine learning approach was developed to secure the accuracy of the results. Specifically, low-depth decision trees were selected for nonlinearity detection to identify the critical thresholds, build a transparent model structure, and solidify the robustness. Then, an empirical dataset collected after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was used to examine the practicability of the new methodology. The results indicate that the enhanced logistic regression (ELR) model has the most convincing performance in explaining the variation of the households’ evacuation decision in model fit and prediction capability compared to previous linear models. It suggests that the proposed methodology could provide a new tool and framework for the emergency management authorities to improve the estimation of evacuation traffic demands in a timely and accurate manner. 

A significant gap exists for most alerting authorities in local jurisdictions across the United States, where the focus has been on technology for message distribution—or how to get the message to those at risk—rather than education, training, and tools to improve message design for imminent threat communication. Indeed, the need for message templates, including appropriate content to populate templates for a range of hazards, has been reinforced by emergency managers and risk communicators across the United States. 

Using the Warning Response Model, this project develops a tool—the Message Design Dashboard (MDD)—that allows emergency managers to write effective and complete messages for public alert and warning. We also develop presentations, training materials, and workshops to educate alerting authorities on how to develop effective public alert and warning messages. We will highlight the work to date on the development of the MDD and our upcoming research activities. 

In the aftermath of a disaster, survivors live in severe conditions for some time. To mitigate these issues and improve conditions in devastated areas, damage mitigation planning before disaster strikes is essential in disaster response institutions and community-based disaster risk reduction activities. This study illustrates the relationship between residents’ anxiety about their post-disaster living conditions and their demands for response to their problems, including medical or welfare services, sanitation issues, and consideration for vulnerable groups. To examine disaster-related perceptions, we conducted a survey with residents in estimated tsunami inundation districts of Kirime area, Inami Town, Wakayama, Japan, between September 12 and October 17, 2022. In the research area, heavy damage by the Nankai Trough Earthquake has been assessed. We asked to distribute two questionnaires to all 640 households in the research area through board members in neighborhood associations in Kirime area. The completed questionnaires were returned to Inami local government through these board members. The number of valid responses in this study was 724. In the questionnaire, we asked the respondents to assume the situation after the Nankai Trough Earthquake. We used exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to analyze the relationship between anxiety and demands for responses to problems. The results showed seven factors related to anxiety about living conditions and five factors related to demands for responses to problems. The results also revealed that the main factors for the perception of the living conditions are stress, psychological problems, living environment, and living supplies. 

Many incarcerated people in Texas prisons have reported insufficient access to drinking water and distrust in its quality. Poor water quality can also exacerbate the effects of extreme heat and other pre-existing health conditions. Access to water and ice is a key feature of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s policies to reduce heat-related illness in Texas prisons. The policies state that water and ice should be available to all incarcerated persons. Few studies have systematically analyzed water quality in prisons and there is no existing research that has evaluated how incarcerated people are provided with water and ice in Texas. We partnered with the Texas Prisons Community Advocates (TPCA) to analyze 309 surveys of persons incarcerated in Texas between October 2018 and December 2020 where incarcerated persons described their experiences with access and quality of water within the prison system. This poster describes our findings that outdated infrastructure, a reliance on staff to distribute water, and a lack of regular cleaning of ice machines and coolers that can result in unsanitary conditions. These results suggest there is poor water quality in Texas prisons, which undermines the state’s heat-related illness mitigation policies increasing risk of heat-related illness.  

The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has been ravaged by a myriad of disasters, including Hurricane Maria, earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic, raising concerns about the health consequences of these compounded with social, political, and financial vulnerability. Currently available literature in Puerto Rico has found that Hurricane Maria has resulted in adverse mental health, increased mortality, complications in the healthcare system, and a particular burden on older adults. However, research on cumulative disaster exposure is scarce and could benefit from qualitative approaches. For this study, we will be conducting in-depth interviews with current residents of Puerto Rico who lived in the U.S. Territory between 2017 and 2022. Participants will be sampled using a convenience sampling approach to recruit approximately 30 participants representing six regions across Puerto Rico to account for different proximity to and potential experiences with disasters. Interviews will explore and describe the experiences of Puerto Ricans who have been exposed to multiple disasters, their physical and mental health trajectories, barriers and protective factors to disaster adjustment, and the contrast between different disaster experiences. Data will be collected between May and July of 2023 and analysis will occur concurrently. This poster will primarily focus on study methods and context, challenges with data collection, and preliminary findings. Overall, the findings of this study can be used to understand multiple disaster exposure, a rarely studied phenomenon, and help inform policy and interventions to address disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery, and ultimately improve health outcomes associated with these events. 

The Center for Collective Impact in Earthquake Science (C-CIES), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), aims to address fundamental science questions related to natural hazards through a novel approach that involves all stakeholders. The C-CIES mission is to increase societal resilience to earthquakes through collective impact (CI) hazard research. Its vision is to become an interdisciplinary research center rooted in equity, diversity, and engagement that helps communities prepare for, withstand, and recover from earthquakes and associated hazards. The center has eight core values: scientific integrity, equity, excellence, diversity, access, justice, inclusion, and collective impact. The center has six goals: (1) Advance basic hazard science and engineering; (2) Establish a foundation for a shared, value-driven understanding of science; (3) Respond to the needs of all communities through user-inspired research; (4) Grow to national prominence; (5) Recruit, retain, and train the next generation of diverse, interdisciplinary scientists; and (6) Develop a framework for impactful geoscience that bridges the science-to-policy gap and improves resilience to geohazards.  

C-CIES adopts the CI model, which brings together a network of community stakeholders to build a common agenda, provide centralized support, continuous communication, mutually reinforcing activities, and develop shared measurement. C-CIES science is currently undertaking pilot projects that address faulting, High-Impact Low-Probability earthquakes, and their impact. Using CI, we aim to change the way geoscience is conducted by answering fundamental community-driven science questions that will have a broad, positive impact on all communities. 

The appropriate use of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been a subject of discussion in recent years. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who helped make the Emotional Intelligence concept popular, described EI as being encapsulated by four elements: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. All four elements have an important role in stakeholder collaboration, particularly in infrastructure resilience. This is because of its interdependency with multiple sectors, where the emotional element is a critical aspect. It is possible that stakeholder collaboration can be improved by emphasizing emotional intelligence as a crucial component. This poster describes a study aiming to examine the relationship between EI and Disaster resilience through a qualitative research approach. The intangible aspects of EI increase the possibility of it being overlooked. Hence, the purpose of this study is to create a conceptual framework on the topic, which will subsequently aid in improving stakeholder collaboration for Disaster Resiliency.  

The mission of the National Science Foundation-supported Natural Hazard and Disaster Reconnaissance (RAPID) Facility, housed at the University of Washington, is to “enable transformative research by providing investigators with the instrumentation, software, and support needed to collect, process, and analyze perishable data from natural hazard events and from disasters.” Aligned with this mission, we aim to increase RAPID Facility’s user base by understanding and addressing research and support needs across multiple disciplines, particularly social science disciplines. This poster presentation will provide an overview of the RAPID Facility, including its purpose, types of instrumentation and support made available to researchers, as well as an opportunity for attendees to ask questions or submit feedback both in-person and via a QR code on the poster. 

Following three years of intense drought in eastern Australia, the bushfires during the “Black Summer” of 2019 to 2020 burned an estimated 60 million acres, destroyed over 3,000 buildings (most of them homes), and was responsible for the deaths of 463 people (34 fire-related, 429 from smoke) and 1 billion animals. To aid in preparing these communities for future hazard events, our team is adapting the Welton-Mitchell Community-Based Disaster Mental Health Intervention, used successfully with flood- and earthquake-affected communities in Haiti and Nepal, for the rural Australian context. This poster describes our efforts to ensure that we are adapting, and ideally, co-designing an intervention that is both effective and successful. We have been actively engaging with members of our target community during the initial project phase and conducted interviews to discuss intervention-relevant experiences associated with the fires. We have also engaged with members of the local Rural Fire Service who were part of the fire response and are currently engaged in hazard reduction activities in the area. Preliminary analyses of these interviews underscore challenges with community cohesion, disagreements about the roles and activities of various community members and services, confusion about future bushfire risk, psychological distress, and limited engagement with existing support services. The project aims to meet identified needs and build on community strengths to enhance resilience in the face of continued bushfire risk. Intervention adaptations are discussed. This work has been funded by the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants Program. 

Researchers have increasingly used longitudinal epidemiologic methods to study the long-term effects of disasters like the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill; however, these methods are susceptible to unique challenges. By design, longitudinal studies introduce the chance that individuals may be lost to follow-up (i.e., attrition), and therefore their experience will be unaccounted for in analyses. Using study data from a cohort of 717 families with children after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, we assessed the factors associated with the likelihood of study attrition. Between 2014 and 2018, 420 (59%) families completed all three surveys, 123 (17%) families missed one survey, 109 (15%) families were lost to follow-up, and 65 (9%) families withdrew after the first survey. Using logistic regression, respondents who reported oil-spill exposure, especially those reporting smelling oil immediately after the spill, were more likely to complete all three surveys (Odds Ratio = 1.49, 95% CI = 1.05 – 2.12). Analyses examining respondent characteristics found that respondent age, marital status, and gender had no association with missing a survey. In contrast, the likelihood of missing at least one survey was nearly two-fold for Black respondents compared to White respondents (Odds Ratio = 1.79, 95% CI = 1.22 – 2.62). Researchers did not have access to reasons for participant dropout (e.g., moving, death, etc.). These analyses can inform retention strategies in studying the long-term health effects of environmental disasters. Further work is needed to know if these attributes will be consistent across hazard types. 

The massive wildfires that hit Oregon in September 2020 had a tremendous impact on the health and well-being of communities across the state and disproportionately impacted working class and low-income communities of color. The Disaster Resilience Learning Network (DRLN) was created to find and bring together Oregon leaders who identify as people of color and work with community-based organizations (CBO) supporting those disproportionately impacted by disasters, especially culturally rooted people. Based on trauma informed, culturally grounded, and healing centered principles combined with Oregon's statewide public health social resilience framework, this pilot program sought to assess the feasibility and relevancy of a statewide network to bring community of color CBO leaders into disaster work.  

Results of interviews, surveys, and participant observation revealed participants felt the content and structure of the pilot was culturally relevant to their work and communities. The Collective in 2022 decided to transition into a Network, leaders across the state shared understandings of resilience embedded in culture, community, and ancestral traditions. Critical feedback offers a model and specific ways in which social workers can facilitate collaboration between government, philanthropy, and culturally specific CBOs to mutual learning and action.  

Prior research has underlined that older adults are just as likely as their younger counterparts to disregard disaster warnings and not comply with official pleas to evacuate. Some studies, however, have reported conflicting findings about how older adults respond to an extreme emergency situation (e.g., rapid onset). Given that older adults are physically and cognitively dissimilar than people in younger age groups, these results raise concerns about the need to modulate risk communication strategies for this population. This poster depicts a study aiming to provide a better understanding of how older adults process risk information. We analyzed a survey of 1,277 households from coastal areas throughout Louisiana and Texas in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Results confirmed respondents aged 70 and over were less likely to comply with evacuation orders. Moreover, older adults had more within-group inconsistency and lower ratings on risk assessments than all other age groups. Mechanically, the 70-and-over age group relied more on personal experience and self-perceived social cues than on a systematic assessment of risk in their decision-making processes. The results implied older adults might be vulnerable due to their self-confidence and self-explanation of perceived threats. Hence, customized risk communication strategies are required to accommodate this age group in ways that enhance their understanding of potential threats and help them recognize the need for evacuation. 

Taiwan is in the Pacific Rim seismic zone where earthquakes occur frequently and have historically caused many serious casualties and significant losses. Taichung Industrial Zone is the metal products and mechanical equipment manufacturing core town in Taichung City. Taichung City, the second largest city in Taiwan, is located on the western seismic belt of Taiwan and has a high degree of earthquake disaster risk. This poster describes a research project focused on corporate disaster prevention strategies through self-help, joint assistance among enterprises, and public sector assistance in responding to the potential of large-scale earthquakes. 

Taiwan's National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction developed the Taiwan Earthquake Impact Research and Information Application (TERIA), an application system for the automatic assessment of earthquake impacts. This poster depicts how TERIA is used to analyze the impact of the Dajia fault movement. Results yielded 16 impact factors in three dimensions related to disaster prevention and response in the industrial zone. The ability of enterprises to independently prevent and respond to disasters was the most important dimension. Leadership commitment and corporate culture, seismic reinforcement, and disaster prevention investment and training were the top three influencing factors in the ranking of weight values. Local governments can use research findings to prepare for and make decisions regarding future earthquakes. 

The United States has sustained more than 340 weather and climate disasters since 1980. Older adults with complex medical conditions are increasing in number and typically one of the groups most severely impacted by such events. A growing population of older, medically complex individuals residing at home, and an increased frequency of severe disasters creates a compounded burden on local communities to reduce potential harm to these community-dwelling members during disaster response and recovery. In response, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) established the Vulnerable Patient Care, Access, and Response in Emergencies (VP CARE) program to provide standardized data tools and guidance to assist VHA medical facilities in conducting outreach to and care coordination of medically frail and older Veterans during major emergencies. VP CARE utilizes geographic information system (GIS) tools to allow outreach prioritization based upon geographic proximity to an event and patient clinical needs. In response to Hurricanes Ian and Fiona, the VP CARE team, with the support of the national VEText team, successfully deployed a new two-way patient texting communication capability. During an emergency, patients receive a text from VEText asking if they require assistance, and, if so, the specific help they need. The new VEText capability helped VHA staff reduce outreach call volume by 20% and allowed for triage and prioritization of those most needing assistance. This poster provides an overview of VP CARE approaches and what VHA has learned through its implementation to assist other healthcare systems with establishing similar capabilities.  

It is a tale as old as time: for centuries, civilization has flocked to rivers and coastlines to reap the benefits of fertile land, easy transport, and sanitation. Today, about 40% of the U.S. population calls a coastal county home, and population growth in coastal counties increased by 34.8 million between 1970 and 2010. Trends continue in this direction despite warning signs that climate-driven hydrological processes will continue to devastate communities in floodplains. Furthermore, although many of our coastal communities are also located in regions where seismic hazards are extremely high, seismic threats are not usually included in discussions about climate-related hazards. In this poster, it is proposed that earthquake hazard is climate hazard; the two are intrinsically linked. A particular focus in this work is the impact of climate change on soil liquefaction hazard. The loose, saturated, sandy soils found in the regions most prone to flooding and erosion are also the soils most susceptible to soil liquefaction during earthquakes. Changing groundwater levels due to sea level rise, drought, and extreme rainfall events will impact the soil’s susceptibility to liquefaction. Liquefaction can cause ground failures, utility line breaks, undesired structural settlements, pavement damage, and even alter the shape of our coastlines. It is critical that we take a holistic view of disaster resilience and incorporate seismic considerations in our discussions about climate change, whether we are talking about engineering adaptations, policy objectives, or ethical obligations to vulnerable communities.