DRU: Integrated optimization of evacuation and mass care sheltering for hurricanes

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DRU: Integrated optimization of evacuation and sheltering for hurricanesPI: Rachel Davidson, University of Delaware (UD). Participating Institution: Cornell University.ABSTRACTThe goal of this project is to improve understanding of and decision support for evacuation and mass case sheltering in hurricanes. The task of moving tens or even hundreds of thousands of people from a wide geographic area in only a few days or hours under uncertain, dangerous conditions, getting them to safe locations, and keeping them safe until they can return home is an extraordinarily complicated process, and as Hurricane Katrina made abundantly clear, the stakes are high. Despite a lot of progress, recent events and unchecked population growth in hurricane-prone regions assure us that many challenges remain. The traditional, conservative approach of evacuating everyone thought to be at risk is no longer feasible in many areas in which there are simply too many people and too little transportation capacity. We propose a fundamentally new approach. In the past, math modeling in this application has been limited to estimating the time required to clear a region, assuming many characteristics of the problem are uncontrollable input (e.g., shelter locations). Instead, we will develop sophisticated optimization models with an expanded decision frame that focuses on higher-level objectives, such as minimizing life loss, cost, and inequity, and considers the full range of strategic and operational evacuation and sheltering strategies in meeting those objectives, including for example, vertical evacuation and strategically locating shelters. These models will be developed through a tight interaction between sociologists and engineers to ensure they are firmly grounded in the reality of people?s behavior. For the first time, the models will be based on individual hurricane scenarios instead of conservative aggregations of many events, and they will be dynamic, accounting for the fact that officials can update their decisions as an event unfolds and information about the situation changes. The project has 5 main steps: (1) determine a set of hurricane scenarios for use in evacuation and shelter models such that they appropriately represent the full range of possible events, but are few enough to allow detailed analysis with each; (2) conduct focus groups of key decisionmakers and stakeholders to identify and characterize appropriate decision objectives, constraints, assumptions, and possible evacuation and shelter management strategies; (3) using the focus group input, develop two mathematical optimization models?one long-term strategic and one short-term operational?for evacuation and sheltering decisions; (4) conduct surveys of affected citizens to ensure that the optimization model assumptions and results make sense; and (5) demonstrate the models through case studies in North Carolina and Florida. Any evacuation and sheltering planning effort is only as effective as its weakest link, so it requires a broad range of expertise from marine science, transportation engineering, risk modeling, optimization, and behavioral research collaborating closely. We have assembled this expertise on the project team.This project will help begin to transform the way hurricane evacuation and sheltering are conducted in the U.S., addressing many of the known limitations of the current approach. The new understanding and optimization models developed in this project will help local and state emergency managers better plan for hurricane evacuation and sheltering, thus reducing the deaths, injuries, and unnecessary expense associated with poorly planned or executed response in future hurricanes. By collaborating throughout the project with state and local emergency management departments and the American Red Cross, the key agencies in charge of hurricane evacuation and sheltering, we will ensure that study results are disseminated to practitioners as quickly and effectively as possible. Three graduate students will participate in all aspects of the research, each with at least two of the co-PIs on their committees to ensure tight integration. By providing a substantive example of truly interdisciplinary disaster research, the project will help facilitate the transformation of the well-known Disaster Research Center, historically based in sociology, into an interdisciplinary center. It will also help to launch the new interdisciplinary graduate program in Disaster Science and Management at the University of Delaware.