Emergency and Disaster Management Commons^™

Virginia Beach Flood Protection Program Bond Referendum Analysis, Robert Mcnab, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Afi Anuar, Jessica Whitehead

Presentations, Lectures, Posters, Reports

[First paragraph of the Executive Summary]

On November 2, 2021, voters in the City of Virginia Beach will vote on a referendum that determines whether or not the City Council should increase real estate taxes to fund a Flood Protection Program. The proposal accelerates the construction of six flood mitigation projects already in the Virginia Beach Capital Improvement Plan by 3 years, and funds design and construction of 15 additional projects that would also be completed by 2031. This report, jointly produced by Old Dominion University’s Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR) and the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis …

Pandemic Schooling: Lessons In Equity, Advocacy, And Racial Justice, Donna Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It was my fourth year of teaching at a Brooklyn elementary school when the COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings, and the entire city, to enter a world of lockdown and quarantine. New York City was an early epicenter of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and the virus quickly revealed severe racial and socioeconomic disparities across the city. A disproportionate number of cases, serious illnesses, and death has been experienced by low-income Black and Latinx communities. At the same time, 2020 also ushered in a national racial reckoning following the May murder of George Floyd.

In this thesis, I will provide a …

Network Modeling Of Hurricane Evacuation Using Data-Driven Demand And Incident-Induced Capacity Loss Models, Yuan Zhu, Kaan Ozbay, Kun Xie, Hong Yang, Ender Foruk Morgul

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The development of a hurricane evacuation simulation model is a crucial task in emergency management and planning. Two major issues affect the reliability of an evacuation model: one is estimations of evacuation traffic based on socioeconomic characteristics, and the other is capacity change and its influence on evacuation outcome due to traffic incidents in the context of hurricanes. Both issues can impact the effectiveness of emergency planning in terms of evacuation order issuance, and evacuation route planning. The proposed research aims to investigate the demand and supply modeling in the context of hurricane evacuations. This methodology created three scenarios for …

Covid-19 Lockdowns Are Central Planning, Stephen Langeland

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

The panic surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic led politicians to implement lockdowns and issue “stay-at-home” orders that follow in a long line of government attempts over the past century at economic central planning. With only a few notable exceptions among the several states, elected officials and bureaucrats seized on emergency powers afforded them by the onset of the novel coronavirus. In mid-March 2020 the publishing of the now infamous epidemiological models gave governments the sensational information they needed to get the wheels of government planners turning. The present government-induced crisis once again demonstrates that the intellectuals of the ruling class responsible …

Study On Emergency Response Mechanism And Treatment Technology Of Lng Releasing On/Under Water, Bin Zhang

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Cruise Ship Mass Rescue Operation In The East China Sea : Take Shanghai Search And Rescue Region As An Example, Xun Cao

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Factors Associated With Voluntary Refusal Of Emergency Medical System Transport For Emergency Care In Detroit During The Early Phase Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nicholas E. Harrison, Robert R. Ehrman, Andrea Curtin, Damon Gorelick, Alex B. Hill, Erin Brennan, Robert Dunne

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Importance
Emergency department (ED) and emergency medical services (EMS) volumes decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the amount attributable to voluntary refusal vs effects of the pandemic and public health restrictions is unknown.

Objective
To examine the factors associated with EMS refusal in relation to COVID-19 cases, public health interventions, EMS responses, and prehospital deaths.

Design, Setting, and Participants
A retrospective cohort study was conducted in Detroit, Michigan, from March 1 to June 30, 2020. Emergency medical services responses geocoded to Census tracts were analyzed by individuals’ age, sex, date, and community resilience using the Centers for Disease Control and …

Building Resilient Education Systems: A Rapid Review Of The Education In Emergencies Literature, Pina Tarricone, Kemran Mestan, Ian Teo

International Education Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and inequalities of national education systems and hindered the education of millions of children globally. In response, the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, which is a long-term, strategic partnership between the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), undertook a rapid review of literature to support policymakers. The research has six evidence-based outcomes that can help policymakers to build resilient education systems and thereby enhance education quality and equity during emergencies. The COVID-19 emergency provided the impetus for this research, with much of …

The Impact Of Global Crises On Women: The Case Of Covid-19 In Egypt, Nour A. Dokhan

Theses and Dissertations

Any global crisis is expected to affect every human being, but for women it is always twice as hard. In the case of Covid-19, women are more affected across every domain, from social protection to health, simply because if their gender. This research explores the impact of Covid-19 on women, both economically and socially, with the focus on the case of Egypt. It explores the systematic gender inequalities in the economic, social, and health spheres using cases from previous crises, and how this gender inequality and vulnerability has resulted in much worse consequences of Covid-19 than that of men. The …

Year-Independent Prediction Of Food Insecurity Using Classical & Neural Network Machine Learning Methods, Caleb Christiansen, Torrey J. Wagner, Brent Langhals

Faculty Publications

Current food crisis predictions are developed by the Famine Early Warning System Network, but they fail to classify the majority of food crisis outbreaks with model metrics of recall (0.23), precision (0.42), and f1 (0.30). In this work, using a World Bank dataset, classical and neural network (NN) machine learning algorithms were developed to predict food crises in 21 countries. The best classical logistic regression algorithm achieved a high level of significance (p < 0.001) and precision (0.75) but was deficient in recall (0.20) and f1 (0.32). Of particular interest, the classical algorithm indicated that the vegetation index and the food price index were both positively correlated with food crises. A novel method for performing an iterative multidimensional hyperparameter search is presented, which resulted in significantly improved performance when applied to this dataset. Four iterations were conducted, which resulted in excellent 0.96 for metrics of precision, recall, and f1. Due to this strong performance, the food crisis year was removed from the dataset to prevent immediate extrapolation when used on future data, and the modeling process was repeated. The best “no year” model metrics remained strong, achieving ≥0.92 for recall, precision, and f1 while meeting a 10% f1 overfitting threshold on the test (0.84) and holdout (0.83) datasets. The year-agnostic neural network model represents a novel approach to classify food crises and outperforms current food crisis prediction efforts.

Global Journey To Post-Pandemic Normalcy And Revival, Andrzej Sankowski

Journal of Global Awareness

After a year of COVID-19, countries, societies, and individuals are longing for normalcy and beginning to consider what life will be like post-pandemic. Efforts and experiences of countries in the European Union, Asia, Asia-Pacific, Australia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States are examined as they face challenges to end the pandemic and prepare for the post-pandemic reality. What will be the post-pandemic "new normalcy"? What changes caused by the pandemic are permanent in societies and the world? What are the necessary reforms that have to take place as part of normalcy? Reflections on the impacts of vaccinations, …

Building Back Healthier: The Role Of Public Health In State Disaster Recovery Law, Claire Pendergrast, Nicole Errett

Population Health Research Brief Series

When communities are impacted by disasters, state officials must implement efficient and competent recovery strategies with the health and wellbeing of residents in mind. This research brief summarizes findings from a peer-reviewed study showing that few U.S. states explicitly integrate public health into their disaster recovery laws, and the types of public health requirements and authorizations vary substantially across states.

Security Concerns Vs. Monied Interests?: The Role Of Agenda Setting In Homeland Security, Andrew Christopher Ziegler

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This paper applies public policy concepts such as agenda setting, resource allocation, lobbying, and campaign rhetoric to the field of homeland security. The analysis examines the allocation of resources among the U.S. federal government’s five broad homeland security priorities during the fiscal years of 2012-2017. An overemphasis on border security has led to a disproportionate allocation of resources among these various priorities. The uneven distribution is the summation of electoral ambitions, campaign contributions, and corporate lobbying. This analysis highlights the negative consequences that are a direct result of an unbalanced allotment, cumulating in a slow and uncoordinated federal response to …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of Research Trends Of Inter Linkages Between Disaster Management And Law, Shashikala Gurpur Dr., Manika Kamthan Dr., Vartika Tiwari Ms.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study is the bibliometric analysis of research publications that focus on highlighting the inter linkages between disaster management and laws. The main objectives of the study are to determine the frequency of such publications and also to establish that inter linkages between disaster management and law have not received enough attention from the researchers. The data was collected from the Scopus database using VOSviewer software. Literatures written from 2000 to 2020 were perused. The study consisted of a total of 1649 documents which are classified into articles, letters, editorials conference papers, and reviews. Data collected is analyzed and presented …

Incorporating Universal Design Into Tsunami Modeling Results For Cascadia Subduction Zone Faults To Create An Inundation Map And Universally Designed Evacuation Map For Port Angeles, Wa, Hannah Rose Spero, Breanyn Macinnes, Naomi J. Petersen

Student Published Works

Current tsunami hazard inundation and evacuation maps in the Puget Sound are based primarily on Cascadia and Seattle fault tsunamis. The standard evaluation process for tsunami impacts focuses on elevation and hypothetical fault rupture of known and predicted earthquakes. However, there are several known tsunami deposits in the Puget Sound that are not from Cascadia or Seattle fault tsunamis, potentially from other faults within the region, that could affect tsunami mitigation. Work to understand newly discovered crustal deformation and faults in Puget Sound is ongoing, therefore evacuation and inundation maps need to be updated to include these new faults and …

To New Geographies: Implementing U.S. Department Of Energy Order 151.1d, Comprehensive Emergency Management System, Eric B. Sussman

Capstone Collection

Emergency Management programs at National Nuclear Security Administration facilities are governed by federal policy directive Department of Energy Order 151.1D, Comprehensive Emergency Management System. The prescriptions within the Order are often at odds with industry-standard frameworks and vocabularies established by the Department of Homeland Security. Boleman and Deal’s Four Frame Model offers the tenets of the Political, Structural, Human Resource, and Symbolic lens perspectives to clarify the nature of disparate programs precipitant from disparate agency policies. This project utilizes a Phenomenological Interpretivist Framework for qualitative research to triangulate data across textual analyses, public perception, and practitioner experience, thus identifying …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

Amber Alert System: An Analysis On How Access To Technology Has Affected Effectiveness, Elizabeth Balcom

Master's Projects

This research was conducted to examine whether the introduction of Wireless Electronic Alerts (WEAs) to the AMBER Alert system in 2012 has impacted the effectiveness of the system from 2009 to 2019.

Social Worker’S Adjustment And Perception When Dealing With Double-Exposure During A Natural Disaster, Magaly Santos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Limited research captures the perceptions and adjustments of social workers living and providing treatment in the same communities during a disaster. Few studies have captured the stressors and responsibilities put on social workers during an ongoing disaster. This paper reports the findings of the double-exposure captured using a qualitative approach in collecting interviews from nine mental health professionals who continued working during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. A constructivist paradigm was used to capture each participant’s reality. Participants described the sudden change to remote work as difficult when having to find the balance between work and life demands, providing …

Uri And Its Students: A Contract For The Provision Of A Safe Environment, Danielle Joan Beatrice

Senior Honors Projects

DANIELLE BEATRICE (English; Philosophy; Business) URI and Its Students: A Contract for the Provision of a Safe Environment

Sponsor: Judith Swift (Communication Studies, Coastal Institute)

When students begin to attend college, they expect to be consumed with busy schedules, heavy workloads, and an exciting social life. Students do not anticipate being in dangerous situations. However, this does not mean that such situations do not occur. Therefore, it is essential to teach students to be active participants in educating themselves and their peers regarding prevention and response to emergency situations. My Honors Project aims to increase the awareness of safety-related issues …

Studying Successful Ageing: A Showcase Of The Singapore Life Panel, Jee Yuen Yew, Jia Wei Gwee, Anirudh Srivathsan

ROSA Research Briefs

In this special issue of the ROSA Research Brief Series, we showcase two aspects of the work being done at the Centre for Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA). Firstly, we showcase the capabilities of the Singapore Life Panel (SLP) and the data that the SLP is able to obtain and measure on a monthly basis. Secondly, we showcase the amazing work of the SGUnited Traineeship Programme’s Research Assistants at ROSA who have proven themselves to be incredible assets in helping further ROSA’s aims of enabling successful ageing in Singapore. ROSA aims to measure well-being among older adults holistically in order …

Multifidelity Prediction In Wildfire Spread Simulation: Modeling, Uncertainty Quantification And Sensitivity Analysis, Mario Miguel Valero, Lluís Jofre, Ricardo Torres

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Wildfire behavior predictions typically suffer from significant uncertainty. However, wildfire modeling uncertainties remain largely unquantified in the literature, mainly due to computing constraints. New multifidelity techniques provide a promising opportunity to overcome these limitations. Therefore, this paper explores the applicability of multifidelity approaches to wildland fire spread prediction problems. Using a canonical simulation scenario, we assessed the performance of control variates Monte-Carlo (MC) and multilevel MC strategies, achieving speedups of up to 100x in comparison to a standard MC method. This improvement was leveraged to quantify aleatoric uncertainties and analyze the sensitivity of the fire rate of spread (RoS) to …

Efficiency With Covid-19: Home Vs. Dillon’S Rule States, Jason Kolb

Political Science Theses and Capstones

How does a state measure success when dealing with a pandemic like Covid-19? Can Dillon’s Rule keep their citizens happy and protected during a pandemic better then Home Rule? When local governments wait for the state to create policies, is this the best option for the state? Data will show a trend that states with a higher preemption rate have kept the death rate lower when dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic

Preparing For Wildfire Evacuation And Alternatives: Exploring Influences On Residents’ Intended Evacuation Behaviors And Mitigations, Amanda M. Stasiewicz, Travis B. Paveglio

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Understanding residents' intended evacuation behaviors is an increasingly important component of managing complex wildfire events in the United States and elsewhere. Growing evidence suggests that local populations consider a range of potential evacuation behaviors during fire events, yet fewer efforts explore rural residents' evacuation intentions or their relationship to wildfire mitigations that reduce risk or aid in fire suppression. This study explores evacuation intentions among wildland-urban interface residents in Pend Oreille County, Washington, USA. We explore how mitigation performance (e.g., fuel reduction efforts, structure improvements, active firefighting preparation) differs across three emergent categories of evacuation intentions and evaluate whether a …

Factors In Disaster Response In Mexico, Central America, And The Caribbean, Ashleigh Daugherty

Honors Theses

This research examines the impacts that existing factors can have on the outcome of natural disasters. In order to study this question more thoroughly than previous research, this paper conducts a small n study on the Middle America region through case studies in Mexico, El Salvador, and Haiti. Each of these case studies are evaluated by their outcomes of severe earthquakes and the conditions in which these earthquakes occurred. These conditions being: their economies, governances, and pre-existing natural disaster plans. The analysis of these indicators attempts to understand why certain countries perform better in natural disasters compared to others. In …

A Comparative Analysis Of Distribution And Allocation Of Covid-19 Vaccines Between Two Administrations, Leila Halawi, J. Mayanja, J. Chilipamushi, Y. Zhang, B Albury, Jude Edwards

Publications

The pandemic of COVID-19 is a life-threatening disease that entailed all governments but especially the U.S government, to quickly prevent methods of spreading the virus while strategically putting in place a plan for biological testing for a vaccine for immunity. The purpose was to determine how effective the formulation of a COVID-19 vaccine and the distribution would impact the mortality with efficacy rates. Besides, this research paper underlines the principles for ethical and equitable distribution for mass immunization. A comparative analysis between the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration will be presented regarding the funding stream, distribution of vaccinations, and …

Resident Safety During Disasters: Response To The Covid-19 Pandemic In Hampton Roads Area Nursing Homes, Tihara Richardson

College of Business (Strome) Posters

The communal nature of long-term care facilities (LTCFs), and the population served which includes older adults often with underlying medical conditions, put those living in LTCFs at increased risk of infection and severe illness from COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has further illuminated gaps in LTCFs disaster preparedness as they have lacked the resources necessary to contain the outbreak, including tests and personal protective equipment, and underpaid and undertrained staff. The purpose of this research is to examine resident safety in nursing homes within the Hampton Roads region during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to examine the association between nursing …

Information Communication Technology And Emergency Management Communication: Lessons From The 2020 ‘Hurricane-Pandemic’ Wave, Ren-Neasha Blake, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

College of Business (Strome) Posters

The coronavirus pandemic [COVID-19] forged new roles, dynamics, and systems across the public administration and policy domain. The hurricane season approached just a few months after the COVID-19 outbreak and necessitated swift emergency management response. The usual planning for the hurricane season grappled with pandemic threats, clouds of fear, and the urgent need for reconfigured strategies. Policy practitioners, academicians, and non-government officials convened to construct and deconstruct cross-sector plans for navigating the hurricane-pandemic wave. These tweaked strategies were necessary for coastal communities like Hampton Roads that are prone to extreme weather events. Information communication technology (ICT) was at the forefront …

Leadership In Collaborative Emergency Management And Resilience, Norah Alshayhan, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

College of Business (Strome) Posters

Emergency management and resilience are key concepts and functions that are vital for mitigating risks of hazards and reducing the impacts of disasters. Public sector leaders within the emergency management and resilience domains play a critical role in leading the organization and its staff and partners in achieving these goals of risk mitigation and disaster impact reduction. This research investigates the skills and competencies that emergency management and resilience leaders need to be successful in collaborations to deal with emergencies and disasters today and in a post-COVID world. The study will employ a postpositivist case study design using interviews as …

The Evacuation Behaviors And Risk Perceptions Of College Students In Coastal Communities, Saige Hill, Wie Yusuf

College of Business (Strome) Posters

Effective emergency management saves lives. The role of an emergency manager is to implement policies and practices to ensure disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery to promote community resilience; however, there are many factors that may hinder goal achievement. The False Alarm and Desensitization Model explores this concept by illustrating how evacuation behaviors and risk perceptions are influenced by individual experiences. Specifically, the Model demonstrates how disaster event false alarms and desensitization decrease the likelihood of adequate response during subsequent events.

False alarms and desensitization impede disaster preparation and perpetuate community vulnerability. This research highlights the false alarm theory of …