Public Policy Commons^™

Vulnerable Populations And Flooding: A Bay Area County Public Alert And Warning Case Study, Victoria Castro

Master's Projects

Public alert and warning systems are crucial tools that save lives and protect property in times of emergencies. In the past several decades, natural disasters have struck the nation, and effective public alerts and warnings were not disseminated to all impacted populations, calling into question the effectiveness of emergency communication systems (Wimberley, 2012).

As an example, in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, public alert and warning systems reached those who had access to technological devices. However, emergency managers and alerting authorities faced the challenge of alerting all groups, including the homeless and individuals with access and functional …

What Factors Influence The Success Of Soft Story Retrofit Programs? The Example Of San Francisco’S Program, Thanh Thuy Nguyen

Master's Projects

In the event of an earthquake, one of the types of structures that is most susceptible to collapse is soft-story buildings (Association of Bay Area Governments [ABAG], 2016). Built before current regulation and codes were enacted, a soft-story residential building is a building that has commercial space or open parking on the first floor, with units built above it (ABAG, 2016). The first floor has a weak structure and the units above the first floor weigh heavily on it (Arroyo, 2019). Due to their building structure, these properties may sway or collapse during an earthquake, ultimately causing fatalities and damage …