Daan Liang

Simplified Method for Evaluating the Impact of a Transportation Network on Posthurricane Access to Healthcare Facilities

AbstractTo estimate the impact of Hurricane Ike of 2008 on local communities, service areas of hospitals and corresponding service populations were calculated at both the county and facility levels within the Houston metropolitan statistical area. A hospital access indicator was defined to measure the level of access to medical services when compared to the prestorm level. The result indicated that the hospital access indicator reached its lowest value on the next day after the hurricane landfall due to lane closures and hospital shutdowns before showing a steady comeback. However, the recovery was briefly interrupted around September 18, 2008, as a result of road closures to remove debris on State Highway 146. Access to hospitals nearly returned to the prestorm level by the end of October 2008. Simulations were then performed to identify priorities for repairing damaged roads in order to minimize storm’s adverse impact. This paper offered a simplified method to measure, monitor, and analyze the effect of...

Empirical Analysis of Building Permits in Response to Hurricane Landfalls

AbstractEach year, hurricanes cause massive amounts of damage around the world. Because the construction industry plays an important role in almost every aspect of mitigation and recovery efforts, a high priority shall be given to identify ways in which the industry is affected by hurricanes and rebounds afterward. The disruption of building construction is discussed, and the statistical relationship between hurricane landfalls and observed changes in new building permits at the county level is investigated in the paper. The result shows that a storm can have either a temporary or permanent impact on a community but not both. For the temporary impact case, the level of construction activities is lowered in some counties in the sample following a hurricane landfall but quickly recovers to the prestorm norm. In contrast, the permanent impact shifts the mean value of the time series and results in lasting losses in future years. The observed disparity could be used to assess the capability of coastal communi...

Development, specification and validation of Hurricane Resiliency Index

Combination of well-chosen indicators into a composite Hurricane Resiliency Index is proposed to assess and monitor hurricane resiliency level of coastal communities across geographical boundaries and the changing process over time. The index is constructed nonparametrically by assigning fixed standardization factors as weights to each of the indicators. The validation addresses the question of whether the index is representative of the resiliency dimensions of interest. Results from cross-correlation calculation and binary interaction regression model show that Hurricane Resiliency Index has the capability to broadly measure the dynamics of regional economic activities, and a higher value tends to have a greater mitigating effect over the hurricane impacts.

Expenditure on Snow and Ice Control for Roadway Maintenance

AbstractThis paper presents the relationships between various winter weather conditions and the total expenditure on purchasing and applying snow and ice control materials and operation costs (labo...

Predictors for the Number of Warning Information Sources During Tornadoes

People may receive tornado warnings from multiple information sources, but little is known about factors that affect the number of warning information sources (WISs). This study examined predictors for the number of WISs with a telephone survey on randomly sampled residents in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri, approximately 1 year after both cities were struck by violent tornadoes (EF4 and EF5) in 2011. The survey included 1006 finished interviews and the working sample included 903 respondents. Poisson regression and Zero-Inflated Poisson regression showed that older age and having an emergency plan predicted more WISs in both cities. Education, marital status, and gender affected the possibilities of receiving warnings and the number of WISs either in Joplin or in Tuscaloosa. The findings suggest that social disparity affects the access to warnings not only with respect to the likelihood of receiving any warnings but also with respect to the number of WISs. In addition, historical and social contexts are important for examining predictors for the number of WISs. We recommend that the number of WISs should be regarded as an important measure to evaluate access to warnings in addition to the likelihood of receiving warnings. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:168-172).

Introduction to Symposium on “The Power of Wind: Energy and Natural Disasters”

Wind is a powerful force. On the one hand, as a natural and renewable resource, wind provides a means to produce electricity and reduce carbon emissions. On the other hand, in the form of hurricanes and tornadoes, wind can cause devastating destruction to the physical and built environment. This symposium brings together five papers that span the range of wind as a powerful force in nature and the economy. One of the papers examines the economics of wind energy. The paper by Payne, et al. identifies the economic impacts of the wind energy industry in the case of Illinois. The power of wind in the form of natural disasters is considered in three other papers. Scott and Liang look at underlying economic factors of wind hazard mitigation. Kevin Simmons shows a sharp price increase of plywood caused by Hurricane Andrew. Cui and Liang propose a new financial approach for hedging the risk of hurricanes. The final paper in the symposium by Sutter and Ewing looks at the economic value of improved hurricane forecasts in the context of industry and disasters, and how resources might best be used to save lives, build resilient economies, and extend the value of wind-based knowledge. Collectively, these five papers demonstrate the complexity of wind-related problems and opportunities in need of more innovative, interdisciplinary solutions. This is an area where collaboration between engineers and economists would make a significant contribution to new knowledge and effective practices.