 Fall 2005 |
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In the Hurricanes’ Wake
Georgia Tech experts respond to Katrina and Rita with research, training and service projects. by Jane M. Sanders |
THE MASSIVE IMPACT of Hurricane Katrina and her cousin Rita this past summer captured the nation’s attention and compelled many to respond.
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At the Georgia Institute of Technology, experts across campus responded with research, training and service projects. Among their goals are better infrastructure design, configuration of port operations to reduce down time, protection of cleanup and construction workers, and accessibility to services and housing for hurricane victims with disabilities.
“During the coming months and years, there will be many opportunities for the talents of our unique community to help our fellow citizens in the impacted areas recover from this stunning disaster,” says Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough.
Following are some of the efforts already under way.
Structural Damage and Port Recovery Assessments
With a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering David Frost organized three teams of researchers, including graduate students, to conduct week-long field studies. They assessed infrastructure damage in the Gulf Coast region in September and October.
Frost and his colleagues have conducted numerous post-disaster reconnaissance studies following major natural and human-induced events, including earthquakes in Asia and California, the Indian Ocean tsunami and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City.
“These studies have yielded significant new insights into both the characteristics of the events as well as the performance of manmade infrastructure subjected to these catastrophic events,” notes Frost, who is director of Georgia Tech’s Savannah, Ga., campus.
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One of the research teams – led by Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Glenn Rix – is determining the link between physical damage from Hurricane Katrina and the operational capacity and recovery of Gulf Coast ports, including the Port of New Orleans. Meanwhile, researchers led by Frost are analyzing wind and storm surge damage data they collected from across the Gulf Coast region.
The studies may help define a zone that is potentially subject to certain types of damage. Then engineers could design structures within a certain distance of the shore to a higher standard than those farther inland, Frost explains. For example, in Savannah, one set of building codes applies to structures on the east side of Interstate 95 and another set to buildings on the west side of the highway.
“We may learn from this research that you need more stringent building codes if you build within one mile of the coast,” Frost says. “You might need to elevate expectations to a higher level from a performance point of view. For example, the ground floors of buildings might need to be designed to a higher tolerance and there should be no exceptions to evacuation orders within certain areas.”
The researchers collected information along the Gulf Coast, as they have done at other disaster sites in recent years, using integrated digital data collection systems Frost and his colleagues have developed. Included among these are data collection systems – called P-Quake and P-Damage – that run on a personal digital assistant (PDA) and incorporate data from handheld GPS devices, digital cameras and digital voice recorders. The systems allow researchers to collect data in a timely way to ensure its quality in an environment where it could potentially perish as cleanup begins, Frost notes.
“We feel comfortable with going out without pen and paper,” Frost says. “Our software systems make it easier to collect and transfer data, which speeds up our analysis. Also, we can simultaneously gather and share data from various locations.”
A second team, led by Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Hermann Fritz of Georgia Tech Savannah, was the first Georgia Tech research group to conduct reconnaissance in the Gulf Coast area in late September and early October. (See photos at www.gtsav.gatech.edu/cee/groups/katrina/index.html). They started near Mobile, Ala., and proceeded west into Mississippi and Louisiana. They recorded storm surge watermarks ranging from 6 to 10 meters and assessed hurricane-damaged structures, focusing on the hardest hit Mississippi and Louisiana coasts.
“Most amazingly, hurricane-proof designed buildings did not suffer major wind damage, even in areas with peak hurricane winds,” Fritz notes. “However, all buildings – even massive structures such as hotels and office buildings, were washed out at the height of the storm surge. This resulted in amazing scenes where the roofs and upper floors of houses look fine, while the lower floors suffered classic blow-out failures similar to those we observed along the Indian Ocean after the devastating tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004.”
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Another team, led by Frost, gathered data along the path of Katrina from the coast northward. “We wanted to assess the overall infrastructure damage,” Frost explains. “So we looked at the types of damage – separating wind and flooding damage – as a function of distance from the coast…. Some of the damage looked much like the earthquake damage we’ve seen elsewhere in our studies.”
Frost’s team also is making a detailed assessment of structural damage to high-rise buildings. They collected data and will analyze it face by face and floor by floor. “We are trying to determine, for example, why there might have been more damage at a lower level or why one hotel and not the one next to it was damaged,” he explains. “Then maybe we can determine whether there was some difference in a window fastening system or whether one building was shielded from the wind by another structure.”
In the area surrounding the World Trade Center, researchers observed a directionality effect in damage. The sides of buildings facing the Center had significant damage, while the other sides often had no damage.
“With Katrina, the patterns are more complex because it was not a point source, but a large hurricane force,” Frost says. “Some of the damage may have occurred before the eye of the hurricane arrived and more damage may have occurred later. We hope to determine the sequence of the damage and then relate it to the atmospheric data on the storm.”
The research team led by Rix is focusing on the Gulf Coast ports, including the Port of New Orleans, which serves as a hub for exporting and importing agricultural products, steel and petroleum. Collaborating with Rix are Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Reggie DesRoches, Associate Professor of Public Policy Ann Bostrom and Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering Alan Erera.
Rix and DesRoches are assessing the physical damage to the port due to wind and flooding and how quickly it is repaired, while Erera is examining the recovery of port operations and Bostrom is studying the impact of the port’s displaced labor force and other social science aspects of the disaster.
Rix and DesRoches made an initial visit to the Port of New Orleans in October, and the entire team plans to follow up with operations managers there several times next year to track the recovery process.
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“We are looking at the Port of New Orleans and its response to this natural disaster from a systems-level perspective,” Rix explains. “This view coincides more closely with the perspective of a shipper or a company dependent upon a continuous supply chain. They are more concerned with the port’s ability to maintain its throughput capacity following a natural disaster. This is not the approach that many studies have taken in the past, but we think it’s a better way to look at hazard mitigation at ports.”
The team’s efforts to understand the impact of Katrina and Rita on Gulf Coast ports is closely linked to a recently funded project on seismic risk mitigation at ports as part of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) program of the NSF. In that project, a large group that includes researchers from Georgia Tech, nine other universities and consultants, are studying at methods to reduce the impact of earthquakes on ports. The five-year, $3.6 million project got under way this fall.
“Although the damage to Gulf Coast ports was caused by hurricanes rather than an earthquake, it still provides valuable information on the effects of natural hazards on port operations and will allow us to calibrate our models of how ports respond to significant disruptions,” Rix notes. “If you can design ports ahead of time to perform well from a systems-level perspective before a natural disaster occurs, the recovery process will have less adverse impact on an economy.”
In a related project done under the auspices of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Technical Committee on Lifelines and Earthquake Engineering, DesRoches and his collaborators spent several days gathering data on the damage that Hurricane Katrina inflicted on bridges and the transportation network in the Gulf Coast region. He led a team of seven experts and students from various institutions in a trek that extended from Pascagoula, Miss., to New Orleans, La.
The researchers recorded data, including digital images, on transportation infrastructure damage caused by wind, storm surge, flooding and debris. Through local contractors and state transportation officials, they continue to follow the recovery process to determine how long it takes to get the infrastructure fixed and back in use.
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Researchers are also tracking recovery times and their impact on economic losses. The information they collect will be used in computer models for earthquake recovery prediction, DesRoches explains. In addition, the data may help improve infrastructure design and rehabilitation of existing infrastructure, he notes.
“We’re trying to determine the impact of damage on the recovery process,” DesRoches explains. “Our models will help us make projections about the impact of an earthquake – in particular in Charleston, S.C., should another major earthquake, like the one in 1886, occur again. We can also make recommendations for changes to the infrastructure in Charleston now before an earthquake occurs. This information should also be helpful as rebuilding takes place in the Gulf Coast region.”
Researchers are still analyzing the data they collected. But DesRoches notes that bridges that were damaged from the hurricane’s winds did not experience failure because of design or construction flaws. They simply were not designed to withstand the level of force from such a strong hurricane, he says.
This project is funded by the Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAEC), which is supported by NSF, and ASCE. DesRoches is MAEC’s coordinator for earthquake impact on transportation networks.
“This research is a rare learning event, an opportunity to see first hand the impact of such a natural disaster,” DesRoches says. “We do a lot of simulation and experimental work in our lab. But you cannot learn this kind of information in a lab or simulation. You have to learn it in the field.”
Health and Safety Training and Information
To help train workers involved in cleanup and rebuilding in the Gulf Coast and south Florida areas damaged by hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) awarded a one-year, $400,000 Susan Harwood Training Grant to the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) on Sept. 30.
GTRI researchers led by project director and senior research engineer Paul Schlumper developed and are providing training materials and conducting training sessions that address occupational and safety health hazards that may be encountered by disaster recovery workers, supervisors and employers. The training targets those providing skilled support services (e.g., utility, demolition, debris removal and heavy equipment operation), site clean-up services, and recovery activities, including the rebuilding and reconstruction of the damaged areas.
“Work zone safety and fall protection for people who are working on roofs is OSHA’s top priority for us,” says Dan Ortiz, chief of the Occupational Safety and Health Division in GTRI’s Health and Environmental Systems Laboratory. “…. Our concern is that in the zeal to remove debris and restore buildings, workers and employers will take shortcuts. We want to have resources out there to make sure workers have the proper protective equipment and knowledge of environmental hazards.”
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Ten GTRI employees – including Art Wickman and Thomas Dean, who conducted training for workers cleaning up from the World Trade Center terrorist attack – have formed teams that will rotate in and out of the disaster areas in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas through next spring.
Topics that GTRI training covers include: electrical and electrocution hazards, hand and power tool safety, biological hazards, chemical and respiratory hazards, confined space hazards, heat stress, ergonomic considerations, and hazardous materials and waste.
GTRI has served as a consultant and training center for OSHA operations in Georgia since 1978. In this latest OSHA-funded effort, GTRI experts hope to reach thousands of workers, some of whom have language and literacy barriers, Ortiz says. Thus, they are also providing training and written materials in Spanish, and using symbols and other graphics to explain concepts.
In a related GTRI effort, researchers are collaborating with colleagues at Louisiana State University (LSU) to provide information to residents and contractors in the region on the health and environmental hazards they may face as they clean up and renovate hurricane-damaged homes. Senior research scientist Bob Schmitter is leading the Georgia Tech portion of the project, which is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through its regional Technical Outreach Services to Communities (TOSC) programs operated by Georgia Tech and LSU (Regions 4 and 6, respectively).
Among the hazards homeowners face are asbestos, lead-based paint, mold and various hazardous materials, Schmitter notes. TOSC experts compiled written information and distributed it to residents in shelters and home improvement stores. Experts also are working with local governments to offer short seminars on safe disposal techniques and other relevant issues.
Waste Disposal and Recycling
In addition, at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, GTRI researchers are evaluating the feasibility of using a GTRI-designed plasma furnace system to dispose of some of the tremendous volume of debris in the region.
Disaster experts estimate that the debris would extend 7-1/2 miles high on one football field if it could be stacked. “There’s not enough landfill space available to handle this much waste, and open burning of it would pose such a huge environmental problem,” says senior research scientist Ken Johnson.
GTRI’s plasma pyrolysis gasification system uses plasma arc technology, which creates a form of “artificial lightning,” using electricity to convert an ionized gas, such as air, into a plasma state. The extremely hot plasma temperature (three times hotter than fossil fuels and hotter than the surface of the sun) can gasify organic wastes into low-BTU fuel gases and melt inorganic wastes into an inert rock-like glassy residue. All contaminants are treated, and the volume of waste is considerably reduced. The rock-like residue can be used as road gravel, aggregate or bricks.
FEMA is especially interested in the potential of using vitrified waste from the furnace as building materials. “The vitrified waste could be shattered into sand and used in concrete mix,” Johnson explains. “Or it could be crushed and used for gravel underlayment for roads. There’s also the potential for using it to build new levees.”
To date, the furnace system has been used in the lab only. GTRI’s laboratory model could be transported to the Gulf Region and handle 12 tons of waste a day. But the need exists for a mobile system that could handle 1,000 tons a day. Johnson has discussed construction of such a system with a company that could build it quickly.
“The advantages of the plasma furnace system include the ability to take waste material and reduce its volume by 90 percent,” Johnson notes. “It takes material that would otherwise be burned or put in a landfill and vitrifies it into glass.”
If GTRI gets a contract with FEMA to deploy the plasma furnace system, researchers could have the system up and working in two months, he adds.
Referrals for Hurricane Victims with Disabilities
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA and the American Red Cross listed in its victim hotline database a Georgia Tech-based center that promotes voluntary compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Hurricane victims with disabilities misunderstood the center’s mission, though, and flooded it with calls about all kinds of relief and assistance.
The Southeast Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC) housed at the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture was inundated with over 2,200 calls in the month following Katrina over its toll free hotline (1-800-949-4232). So the Southeast DBTAC, funded since 1991 by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, became a referral center, says assistant project director Pamela Williamson.
People sought housing assistance, general financial assistance, food, information on how to get prescriptions filled, replacement of various assistive devices and medical equipment that were lost or damaged in the storm, and answers to insurance questions. DBTAC staff even handled some calls from potentially suicidal hurricane victims.
Though DBTAC’s grant does not cover any of these services, staff members compiled a resource list to use to refer callers to the correct organizations. Many callers were referred to the Southeast DBTAC’s grant partner, the Center for Independent Living in Jackson, Miss., for direct assistance because it served as a hurricane response coordination center for people with disabilities.
“We tried to be as customer-service oriented as possible,” Williamson says. “We already had some of the referral agencies in our database, but we added many more to our list so we could help hurricane victims with disabilities. We adapted our services to meet the need.”
In addition, one part-time staff DBTAC member, Cheri Hofmann, who also works at the Center for Independent Living in Escambia County, Fla., worked at a Hurricane One Stop Center there to help storm victims with disabilities.
In light of its response to Katrina, the Southeast DBTAC has revamped its work scope in Mississippi for the coming year to focus its efforts on providing ADA-related assistance to hurricane victims with disabilities, says director Shelley Kaplan. These efforts include ensuring that temporary housing is accessible, providing interpreters for people who are deaf so they can communicate with relief organizations and working with contractors to ensure that rebuilding is done in accordance with ADA Standards for Accessible Design.
“We are tailoring our work scope so people can get the services they need and rebuild their lives as quickly as possible,” Kaplan says.
CONTACTS:David Frost at 912-966-7948 or david.frost@ce.gatech.edu
Glenn Rix at 404-894-2292 or glenn.rix@ce.gatech.edu
Reginald DesRoches at 404 385-0826 or reginald.desroches@ce.gatech.edu
Dan Ortiz at 404-894-8276 or daniel.ortiz@gtri.gatech.edu
Paul Schlumper at 404-385-1797 or paul.schlumper@gtri.gatech.edu
Ken Johnson at 404-894-8075 or ken.johnson@gtri.gatech.edu
Shelley Kaplan at 404-385-0636 or shelley.kaplan@coa.gatech.edu
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Last updated: January 4, 2006