Latest news with #disasterRecovery
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Targeted investment, tech can sustain critical infrastructure
This story was originally published on Construction Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Construction Dive newsletter. MCLEAN, VIRGINIA — Lifeline infrastructure systems provide integral services like water, electricity and transportation, but they are often taken for granted until they fail. Factors like age, deferred maintenance and more frequent extreme weather events are stressing these structures, making strategic planning for disaster recovery critical, according to experts at the Building Innovation 2025 conference, sponsored by the National Institute of Building Sciences. Much of the country's infrastructure was built before the notions of redundancy and resiliency were understood, said North Carolina DOT Secretary Joey Hopkins during the conference last month. Recent climate-driven disasters such as Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires have underlined how critical they are. 'Much of our infrastructure is so old it's built to standards that we no longer use. So it doesn't work anymore,' said Hopkins. For example, 'Back in the '60s, we built ramps that came in on the left side of the highway. We had very, very short acceleration lanes and deceleration lanes. Vehicles were smaller, they were slow back then. Things have changed.' However, U.S. funding programs for disaster recovery largely only provide money to restore structures the way they were before, leaving them vulnerable to the same forces that caused damage in the first place, said Madhu Beriwal, founder and chair of IEM International, a disaster preparedness consultancy based in Raleigh, North Carolina, in a panel. 'Infrastructure was built in the 1950s to 1970s for a different climate regime, and we are trying to manage 21st century climate issues, not even talking about what could happen next century,' said Beriwal. One infrastructure failure can cause cascading impacts, yet 'each individual infrastructure is owned or operated by a different entity, and there's not a lot of coordination between them to figure out what problem points are.' Functional recovery — the ability of a building or lifeline infrastructure system to maintain or quickly restore essential functions after a shock — is critical when planning for resilient communities, said Ronald Eguchi, CEO and co-founder of Long Beach, California-based risk management company ImageCat, during the conference. '[Functional recovery] is something that can be an important concept, not only for buildings, but to begin to institutionalize that for lifelines,' said Eguchi. 'I think it's very important, because now we're sort of shifting the paradigm a little bit in terms of how we measure performance.' To that end, NIBS' Lifeline Infrastructure Hub fosters partnerships among federal, state and local governments, nonprofits and industry groups to better manage extreme weather impacts and help communities bounce back after disasters. Launched last year, it aims to identify critical infrastructure gaps and cost-effective ways to mend them. Rebuilding infrastructure networks to meet modern needs is costly, yet badly needed, the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2025 Report Card shows. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act helped counteract the impact of inflation, but the country's lifeline systems are still 'woefully underfunded' amid declining gas tax revenue, Hopkins said. North Carolina has turned to public-private partnerships to help fill that funding gap. 'Inflation has hit us all in these last few years, and it's put us further down than we were before,' Hopkins said. 'Today we've got about a half a dozen communities in our state now that are saying, 'Will you toll this route so we can get a project? We want it so bad we're willing to accept the toll.'' New Orleans is drawing lessons from past disasters and near-disasters to guide it on how to focus its infrastructure upgrades, said Steven Nelson, general superintendent of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. 'It's not necessarily the oldest parts of the city that failed the most dramatically or most frequently,' said Nelson. 'So I think that there is a major need for targeted investment.' Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help jurisdictions and utilities understand how to direct their limited resources for maximal impact, such as dealing with water main breaks, Nelson said. With AI, 'We can take the limited resources that we have, develop a capital improvement program that's based on actual failure rates, anticipated rates of failure in those locations that are most likely to have a catastrophic effect,' Nelson said. Digital twins are another underused technology that can help with planning for more resilient infrastructure, according to Eguchi. 'I don't think we are fully utilizing [digital twins] in complex sorts of problems like lifelines and how they operate,' said Eguchi. 'I think that digital twin models and utilizing that technology can very well help us better understand what the failures could be. What could be the impacts? How likely are these different things?' Recommended Reading How climate modeling, AI can power innovative building Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Times
13-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
How to Survive a Crisis
Lucy Easthope describes herself as 'the last responder.' When disaster strikes, emergency workers rush in to deliver aid. But Dr. Easthope, a visiting professor of mass fatalities and pandemics at the University of Bath in England, tells me that her specialty is what comes after. She has spent 24 years helping people recover from catastrophes like the Sept. 11 attacks, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the London subway bombings in 2005. Her many tasks include working in the rubble retrieving remains and personal effects, advising on cleanup and reconstruction, and helping stricken communities mend. In her upcoming book, 'Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping With Crisis,' Dr. Easthope writes about what a life in emergency management has taught her about weathering difficult times. She shared her insights on how to deal with everyday loss and calamities like death, a bad diagnosis, divorce or being fired. When she arrives on the scene of a disaster, the first thing Dr. Easthope does is write down every single thing that has happened, no matter how small: the collapsed bridge, but also the destroyed community garden. This is called an impact assessment. When something bad happens, she said, we can all benefit from making our own impact assessment. Write down everything that's affected by the event, whether it's physical, psychological or logistical, she said. This can help you understand what you have been through, how it is affecting you in all realms of your life and what is or isn't fixable. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
SoCalGas to begin restoration process for Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood
After roughly eight months, the first homes in Rancho Palos Verdes could have their natural gas service restored by July. The restoration process will begin on May 27 in the Seaview neighborhood, specifically homes on Dauntless Exultant and Admirable Drives, according to the utility company SoCalGas. The process is expected to finish in about four to five weeks. Once completed, SoCalGas crews will evaluate the homes along Palos Verdes Drive South and determine if they can restore services to residents there. The utility company added that engineers are developing designs and plans to restore service to Portuguese Bend Beach Club communities and Rolling Hills. "We are grateful to these communities for their patience during what we know has been a difficult time," said Maria Martinez, director of gas engineering. "Given the sustained decreases in land movement, we look forward to the safe restoration of natural gas service for those who are ready to reconnect." Over the last two years, land movement has severely damaged roads, homes and utilities in Rancho Palos Verdes, eventually leading the region's major natural gas and electricity providers to shut off their services to hundreds of residents. Since August, the Portuguese Bend slide has impacted about 650 homes. The ongoing natural disaster prompted FEMA and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services to implement a $42 million voluntary buyout program, allowing residents to sell their homes at "fair market value." In October, geologists gave residents a small glimmer of hope after confirming that the slide had decelerated from an average of 13 inches a week to 8 inches, a roughly 38% decrease. Further studies conducted by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed that the movement slowed to about 4 inches a week in the fall of 2024. SoCalGas stressed that if land movement increases in the future, the company may be forced to shut off services again. For more information about the restoration process, click here.
