NCJ Number
221872
Journal
Homeland Defense Journal Volume: 5 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2007 Pages: 34,36,37
Date Published
November 2007
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article offers suggestions for how lives can be saved in cases of a terrorist attack, natural hazard, or accident by ensuring that transportation infrastructures are resilient, i.e., are designed and maintained to recover for use as quickly as possible after being damaged.
Abstract
One way of reducing the number of casualties from roadway and bridge collapse is by limiting the range of collapse beyond the point of attack/hazard. Another way is to focus on facilitating evacuation, rescue, and incident management. This involves hardening exit routes; providing incident feedback and protocols for first responders; hardening life-safety systems such as alarms, lighting, and communications; and improving exit identification through signs and fluorescent pathway marking for self-evacuation. Predisaster efforts that can limit the extent of infrastructure collapse include hardening, shielding and/or insulating critical elements to prevent catastrophic failure; providing redundancy to prevent local failure from progressing; and providing redundancy to maintain functioning of the system at a reduced level. Postdisaster efforts that can limit damage and collapse include making provisions to isolate or limit damage in the response mode and developing disaster recovery plans and procedures. The aforementioned efforts can be facilitated by reserving a place for an engineer at the tabletop exercises for disaster planning. Preparedness planning should include precomputed, time-lapsed collapse scenarios from multihazards and simulated response and rescue exercises.