Natural disasters, such as flooding, landslides, storm surge, and wildfire can cause severe impacts to the social, environmental, economic, and transportation systems of North Carolina. At the same time, transportation infrastructure plays a critical role in natural disaster response and recovery efforts during these natural disaster events. Unfortunately, extreme hazard events such as these are occurring with greater frequency and intensity. These events can negatively impact road functionality and lead to the loss of essential services. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), weather-related disasters have cost over $1.875 trillion since 1980. Our built environment isn’t designed to handle many of the impacts that are happening due to extreme hazard events. For example, stormwater systems, culverts, and tidal pumps were all designed for past events— not current and future conditions. The failure of these systems will impact our communities to a level where we may not be able to return to normal for months or years.
Transportation planners and engineers from NCDOT, as well as other federal, state, and local agencies across our state, and in close collaboration with emergency managers, are increasingly looking for better ways to address these issues and become more resilient, while simultaneously planning for a more reliable transportation network. Planning for extreme events is about finding ways for systems to bounce back to normal as quickly as possible after the negative impacts of an event. One particular issue that NCDOT faces is the rerouting of traffic during and immediately after natural disaster events. Typical considerations include traffic volumes, current conditions, roadway capacities, and overall safety. However, there are other considerations such as the overall economic impact, including issues like commerce, commute times for individuals traveling between work and home, access to essential services, and disruption to local businesses, that should also be taken into account. These impacts can be further compounded in areas where entire networks of roads, such as a neighborhood or community, become cut-off due and thus isolated. This isolation can be due to such factors as a damaged bridge or road washout. Worse yet, these impacts can often last for days or even months. By identifying these areas ahead of time, and better understanding the potential economic impacts, NCDOT and other agencies can be better equipped when planning for a more resilient and sustainable transportation infrastructure system.
The joint proposal team, consisting of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Asheville’s NEMAC and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, proposes a comprehensive and innovative approach to helping NCDOT better understand the forces behind transportation route and commute pattern disruptions, and their effects on local economies, in the face of an increase in extreme hazard events. Through comprehensive user research and discovery, data analysis, and the development of decision-making workflows, the project team seeks to provide NCDOT with actionable insights to better plan and respond to disruptions related to extreme hazard events, ultimately improving infrastructure reliability and community access.
