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Community resilience planning often requires quantifying and understanding the trade-offs that communities make between the benefits and costs of different potential resilience actions. The Economic Decision Guide (EDG) walks communities through the steps
During the COVID-19 pandemic and concurrent natural disasters, small businesses were hard hit by decreased consumer demand, supply chain interruptions, and increased costs. To understand the impacts of these complex, large-scale events and organizations'
Azin Al Kajbaf, Christina Gore, Jennifer Helgeson, Jarrod Loerzel
Paycheck protection program (PPP) loans were established during the COVID-19 pandemic to help certain businesses continue paying their employees. Paycheck protection program loans were meant to help businesses recover from the disruptions caused by the
Amin Enderami, Elaina Sutley, Jennifer Helgeson, Leonardo Duenas-Osorio, Maria Watson, John van de Lindt
Rapid restoration of access to essential goods and services has long been regarded as paramount for community recovery. Yet, there remains ambiguity in how access should be defined, measured, or operationalized. Defining accessibility as the ability to use
Yating Zhang, Juan Fung, Dustin Cook, Katherine Johnson, Siamak Sattar
This paper reviews the state of the art in using benefit–cost analysis (BCA) to inform earthquake risk reduction decisions by building owners and policymakers. The goal is to provide a roadmap for the application and future development of BCA methods and
Anuradha Mukerji, Kayode Nelson Adeniji, Scott Curtis, Jennifer Helgeson, Jamie Kruse, Meghan Millea
Eastern North Carolina (ENC) has been buffeted by compound coastal water events (CCWEs) making residential buyouts, that seek to move households and communities out of flood risk areas, an important flood hazard mitigation tool. However, little is known
Bilal Ayyub, Ramsay Sawaya, David Butry, Yumi Oum, Vincent Loh, Jennifer Helgeson
Electric and gas investor-owned utilities operate in a regulated environment, and are scrutinized by media and stakeholders for key strategic and operational decisions. Some decisions entail significant risk requiring a special attention to risk tolerances
During the COVID-19 pandemic and concurrent natural disasters, small businesses were hard hit by decreased consumer demand, supply chain interruptions, and increased costs. To understand the impacts of these complex, large-scale events and organizations'
Business interruption after disasters is an important metric for community resilience planning because has both economic and social consequences. Each additional day that a business is nonoperational further compounds lost revenue, wages, and lack of
Over 5 years, multiple hurricanes and a pandemic impacted small businesses in Charleston, South Carolina. In order to better understand the impacts of disasters on public-facing small businesses, we conducted a case study of customer, labor, location, and
Ariela Zycherman, Jennifer Helgeson, Claudia Nierenberg
At the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate and Adaptation Partnerships (CAP) Program and the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Community Resilience Program (CRP)
Juan Fung, Yating Zhang, Dustin Cook, Siamak Sattar, Katherine Johnson
This article reviews current research and development efforts to advance the science supporting post-earthquake recovery-based performance objectives for buildings and critical lifelines in the United States. In particular, the article highlights advances
Maria Watson, Charlotte Brown, John Handmer, Cynthia Kroll, Anne Wein, Jennifer Helgeson, Adam Rose, Noah Dormady, Juri Kim
Surveys are important tools in business resilience and recovery research because of their ability to capture disaggregated economic information; however, they can be difficult and costly due to business operational dynamics and the larger challenges of
With the increase in severity and frequency of natural hazards due to climate change, developing a holistic understanding of community resilience factors is critically important to disaster response and community support. Our investigation of small
This manuscript presents the Generator Fleet Characteristics Model (GFCM), a general purpose tool for the analysis of power system operations, economics, and resilience. The GFCM is a collection of MATLAB functions that use publicly available data with
Scott Curtis, Anuradha Mukherji, Jamie Kruse, Jennifer Helgeson, Ausmita Ghosh
It is recognized that compound coastal water events (CCWE) - the combination of rain, river, and ocean flooding - often have increased disastrous consequences as compared to single-form floods due to their physical complexity. However, another potential
Stephanie Chang, Charlotte Brown, John Handmer, Jennifer Helgeson, Yoshio Kajitani, Adriana Keating, Ilan Noy, Maria Watson, Sahar Derakhshan, Juri Kim, Alfredo Roa Henriquez
This paper compares economic recovery in the COVID-19 pandemic with other types of disasters, at the scale of businesses. As countries around the world struggle to emerge from the pandemic, studies of business impact and recovery have proliferated; however
Making the profound societal transitions and transformations called for in the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (UN, 2019) and beyond is a critical and urgent challenge for humanity. We propose the collection and analysis of digital narratives
Yating Zhang, Juan Fung, Katherine Johnson, Siamak Sattar
Motivating property owners to mitigate seismic risks for existing buildings is a major challenge for many earthquake-prone regions. This article identifies primary factors that may affect the adoption of seismic retrofit by owners of commercial and
Yating Zhang, Juan Fung, Katherine Johnson, Siamak Sattar
Wood-frame soft-story buildings have been responsible for massive loss of life and property in past earthquakes. To reduce future earthquake losses, several cities in California passed ordinances that mandated seismic upgrades for buildings containing weak
Juan Fung, Yating Zhang, Katherine Johnson, Dustin Cook, Siamak Sattar
Modern building codes and standards are generally focused on safeguarding public health and safety by ensuring buildings meet life safety performance objectives following an earthquake event. Certain classes of buildings, such as hospitals and schools, may
Pierre Glynn, Charles Rhodes, Scott Chiavacci, Jennifer Helgeson, Carl Shapiro, Crista Straub
Information plays a key role in the policy decision-making process – but the collection and dissemination of information carries costs. Understanding how these costs compare to the benefits of having the information (this is the value of information: "VOI"