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Displaying 1 - 25 of 128

Aprendiendo de los impactos del huracan Maria en Puerto Rico: Un informe de progreso

January 19, 2021
Author(s)
Joseph Main, Maria K. Dillard, Erica D. Kuligowski, Benjamin Davis, Jazalyn D. Dukes, Kenneth W. Harrison, Jennifer Helgeson, Katherine J. Johnson, Marc L. Levitan, Judith Mitrani-Reiser, Scott J. Weaver, DongHun Yeo, Luis D. Bermudez, Joel Cline, Thomas Kirsch
El 20 de septiembre de 2017, el huracán María tuvo un impacto devastador en gran parte de Puerto Rico, dañando edificios de los que dependían sus comunidades para atención médica, seguridad, comunicaciones, educación, negocios y más. Para comprender mejor

Learning from Hurricane Maria's Impacts on Puerto Rico: A Progress Report

January 19, 2021
Author(s)
Joseph Main, Maria K. Dillard, Erica D. Kuligowski, Benjamin Davis, Jazalyn D. Dukes, Kenneth W. Harrison, Jennifer Helgeson, Katherine J. Johnson, Marc L. Levitan, Judith Mitrani-Reiser, Scott J. Weaver, DongHun Yeo, Luis D. Bermudez, Joel Cline, Thomas Kirsch
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated much of Puerto Rico, damaging buildings that its communities relied upon for medical care, safety, communications, education, business, and more. To better understand failures in buildings and

Evacuation Decision-Making in the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 Fire: Results of a Household Survey

July 23, 2020
Author(s)
Emily H. Walpole, Erica D. Kuligowski, Lauren B. Cain, Alicea N. Fitzpatrick, Christin Salley
To gain insight into the emergency communication and evacuation decision-making surrounding the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 fire, NIST conducted (via a small business survey research contractor) an online survey targeting homeowners in the Gatlinburg, TN area from

A Review of Social Media Use During Disaster Response and Recovery Phases

January 31, 2020
Author(s)
Camila E. Young, Erica D. Kuligowski, Aashna Pradhan
Under the National Construction Safety Team Act, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted an investigation of the May 22, 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri. The final report concluded with a list of sixteen recommendations

A Modelling Framework for Householder Decision-Making for Wildfire Emergencies

August 14, 2019
Author(s)
Ruggiero Lovreglio, Erica D. Kuligowski, Steve Gwynne, Ken Strahan
The occurrence of wildfire threats has dramatically increased in the last few decades creating serious challenges for hundreds of thousands of communities around the world. Understanding the physical and social dynamics characterizing wildfires is

Modelling and Mapping Dynamic Vulnerability to Better Assess WUI Evacuation Performance

May 2, 2019
Author(s)
Steve Gwynne, Ronchi Enrico, Noureddine Benichou, Max Kinateder, Erica D. Kuligowski, Islam Gomaa, Masoud Adelzadeh
Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) incidents are likely to become more severe and will affect more and more people. Given their scale and complexity, WUI incidents require a multi-domain approach to assess their impact and the effectiveness of any mitigation

Cognitive Biases Within Decision Making During Fire Evacuations

March 8, 2019
Author(s)
Michael Kinsey, Steve Gwynne, Erica D. Kuligowski, Max Kinateder
During a fire evacuation, once an individual perceives cues from a fire event, they must interpret them to assess the new situation and determine whether action is required. It is proposed that this assessment and action selection can employ either an

A Pre-Evacuation Database for Use in Egress Simulations

January 11, 2019
Author(s)
Ruggiero Lovreglio, Erica D. Kuligowski, Steve Gwynne, Karen E. Boyce
Quantifying the pre-evacuation time; i.e., the time between first awareness and deliberate evacuation movement, is a key task for evacuation model users and fire safety engineers. The identification and employment of pre-evacuation data given an incident

On the use of time-resolved 3D diagnostics to characterize firebrand showers in the WUI

January 1, 2019
Author(s)
Nicolas Bouvet, Eric D. Link, Stephen A. Fink, Erica D. Kuligowski
NIST is currently developing a time-resolved, three-dimensional particle tracking and sizing diagnostic (a.k.a an “emberometer”) that will be applied to airborne firebrands during wildland- urban interface fires. The present paper provides an overview of

A Review of Public Response to Short Message Alerts under Imminent Threat

January 9, 2018
Author(s)
Erica D. Kuligowski, Jessie Doermann
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Technical Investigation of the 2011 Joplin, MO tornado identified that no widely accepted standards exist for emergency communications in tornado events and more specifically, policies involving

Modelling and Influencing Human Behaviour in Fire

August 22, 2017
Author(s)
Steve Gwynne, Erica D. Kuligowski, Michael Kinsey, Lynn Hulse
The purpose of this article is to present a conceptual model of human behaviour in fire and its impact on evacuation modelling, life safety analyses, and evacuation procedures. This model is based on a theoretical framework of individual decision-making

Enhancing Egress Drills: Preparation and Assessment of Evacuee Performance

July 11, 2017
Author(s)
Steve Gwynne, Erica D. Kuligowski, Karen E. Boyce, Daniel Nilsson, Amanda Robbins, Ruggiero Lovreglio, J.R. Thomas, A. Roy-Poirier
This article explores how egress drills - specifically those related to fire incidents - are currently employed, their impact on safety levels, and the insights gained from them. It is suggested that neither the merits of egress drills are well understood

A Performance-Based Analysis of a Hotel Building Using Two Egress Models

February 19, 2017
Author(s)
Erica D. Kuligowski, James A. Milke
This report compares results from similar egress models based on documented evacuation movement data. When EXIT89 and Simulex1 are used to 1) simulate the same design scenarios and 2) perform a bounding analysis of the hotel building, differences in egress

Federal Investigation of the Evacuation of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

February 19, 2017
Author(s)
Jason D. Averill, Dennis S. Mileti, Richard D. Peacock, Erica D. Kuligowski, N Groner, Guylene Proulx, H Nelson
This paper presents the findings of the NIST World Trade Center Investigation describing the occupant evacuation of WTC 1 and WTC 2 on September 11, 2001. The egress system, including stairwells and elevators, is described along with the evacuation

Gender and Control in the 2001 World Trade Center Evacuation

February 19, 2017
Author(s)
Erica D. Kuligowski
Occupants in fire emergencies in buildings are presented with multiple pieces of information and environmental cues which produce varying levels of stress for the occupant. Occupants develop behavior response strategies to decrease their level of stress

What a User Should Know About Selecting an Evacuation Model

February 19, 2017
Author(s)
Erica D. Kuligowski, Steve M. Gwynne
In recent years, evacuation models have been increasingly applied in an attempt to understand the outcome of emergency egress scenarios. This has been due to the introduction of performance-based codes and the availability of cost-effective, high