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ITE – Leading the Way Toward Resiliency

By Mr. Michael Sanderson P.E., PTOE, LEED AP posted 07-21-2018 08:17 AM

  

What would you do if disaster struck and your family home was destroyed? Once you made sure that you and your loved ones were safe, you would probably go about assessing the damage and taking the first steps toward getting your life back to normal. It would be time consuming, costly, and disruptive to your lifestyle. It could be financially devastating.

While we all hope nothing like this will ever happen, it’s possible, and prudence suggests we should plan ahead just in case. I live in the Mountain West where wildfire is a real threat to many homes.

One way to prepare for wildfire is to plan your evacuation route, establish emergency contacts, store important things offsite, and make sure your insurance premiums are paid up. Then, if disaster strikes, you can escape and quickly begin the process of rebuilding. This is disaster planning, for sure. But is it the best approach? Another approach would be to make your home more resilient to wildfire in the first place. You can build with non-combustible materials, create a zone around your home that is free of flammable materials, and install a fire sprinkler system. This approach takes planning and has an upfront cost, but an investment in resiliency can forestall the probably much higher cost of rebuilding from devastation.

When we plan and design infrastructure, we are presented with a similar choice. Do we focus solely on how it will perform in daily operation, or do we go the added step to plan and design for resilience? Whether a severe weather event, an act of terrorism, or any catastrophic failure, whether natural or man-made, have we adequately considered how it will perform in the wake of a disaster? How easily can it be put back online? And better yet, how can we design it to withstand and shirk disaster in the first place?

Recovering quickly from catastrophe can be critically important to an economy, and for the safety, health, and livelihoods of people. And nowhere has this been more starkly illustrated than in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Recently, ITE International Past President Shawn Leight traveled to Puerto Rico to visit ITE members there and to see firsthand the devastation to the island’s homes, businesses, infrastructure, and transportation system. He witnessed the many ongoing challenges they are facing to get their communities and livelihoods put back together, and how the ITE-Puerto Rico Section is helping to lead the way. Read more starting with this issue of ITE Journal, as Lynnette Alicea León, Vice President of the ITE-Puerto Rico Section, shares her experience living through the worst natural disaster in Puerto Rico’s history and her insight as a safety-focused transportation professional on rebuilding for both recovery and resiliency. Then hear from ITE- Puerto Rico Section Past President Benjamin Colucci-Rios, Ph.D., director of Puerto Rico LTAP at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, as he shares lessons learned at a disaster response and event management session at the Joint ITE International and Midwestern/Great Lakes Districts Annual Meeting and Exhibit on August 22, with a follow-up article coming in the October ITE Journal.

Planning for disasters and designing a resilient transportation system will require many people and agencies to work together, share information, and cooperate. From public works to operations, maintenance and law enforcement to emergency services, ITE and its members are ideally situated to bring these diverse groups together and to lead the way to a more resilient transportation future. I encourage everyone to take advantage of ITE’s robust network for information exchange and professional development to share your knowledge and learn from others as we build and manage infrastructure in continually smarter and stronger ways.

 This blog is from the President's Message in the July 2018 issue of ITE Journal.

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