Disaster Assessment

Disaster Assessment
• As soon as possible after the disaster has begun, response officials
must begin collecting data, which is then formulated into information
to facilitate the response.
• Responders must be able to know at any given time or at short intervals what
is happening,
• where it is happening,
• what is needed,
• what is required to address those needs, and
• what resources are available.
Disaster Assessment
• This can be grouped into two general categories
1. Situation Assessment
2. Needs Assessment
Situation Assessment (damage assessment)
• Area affected by the disaster (location and size—can
be plotted onto a base map or described in words)
• Number of people affected by the disaster
• Number of injured (morbidity) and killed (mortality)
• Types of injuries and illnesses
• Description of the characteristics and condition of the
affected
• Description of the medical, health, nutritional, water,
and sanitation situation
• Ongoing or emerging hazards and hazard effects
• Damage to infrastructure and critical facilities
 Situation Assessment (damage
assessment) (2)
• Damage to residences and commercial structures
• Damage to the agricultural and food distribution systems
• Damage to the economic and social status of the affected area
• Vulnerability of the affected population to ongoing disaster effects or
to expected related or unrelated hazards
• Current response effort in progress
Needs Assessment
• This assessment involves gathering data on the services, resources,
and other assistance that will be required to address the disaster.
• It is used to determine what is needed to both save and sustain lives.
Disaster managers may use a range of methods to conduct this
assessment
 Needs Assessment (2)
• Gathering of internal information.
• Visual inspection This involves using various methods of observation,
including satellite imagery, aerial flyovers, and drive or walkthrough
surveying.
• Sample surveys. Information gathered by interviewing representative
segments of the affected population.
• Detailed Critical sector assessment by specialist
• Ongoing interviews
• Interviewing informants
 Consequences/ Damage
Assessment
• The consequences component of risk describes the effects of
the risk on humans, built structure, and the environment.
• There are three factors that that examined when determining
the consequences of a disaster,
• Deaths (humans)
• Injuries(humans)
• Damages (cost, reported in currency)
• Attempts have been made to give value to all three factors into
monetary terms in order to drive single number to quantify
but this can be controversial. Like how human life can be given
value, a young life have same value as old one etc.
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (2)
• Categories can be consequences can be further divided as
• Direct Loss : Those first order consequences which occur
immediately after an event, such as the deaths and damage
caused by the throwing down of buildings due to impact of
hazard
• Example of such losses as fatalities, injuries, cost of repair or
replacement of damaged or destroyed public and private
structures, relocation costs/temporary housing., loss of
business inventory/agriculture, loss of income/rental cost,
cleanup cost
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (3)
• Indirect Losses: It may emerge much later and may be much less easy
to attribute directly to the event.
• For example
• Loss of income till rehabilitation
• Input/ouput losses of business (loss of GDP)
• Reduction in business/ personal spending (ripple effects)
• Mental illness
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (4)
• Tangible losses: are those for which a monetary value can be
assigned. Generally, only tangible losses are included in the
estimation of future events and the reporting of past events.
• For example
• Cost of building and repair
• Response cost
• Loss of inventory
• Loss of income
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (5)
• Intangible losses: are those that can not be expressed in universally
accepted financial terms.
• This is primary reason that human fatalities and human injuries are
assessed as a separate category from the cost of measurement of
consequences in a disaster management. These losses almost never
included in damage assessments or predictions
• For example
• Cultural loss
• Stress
• Mental illness
• Sentimental value
• Environmental loss
Additional Measures of Consequences
• Emergency Operation
• No. of rescue workers in any hazard. It also depend on hazard type e.g. more
workers are there in case of tornado than hurricane.
• Social Disruption
• Mental distress, damage to social contacts, community morale
• Disruption to economy
• No. of working days lost
• Environmental impact
• Clean up cost, cost to repair and rehabilitation damage areas. Loss of
aesthetics, newly introduced health risks.
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (6)
Benefits

• Decrease in future hazard risk by preventing rebuilding in hazard prone

areas
• New technologies used in reconstruction that results in an increase in
quality of services
• Removal of old/unused /hazardous buildings
• Jobs created in reconstruction
• Greater public recognition of hazard risk
• Local/ state/ federal funds for reconstruction or mitigation
• Environmental benefits (fertility increase of soil due to flooding or from
volcano).
 Consequences/ Damage Assessment (7)
• Quantitative Representations of consequences vary according to
deaths/fatalities, injuries, and damages.
• Deaths/fatalities. The specific number of people who perished in a past
event or who would be expected to perish in a future event; for example,
55 people killed
• Injuries. The specific number of people who were injured in a past event or
who would be expected to become injured in a future event; Can be
expressed just as injuries, or divided into mild and serious; for example, 530
people injured, 56 seriously
• Damages. The assessed monetary amount of actual damages incurred in a
past event, or the expected amount of damages expected to occur in a
future event. Occasionally, this number includes insured losses as well; for
example, $2 billion in damages, $980 million in insured losses
Qualitative Representations of Consequences
• Insignificant. No injuries or fatalities
• Minor. Small number of injuries but no fatalities; first aid treatment
required
• Moderate. Medical treatment needed but no fatalities; some
hospitalization
• Major. Extensive injuries, significant hospitalization; fatalities
• Catastrophic. Large number of fatalities and severe injuries requiring
hospitalization
Estimation of Damages
Full Damage consequences Analysis
• Full damage consequences analysis that disaster managers
consider the current estimated cost of all physical assets within
the country.
• Loss of structures
• Loss of contents
• Loss of structure use, function and cost of displacement
Structure Loss
Name / Structure Percent Damage Loss of Structure
description replacemen (%)
of structure t value X =
Contents Loss
Replacement Percent Damage Loss of Contents
Value of (%)
contents X =
Structure use and function loss
Name Averag Functional Displaceme Structure
/ e daily Downtime nt cost per use and
descrip operati (# of days) day function
X =
tion of on + loss
structu budget
re
Total loss for hazard event
• Total loss = structure loss + content loss + function loss
Exercise
• List down items during response for relief activities

• Calculate school structure loss, content loss and functional loss