A study released by Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions (CUES) found that the vast majority of counties in the Florida Panhandle were less prepared for emergency evacuation compared to the rest of the state. Read more
An article that was published on September 14, 2018 in Wired, “WHEN IT’S TIME TO EVACUATE, CITIES STRUGGLE TO HELP THOSE WHO CAN’T DRIVE,” features Dr. John L. Renne’s research on evacuating vulnerable populations and provides a link to a recent paper he published.
This work, which compares evacuation planning for vulnerable populations in the UK and US was made possible through support and affiliation from the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Last spring we had TSU Director and Professor Tim Schwanen speak at FAU and I visited Oxford again in May to conduct interviews for a book I’m writing. Tim and I are also working on an MOU between Oxford and FAU to continue our collaborations.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“When you’re trying to plan for vulnerable populations, it’s really a local sort of activity,” says John Renne, who studies urban planning and disaster management at Florida Atlantic University. “It’s really hard to do that from a federal or state level. It’s not something you can do on a moment’s notice. These sorts of things take time.”
The issue, he says, is that many local governments feel ill-equipped to do that work. In one recent paper, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Renne interviewed emergency managers in the UK and in five major American cities, and found even those in big metros like Miami, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans were “realistic about the shortcomings of their plans.”
While national agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide technical assistance and funding, and state governments often invest resources into robust emergency planning, Renne has found that many local governments don’t know to take advantage. Meanwhile, scientists project that storms are only getting worse, with climate change creating slower-moving monstrosities that will dump more rain. And the carless population is only set to grow in the coming years, as more than 70 million baby boomers age out of driving.”
Andrea Ramos is pursuing her Ph.D. in Public Administration. Her research on evacuation preparedness in Florida with Dr. John L. Renne recently received national attention. She received a Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Florida Atlantic University and a Masters of Science in Public Health from the University of Miami. Read more
The State of Downtown West Palm Beach, Florida is the subject of a new report prepared by FAU’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions. Read more
Elsevier announces the formation of a new section of the international journal Transportation Research D focusing on Disasters and Resilience. This section will be edited by Karl Kim (University of Hawaii), John Renne (Florida Atlantic University) and Brian Wolshon (Louisiana State University).
This section of Transportation Research D will build on the special capabilities and interests of transportation researchers, coming from multiple disciplines, worldwide, to address the critical ways in which transportation science and the supporting theories, methods, and tools can be applied to increase societal resilience against all hazards, both natural and man-made. In addition to the wide range of natural hazards including both geo-physical and hydro-meteorological, the section will also cover industrial accidents, cascading events (where one hazard such as an earthquake can trigger a release of toxins and harmful substances into the environment), and intentional acts of sabotage or terrorism. In each of these disasters and emergencies, transportation plays a significant role. Core concepts such as travel demand modeling, rare event forecasting, activity-based analyses, system performance monitoring, optimization across time and space, mode choice, network analysis, geospatial modeling, and many other methods are appropriate topics for this section.
Interested authors are encouraged to contact section editors or submit manuscripts through EVISE: https://www.evise.com/profile/#/TRD/login
