Impact of Large-Scale Disasters on the Built Environment

Abstract

Large-scale disasters cause considerable damage to the built environment, resulting in serious disruptions to normal human activities and billions of dollars in property damages. Such disasters reveal vulnerabilities in infrastructure design and construction and test to the limit the planning, design, and construction abilities of engineers. This paper briefly reviews the impact of several large-scale disasters on the built environment and explores what engineers can do to be better prepared to deal with future disasters. The disasters examined in this paper are Hurricane Irene (2011), the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.