Toward Long-Term Recovery in Mississippi: Understanding the Impact of the Transportation System on Economic Resilience

Abstract

Over the last decade, the state of Mississippi has shown its high susceptibility to natural and human-made disasters. The damages caused by Hurricane Katrina affected the economy not only of the coastal region, but also of the entire state. In particular, the loss of critical transportation infrastructure affected industries and the labor force. This paper analyzes the strong geographic correlation between the transportation network and economic development. The authors investigated the interdependency of logistics and regional economic distress using a model for simulating disruptions to the transportation network. To calibrate the model, the writers used the disruptions of CSX coastal rails in Mississippi and the shipbuilding industry’s economic indicators in the region pre- and post-Katrina. A hypothetical application of the model was created based on a high-magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid fault, which would impact northwest Mississippi. Disruptions were simulated in the railroad network in Memphis, Tennessee, in order to study new routes for furniture and wood-based products and investigate how the disruptions would impact the furniture industry. The paper proposes a transferable method to simulate disaster-type damages to critical transportation infrastructures of use in planning for long-term recovery and community resilience during and after a disaster.