Infrastructure damage due to earthquakes and flooding in the Little River Watershed: a HAZUS investigation

Abstract

The Socially Sustainable Solutions for Water, Carbon, and Infrastructure Resilience in Oklahoma (S3OK) is a multidisciplinary research project to identify socially sustainable solutions to “wicked” problems within the State of Oklahoma. One such wicked problem is the vulnerability of the state’s infrastructure systems to natural disasters. This vulnerability needs to be quantified in a way that can be assessed by the S3OK team and communicated to stakeholders within the state. Hazard United States (HAZUS) is a natural disaster modeling simulator that is used by disaster planners to assess the risk, vulnerability, and resilience of infrastructure systems for specific disaster scenarios. In this thesis, HAZUS version 5.1 was used to simulate infrastructure systems within the Little River Watershed testbed for the S3OK project. The general building stock, essential facilities, transportation system, and potable and wastewater utility lines within the Little River Watershed were simulated within HAZUS to understand the vulnerability and resilience of these systems subjected to various earthquakes and flooding scenarios. The simulations revealed that, while most of the transportation infrastructure within the Little River Watershed is resilient, the general building stock and water infrastructure is expected to be vulnerable during scenario earthquakes and flooding.