SOUTHEAST TEXAS HURRICANE EVACUATION STUDY RE-STUDY VULNERABILTY, BEHAVIORAL, SHELTER, and TRANSPORTATION ANALYSES

The scope of the work to be performed by the Contractor to support the National Hurricane Program (NHP) in performing a Vulnerability, Behavioral, Shelter, and Transportation Analyses for the Southeast Texas Hurricane Evacuation Re-Study. Tasks include: - Coordination/ Project Initiation and Kick-Off (Base Year) · The contractor should maintain steady and direct coordination with the Galveston District. All contractor deliverables will be provided directly to the Galveston District for distribution. All contacts or coordination with non-USACE entities made to satisfy the subsequent tasks will be documented and provided to the USACE Project Manager with summary reports of information provided or received. Contacts or coordination summaries will be provided with each status report when new contact data has been added. - Vulnerability Analysis (Base Year) · The Contractor shall prepare an updated Vulnerability Analysis to identify the areas, populations, infrastructure, and facilities that are potentially vulnerable to hurricane-induced flooding, inland riverine flooding, and wind damages under a variety of hurricane and tropical storm scenarios. The inundation maps (storm tide maps) and FEMA floodplain maps produced by the Hazards Analysis should be used to determine which surge vulnerable areas may need to be evacuated in response to a particular coastal storm threat. Evacuation routes should be analyzed to determine if any roadways or bridges are subject to freshwater flooding that could impede evacuating traffic. · Using the data developed above, the Contractor shall support local and state emergency managers in developing new or refining existing evacuation zones. · Evacuation zones serve as the foundational geographic unit to locate and quantify the vulnerable population, provide a base to model traffic movements from one geographic area to another, determine needed shelter capacity, and allow communities to manage the implementation of evacuations (i.e., during certain hurricane scenarios, pre-identified evacuation zones would be evacuated, clearly identifying those who are targeted for evacuation). · New/ refined evacuation zones should have, as much as possible, a coordinated layout, nomenclature, color coding, labeling, etc. and can be easily communicated to the public by State and Local emergency managers and the media. The end result shall be a set of evacuation zones that meet the goals of the project. Development of new evacuation zones should consider the following: · Research and development will be conducted to identify and integrate disadvantaged community vulnerabilities throughout the HES, including in the development/ refinement of evacuation zones. Research and development should also identify key strategies and best practices for developing evacuation zones, in partnership with state, local, and federal entities. · Behavioral Analysis · In preparing hurricane evacuation plans, assumptions must be made regarding the way populations in and around the vulnerable area will react to hurricane threats. These assumptions are necessary for Shelter, and Transportation phases of the HES and overall shelter planning, transportation modeling, and guidance in evacuation decision-making and public awareness efforts. The results of the Behavioral Analysis should be expressed in standardized terms to provide direct, compatible input to the Transportation Analysis. · For this Re-Study, a new phone survey instrument will not be used. Instead, the Contractor should leverage existing Behavioral Survey results and other data sets (if they exist) and coordinate closely with stakeholders to develop a range (low, medium, high) for each the behavioral parameters described above. These behavioral parameters will be used to complete the Shelter and Transportation Analyses, described in subsequent sections. At a minimum, the Behavioral Analysis should quantify (in tabular format and in a summary report): Evacuation Participation Rates, Public Shelter Participation Rates, Response Rates, Destination Percentages (Weights) and Vehicle Usage. · Evacuation Participation Rates*: The number and percent of vulnerable and non-vulnerable populations (shadow evacuees), including tourists, who will evacuate, including response actions relative to a given evacuation order (i.e., evacuation order or mandatory evacuation order). · Include number of evacuees per household likely to evacuate and why. · Response Time*: The timeframe and how the threatened population will evacuate in response to an authorized evacuation order and variously defined forecast storm conditions such as strike probability, storm intensity, and potential flooding. · Destination Percentages (Weights)*: The number and percent of evacuees who will attempt to leave the local area and their intended geographic destinations (including city, county, and state). Percentages will also be provided for evacuation route usage. · Public Shelter Usage Rate*: The number and percent of evacuees who will seek refuge in public shelters, hotels/motels, local residence, and with family/friends. It will also determine if they will use refuge in or out of their county or state. Perceptions about the accessibility of the shelter system and availability of medical care should be considered. · Vehicle Usage*: The number of vehicles evacuees will use to evacuate by permanent residence, mobile homes, and tourists. The number and percent of evacuees who may be towing boats, trailers, or traveling with recreational vehicles (RVs). · Research and development will be conducted to identify new methodologies for accurately capturing low, medium, and high ranges for each of the behavioral parameters highlighted above. - Shelter Analysis (Option Year) · The purposes of the Shelter Analysis is to estimate the number of evacuees that will seek public shelter and the number of shelter spaces available, and to provide information for use in determining evacuation clearance times in the transportation analysis. The Shelter Analysis should address shelter demand and potential vulnerability to hurricane storm surge flooding. Data developed in the Hazards, Vulnerability, and Behavioral Analyses are used in the Shelter Analysis. · Research and development will be conducted to identify key data sources for capturing shelter demand and capacity, especially as it pertains to special needs populations and disadvantaged communities. - Transportation Analysis (Option Year) · The primary purpose of the Transportation Analysis is to calculate the clearance times needed to conduct a safe and timely evacuation for a range of hurricane threats. Other purposes are to define the evacuation roadway network and evaluate traffic patterns (e.g., congestion) and control measures and highway modifications for improved traffic flow. Basic assumptions in the Transportation Analysis relate to storm scenarios; vulnerable populations and their behavioral and socioeconomic characteristics; roadway systems and traffic control; and destination locations. These assumptions are derived from the other HES components and best professional experience. The scope of this analysis should include inland roadways and intersections that could create bottlenecks and critical congestion for evacuating traffic. These locations could be outside of the primary study area. · Results of the transportation analysis should be easily ingestible into HURREVAC, the National Hurricane Program’s online decision support tool which is leveraged by emergency managers in making informed hurricane evacuation planning and response decisions. · Research and development will be conducted to identify key data sources for developing transportation networks and evacuation scenarios, in close coordination with local, state, and federal stakeholders. Recommendations should be made on strategies and actions to improve the usage of the National Hurricane Program’s transportation model RtePM, used for evaluation of clearance times. Research and development should also investigate and quantify relationships between the presence of socially vulnerable populations and their impacts to clearance times. - HES Results Summary Report (Optional Task) · The contractor will develop a HES Results Summary Report mechanism which provides detailed description of how the study was performed and the study results. The mechanism describes the methodologies and key results of each study component and all maps, diagrams, and tables needed to support those descriptions. The Report should be distributed to all Federal, state, and local stakeholders involved in hurricane evacuation planning and decision making within the study area. Close coordination with these stakeholders will determine the level of detail associated with the final Report and additional materials. · The Contractor will coordinate closely with USACE, FEMA, and local and state stakeholders to develop a Report which effectively summarizes the key outputs of the HES. Key considerations for the Report include: · Level of detail to provide for each component of the HES study. · Inclusion of links to more detailed summary reports generated by each individual analysis. · Inclusion of storm surge visualization maps · An online Dashboard (i.e., GIS) or Story Map (or similar medium) for dissemination of the report. · Research and development should be conducted on ways to best integrate the HES Results Summary Report into HURREVAC, the National Hurricane Program’s online decision support tool.
Categories: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.