UDP News
UDP News: Spring 2011
The UW Institute for Hazards Mitigation and Planning, in coordination with county and state emergency management officials, and tribal emergency management agencies, is undertaking a study called “Project Safe Haven: Vertical Evacutation on the Washington Coast” for Washington State's Pacific and Grays Harbor Counties. The study, ongoing since January 2010, is described by its team members as “a grassroots, community-driven, public process currently taking place on the Washington Coast to identify areas for future vertical evacuation structures.”
As was evidenced in Japan, given a strong subduction zone earthquake close to shore, tsunami waves arrive in less than thirty minutes leaving roads and infrastructure disabled or destroyed. The Project Safe Haven team, led by UDP faculty member and Director of the UDP Institute of Hazards Mitigation and Planning Research, Bob Freitag, and UDP professor Ron Kasprisin, has the task of working with local citizens to locate, size, and conceptually imbed via urban design, safe haven towers, berms, and/or buildings that are safe zones within a fifteen minute walk of population clusters. The urban design component of the project consists of determining specific structure locations, identifying alternative uses, and assuring their availability in the event of a tsunami.
Project Safe Haven UW team members include UDP faculty members Bob Freitag (planner) and Ron Kasprisin (urban designer); CM faculty member Omar El-Anwar (engineering); and UDP Master of Urban Planning students Jeana Wiser (project lead), Katherine Killebrew, Amanda Engstfeld, Christopher Scott, Tricia DeMarco, and Josh Vitulli.
More Information
To learn more about Project Safe Haven, please visit the project's Facebook page and Catalyst website.
To learn more about the UW Institute for Hazards Mitigation, as well as other UDP Research Centers, please visit our Research page.
For more information about Bob Freitag, please visit his UDP Faculty profile page.
For more information about Professor Ron Kasprisin, please visit his UDP Faculty profile page.
For more information about Professor Omar El-Anwar, please visit his CM Faculty profile page.
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