Risk-informed assessment of regional preparedness: A case study of emergency potable water for hurricane response in Southeast Virginia

Decisionmakers need to understand the degree to which information-based decision processes affect the capabilities of a region to absorb the impact of a disaster and to respond and recover within an acceptable envelope of time and cost. This paper explores the modeling of a region as a system that has imperfect information about itself and an imperfect ability to discern its future infrastructure conditions. The paper illustrates this system-modeling paradigm with a data-based example of how emergency potable water was supplied as part of hurricane response in Southeastern Virginia. In this example, results indicate that prepositioning potable water supplies can result in savings in excess of one million dollars per forecast and can affect as much as one-third of the regional population. Moreover, the capacity of the region to respond to imperfect information and to reduce risk of both response costs and persons impacted can be achieved through strategic preparedness methods that change the decision-processing capability of the region. The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of information and information processes in evaluating regional risk and capability and to emphasize the need for simultaneous evaluation of response and preparedness.