Sandia to help cities be better prepared for, emerge stronger from, disasters
Systems risk analyses define threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences
Miller helps cities think about threats facing them, how a city might be vulnerable to those threats and what the consequences are.
To define a city’s risk, Miller taps experts across the labs to look at the likelihood of natural or manmade disasters. In the case of terrorist attacks, she tries to understand how someone who wants to harm a city would be motivated, make decisions and act.
To assess a city’s vulnerabilities, Miller ties together threats and consequences to uncover potential weaknesses. The analyses also identify critical infrastructure, such as transportation, electricity, communications, hospitals and other facilities that would be vulnerable.
Finally, the analyses identify potential consequences, such as how many people would be injured in a natural disaster or how many buildings would have to be closed, to help cities prioritize how to become more resilient, she said.
“We’re a systems engineering lab. That means we look at processes from end to end, defining the problem, identifying the needs, defining the requirements, engineering a solution and making it happen,” Miller said.
Looking at complex systems — in this case, cities — also encourages municipal developers to address multiple risks, rather than create a separate plan for each hazard, she said.
This process “helps cities prioritize and have an explanation of why they’re investing in one thing versus another,” she added. “It helps build consensus.”
Electrical grid experts at Sandia bring resiliency to power supply
Ellis works with a Sandia team on infrastructure resilience to prevent the kind of damage suffered in New York and New Jersey after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy.
Sandia researchers are using the labs’ Energy Surety Design Methodology, which has a successful track record at military facilities, for two projects in New Jersey funded by the Department of Energy.
Sandia notes it is working with the city of Hoboken, N.J., to assess and develop designs for improving the resiliency of the city’s electrical grid after the storm.
Sandia also is working on a study with New Jersey’s Transit Corporation, NJ TRANSIT, to provide a resilient energy supply system to trains running between New York and New Jersey during power disruptions.
Sandia is providing NJ TRANSIT with a design concept for a microgrid, which, if built, would be the largest microgrid by capacity and geographical footprint in the United States, Ellis said. A microgrid is connected to a utility electrical grid, but can also operate as an “island” grid that self-sufficiently produces power when there is a disruption in the main grid.
The power system is being planned with resiliency in mind. For example, the generation plant and transmission and distribution lines will be protected from wind and storm surges, he said.
Resiliency requires planning ahead for disasters that might happen once every fifty years or more. That can cost millions of dollars up front, but can reduce a city’s exposure to billions of dollars in economic impact and repairs after a disaster, he said.
Ellis is excited about working with city governments and believes resiliency can become an attribute of cities, just like quality schools and clean water.
“Resiliency should contribute to the economic vitality of a city,” he said.
Clean water a human right, integral to resilient cities
Tidwell believes access to clean water is a human right and works toward that end in his profession and as a volunteer traveling to South America and Africa to provide technical know-how.
“It’s always been in my heart. I’m trying to give back a little bit of what we take for granted in the U.S. by recognizing that a lot of people don’t have access to good, clean water,” Tidwell said.
In the United States, helping cities with water issues has expanded in recent years from a focus on natural disasters or malevolent activity that affect water supplies to include more chronic issues of population growth and climate change and their impact on water resources.
Like many of Sandia’s researchers, Tidwell can work with cities to study their entire systems by taking into account water issues along with other concerns. “We’re really bringing together the energy, the water, the land, the food, environmental issues, looking across the board in trying to fashion a more holistic view of how these work together,” he said.
For example, Sandia can help explore the interplay between water and energy, water and food supply or other trade-offs; the laboratory can help developing cities provide safe drinking water, sanitation or build needed infrastructure in a cost-effective and efficient manner through the use of technology; or perhaps identify specific technologies to produce clean drinking water.
Tidwell recognizes that many cities already have high-caliber water experts. He envisions a collaborative approach with cities to understand water-related issues, perhaps running scenarios and see how different solutions affect outcomes.
Mark Ehlen, co-project lead, said citizens in resilient cities should notice the benefits of resiliency not only during disasters, but also in their everyday lives.
“A resilient city is livable and workable. There’s clean air, a good standard of living, not too much congestion, housing and education are affordable and there’s a sense of community,” he said. “Resilient cities can evolve over time to accommodate an increase in population, increased disparities in income so that in the long-term, social mobility is preserved.”
