CIEG 467 Engineering for Disasters
Spring 2008
Projects and Presentations Criteria
Key dates:
February 11 (Monday), 2008 – Form teams, select project preferences
March 3, 2008 – Mitigation report outline due
March 24, 2008 – Mitigation reports and presentations
April 28, 2008 – Recovery report outline due
Finals week – Recovery reports and presentations
Proposed projects are:
 Hurricane/Coastal flooding of Delaware beaches
 Seismic event in New York City
 Terrorist attack in a Baltimore train or highway tunnel
Objective
The objective of this project is to give you an opportunity to understand the elements of
disaster planning and management and the role engineers play in reducing losses from
disasters. Given one of the proposed disaster scenarios, your team will focus on specific
aspects of mitigation or recovery. Your team might choose to develop an evacuation plan
or strategies to mitigate the impacts of your disaster by modifying building codes. At the
mid-semester point after mitigation projects are presented, your team will be given a
specific disaster scenario with specific damages that have occurred and specific effects
from the disaster. In the recovery phase, your team will prioritize what should be done to
recover immediately and provide solutions to accomplish that recovery plan. It will be up
to the team to decide how to approach these disaster steps and what you want to
accomplish in the two phases of your project.
Faculty Resources
I am in the process of contacting the following faculty members to serve as resources.
They can be contacted to provide direction, and links to additional information. You
should be respectful of their time.
Name
Area
Email
Phone/Office
Harry Shenton
Structures/Seismic
shenton@ce.udel.edu
2447/ 360G DP
Jack Puleo
Coastal
jpuleo@coastal.udel.edu 2440/ 203 OEL
Sue McNeil
Systems/
mcneil@ce.udel.edu
6578/ 360D DP
Infrastructure
Michael Chajes
Bridges
chajes@ce.udel.edu
2442/301B DP
Dov Leshchinsky Geotechnical/
dov@ce.udel.edu
2446/ 360C DP
Tunnel
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Background Materials
The following links are intended to give you a start on defining the problem (the potential
disaster) and identifying background material. They are not intended to be complete.
Baltimore Tunnels:
Maryland Transportation Authority
http://www.mdta.state.md.us/mdta/servlet/dispatchServlet?url=/About/about.jsp
Baltimore Tunnel Fire 2003.
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/tr-140.pdf (FEMA Report)
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf/nas_resnikoff.pdf (pdf of powerpoint -includes chronology)
http://www.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov/JPODOCS/REPTS_TE/13754.html
Kennedy School case studies.
http://ksgcase.harvard.edu/content/how_to_order.html
Seismic Event in New York City
Cities at Risk for Earthquakes
http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/quakes/articles/citiesatrisk_04.html
New York City Area Consortium for Earthquake Loss Mitigation
http://nycem.org/background.asp
Seismic Vulnerability of New York State: Code Implications for Buildings, Bridges, and
Municipal Facilities
http://mceer.buffalo.edu/infoservice/faqs/jacob.asp
Waiting for the big one: Is New York prepared for earthquakes?
http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-02-15/hussain-earthquake
Coastal Flooding In Delaware
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Coastal Zone Information
http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/info/Coastal.htm
Beaches
http://www.dnrec.state.de.us/DNREC2000/Beaches.htm
Emergency Response
http://www.dnrec.state.de.us/DNREC2000/Emergency.asp
Delaware Flooding - Declared February 13, 1998
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=527
Delaware Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Flooding from the remnants of Hurricane
Jeanne - Declared November 15, 2004
http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=3923
Delaware Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) – Disaster Preparedness
http://www.state.de.us/dema/services/disaster_prep.shtml
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Requirements for Project Reports and Presentations
Project Report Outlines
The outline should reflect the elements of the grading sheet as outlined below. Like the
proposal outline, the purpose of the project outline is to get you thinking about the report
and provide an opportunity for the course coordinators to provide feedback. Specific
group members should be assigned responsibility for specific sections of the report.
These assignments should be part of the outline. You should be able to easily develop a
presentation from the outline and the report.
Rough Draft (this is not a required deliverable)
The rough draft should integrate much of what is provided in the outline and should
represent about a 60-75% complete product. This is an opportunity to get feedback from
the instructor without the requirement of having this step be part of the grade. Taking
advantage of this step is strongly encouraged.
Written Reports
The two project reports should describe the problem you addressed, background material,
approach, the final results or product, any additional work required and references.
Reports should have a clear beginning, middle and end. Start with a description of what
you’re going to say, say it, then end with a summary of what you said. Inclusion of
photos, graphics, maps, etc always helps tell some parts of a story so include those where
appropriate. There is a 20 page limit to the reports. The cover page and the table of
contents are not included in the 20 pages. Final reports will be graded according to the
attached grading sheet. Please attach this sheet to your group’s project.
Presentations
The two project presentations should be about 30 minutes in length with an additional 10
to 15 minutes for questions. Each member of the group must have a role in the
presentation. Visual aids should be used to support the presentation. Please have copies
of the presentation for the audience so others can follow and have a place for notes, etc.
Grading (as a % of course grade), each phase is 40% of course grade
Report Outline – 5%
Final report – 20%
Final Presentation – 15%
TOTAL – 40%
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CIEG 467 Engineering for Disasters
Spring 2008
Project Grading Sheet
Please attach to the front of your project
Group Members: ________________________________________________
Category
Cover sheet / Table of
Contents
Abstract or Executive
Summary
Introduction
Points
Max
Points
5
5
5
Objectives
5
Background
10
Approach
10
Findings/ results/
products
15
Critique/ Discussion/
Directions for future
work
References
10
Completeness
10
Technical quality
10
Presentation quality
(written document)
10
5
100
4
Comments