EH Home About Us Communities Radiation Medicine Water Sewage Programs Newsroom Data

This is a full transcript of the presentation on the health effects of transportation planning after disasters.

This is a full transcript of the online presentation. For the presentation itself, go here.

Begin Transcript:

Hi, my name is Mitch Stripling, and today we’re going to talk about some of the ways that transportation planning can improve health outcomes in a disaster. A lot of the data we’ll be discussing comes from a report by Todd Litman for the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, and so I want to thank him up front. You can link to full report from our website. So, I want to tell you a story about a disaster you’ve surely heard of. In that disaster, transportation services were overwhelmed, many poverty stricken victims were unable to escape and were trapped in their homes or in poorly maintained refugee camps. Reports of lawlessness from those trapped victims, true or not, saturated the American media, along with accusations on police brutality.

This was the scene in San Francisco in 1906, which is one of the first major national disasters that occurred in a city that had anything like a modern transportation infrastructure.

These scenes are taken from the Library of Congress American Memory collection, shot by an unknown filmographer. They capture life in San Francisco scant days after the earthquake and fire. The title cards talk about the modes of transportation in use-horses, some cars, ferry boats, trolleys. In the images, you can see a divide emerging. Those who have horses or—especially, cars—are freely mobile, while other victims literally pile onto each other to catch the rare streetcar. There’s even a divide between wagons and streetcars, with several victims per wagon, but only two in the occasional car. Look at the last few seconds, all those bodies piled onto the streetcar. Wow. Already, this divide between those with cars and those without is growing. In later disasters, the barrier erected by automotive freedom would only get worse.

Think about Hurricane Katrina for example. Almost 2,000 dead, more than 1,400 in Louisiana. 720 in Orleans Parish alone. Many of the stories we heard about substantial violence in the immediate aftermath of the storm have been discredited. Many have not. Some of those stories we’ll never know the truth about. In any case, those would could not or would not evacuate were left in a wasteland where transportation and communication had broken down, where looting was rampant, and where conditions in shelters were neither safe nor comfortable. Many of the deaths attributed to Katrina were so-called “indirect” deaths caused by the stresses of living in these conditions. In public health, we care about indicators. And being trapped in a situation like this after a major disaster is about as clear an indicator as you can get of a negative health outcome. With that said, the obvious question for transportation is, was the evacuation successful? Did everyone get out that needed to?

This was Governor Blanco’s assessment of the evacuation plan in May of 2006, well after the storm. With that time to reflect, she obviously believe that the plan worked very successfully. So, let’s address the question and see. Did it work?

"We had a very successful plan, a phased plan, and everyone who made a decision to get out got out," she said. "The best way to save lives when hurricanes threaten is to get out before the storm arrives." Evacuation News Conference, May 2006

In some ways, yes. This image is from the New Orleans Evacuation plan. It shows a system wherein all highways are re-routed to only go one direction. It’s called a contra-flow system and, in this case, New Orleans used a tiered contra-flow system where different neighborhoods had different times to evacuate. That’s a best practice meant to cut down on traffic issues and smooth out the evacuation process. So, the answer to the question Does it work? Is the same answer we get for the transportation system in many American cities: Sure, it works, if you have a car.

• .....Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." • The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

This is a texty slide, but it shows what the New Orleans Emergency Plan and Transportation plan said about evacuating those without cars. The first piece says that special arrangements will be made for those without vehicles. It’s important that those arrangements aren’t specified, because, in fact, they didn’t exist. New Orleans was in the process of recruiting charity groups to find and volunteer to transport the disadvantaged. In August of 2005, one church had signed up for the program. One township’s instructions summed the process up this way: “Try not to think of it as evacuating; think of it as an opportunity to visit a friend or loved one.“ Of course, for those without the resources for such a visit, these are not comforting words.

These are a collection of news images from the Katrina evacuation. Could the city have known what transportation issues were involved in the evacuation? Yes. In 2002, the Journal of Transportation Engineers estimated that between two to three hundred thousand residents of New Orleans didn’t have access to “reliable personal transportation”. This assessment was echoed in several other publications. Moreover, in 2004, New Orleans evacuated in anticipation of a possible strike by Hurricane Ivan. In that evacuation, it was determined that 100,000 people relied on city transportation. Could not evacuate without it, in fact. Were there people who simply didn’t want to leave their homes, or who were discouraged by traffic on the roadways? Absolutely. But there were also those who would have taken free transportation out of the city, gladly, thus lowering the public health burden on the city as a whole.

That was Mayor Ray Nagin being interviewed on September 2nd, five days after the storm impact. The picture above is one of the shots of flooded school busses that were analyzed around the country. On Meet the Press, September 11, 2005, Mayor Nagin clarified his position there were busses, but he didn’t have enough drivers to utilize them. As a planning lesson, then, the question is, Why weren’t the drivers available? In the New Orleans Region Transit Authority plan (quoting from Todd Litman’s study), it specified that “Drivers should evacuate buses and other agency vehicles with their families and transit-dependent residents, thereby protecting people and vehicles.” This did not occur, obviously. Mayor Nagin said that he felt evacuating victims to the Superdome fulfilled this section of the plan. In fact, residents wanting to evacuate by bus had to pay commercial rates. Now, whether or not there were enough buses, the important planning consideration is to make sure that transportation staff are designated as essential personnel and assured that their families will be evacuated safely if they man their posts. That assurance is key to retaining the high numbers of working staff you would need to conduct these evacuations.

Of course, now bus service is a vital part of life in New Orleans in another way. For $35, you can take a twice daily Gray Line tour of the devastation.

Let’s switch focus for a minute to discuss Hurricane Rita, which slammed into Texas about three weeks after Katrina came ashore.

When Rita hit, a number of coastal cities had to be evacuated nearly simultaneously, adding up to about three million people. The toll from hurricane Katrina doubtless pushed that number higher than it would have been, and traffic jams that extended scores of miles were the result. One positive improvement was that fact that free bus service was offered to the coastal residents, with many accepting the offer. You can see some of the buses used in the left-hand news photo above.

In another fit of text, here are some of the main issues encountered during the Rita evacuation. Two of the main issues go straight back to that essential services designation: Many TSA screeners in coastal airports didn’t report to work in order to evacuate themselves, slowing the air evacuation, and an already critical fuel situation was exacerbated by fuel truck drivers that did the same. In this case, the town sequencing plan for the evacuation wasn’t followed, which increased the traffic. Finally, authorities decided to contra-flow, but then changed their minds in order to continue sending resources into the targeted cities. This caused heightened confusion.

A real bright spot in the evacuation was the service of the Houston METRO Transit Authority, which evacuated 20,000 people using 1,000 vehicles on 4,500 trips. More importantly, perhaps, they continued sweeping the city for residents who might make a last minute decision to evacuate. Having a proactive transit authority with the capacity to respond was a key factor in a smooth evacuation for Houston, which leads us to a key question for planners.

Smart Growth is an urban planning strategy focusing on mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhoods that promote walkability and decrease dependence on individual automobiles by increasing the density of the population, i.e. having more people less, more vibrant space. Some emergency management stakeholders have criticized it recently by asking questions like this: What if New Orleans had been as dense as a city like San Francisco? With fewer cars and more people, wouldn’t the outcome have been worse? (This example from http://www.rentalcartours.net/ which is not a rental company)

I think that the example of Houston shows us that the answer is a clear No.

This is the official bus system map of the city of Houston. While it’s true that Houston is a much larger city that New Orleans, it is also substantially more dense. In recognition of this fact, Houston has evolved a much stronger bussing system, which gave it additional capacity during the Hurricane Rita evacuation. To me, this is indicative of the fact that density is not the enemy of evacuation. In fact, since density often builds infrastructure, density can support evacuation efforts. This is only true, of course, if a city has built up its capacity to a strong level, as Houston has.

The density that smart growth fosters can create stronger neighborhoods, too. When a neighborhood shares access to transportation infrastructure, community centers and local businesses, it builds a connection between community members that has been shown to help reduce morbidity after disasters and to increase positive public health indicators. This connection strengthens the community’s resilience-- it’s ability to spring back after a disaster. This collage is called Neighborhood 2 by Maria Cavacos. To me, it shows a dense and vibrant community; the kind any good evacuation plan tried hard to save.

So, let’s go over some best practices to plan that evacuation. First, let’s do some math. If you assume about 1,000 cars per lane per hour under mass evacuation conditions and assume that each car has about 2.5 passengers, that means that a city with two four lane highways and a million evacuees would take about 50 hours to evacuate. That’s with both highways under full contraflow. Let me say that again. 50 hours to evacuate a million people from an urban area. For a hard storm strike on a major urban area, that’s just not enough time.

Now, adding even one dedicate bus lane to that mix will cut your evacuation time in half. In half. This is true even though busses may only carry half of their capacity during a disaster (because of luggage, equipment, etc.). Even with that, 600 busses per lane per hour means 15,000 evacuees per hour per lane. This is a huge improvement. Enforcing HOV lanes and adding urban light rail (if functional) to the mix can decrease the total evacuation time substantially. There are several stories that Amtrak offered use of a train for evacuation that was not accepted by local officials.

Other smart growth principles can be helpful for emergency management functions, too. During the 2004 Oakland fires, several fatalities were recorded from victims who tried to evacuate by car and were caught in a firestorm. Walking evacuees were successful, in that instance. After an event, smart growth principles of neighborhood organization may also help with search and rescue by shrinking the geographic area to be covered. Fewer cars, of course, also means fewer cars on the road, particularly families trying to evacuate all of their cars from an area.

So, there are several lessons that planners can glean from these experiences. Planners need to be involved with evacuation planning, and the evacuation should be analyzed from a public health perspective. That means, you know, think about the health of the evacuees as they’re traveling-food, emergency services-and their health once they arrive-do they have safe and secure destinations adequate to their numbers? In that planning process, make sure you designate your transportation personnel as essential and pre-confirm their families for evacuation, if needed. Bring bus and rail services into the mix early. As of October, 2007, only five American cities have designated pickup sites for an evacuation by bus. Miami is one of them. This is a best practice to consider, so that the public gets familiar with the process for evacuation. Finally, keep in mind the complexities of contra-flow management, including tiered neighborhoods and moving supplies into the area.

This is a painting by Zeal Harris, “Katrina Evacuation”. In it, you can see that the difference between the mass of folks caught in the event (foreground) and those that have escaped is the transportation system. Use it well, promise families safe and comfortable places to recover at the other end, and it’s a lifeline to good life and good health. Use it poorly and it becomes a wall, trapping victims in a dire situation full of negative indicators for health.

Thank you…

Mitch Stripling Preparedness Education Coordinator, EH

End Transcript