Division of Natural Hazard Mitigation – författare

The small community of Saragosa, Texas, was devastated by a violent multiple-vortex tornado on Friday, May 22, 1987. Despite the extensive warning dissemination efforts, which are documented in this book, the overall warning system in Saragosa failed to reach most of the residents in time for them to take effective safety measures.

The primary purpose of this book is to combine the information provided by the respondents to a postdisaster survey with the facts surrounding the tornado in order to understand and evaluate the severe weather warning procedures used in Reeves County, Texas, where Saragosa is located.

The evaluation of this survey is intended to determine ways of adjusting existing warning systems and better prepare the citizens, public officials, and news media in Reeves County, as well as in every city, county, and township where severe weather threatens lives and property.

On November 13, 1985, catastrophic mudflows swept down the slopes of the erupting Nevado del Ruiz volcano, destroying structures in their paths. Various estimates of deaths ranged as high as 24,000 residents. Though the nature and extent of risk posed by the mudflows to local communities were well documented before the event and extensive efforts had been made to communicate this information to those at risk, the affected communities were caught largely unaware.

This volume analyzes the disaster''s many aspects: the extent, constitution, and behavior of the mudflows; the nature of damage to structures; the status of the area''s disaster warning system; and the extent of the area''s disaster preparedness, emergency response actions, and disaster relief efforts—both at the time of the disaster and in the first few months following the event.

The hazard posed by large dams has long been known. Although no concrete dam has failed as a result of earthquake activity, there have been instances of significant damage. Concerns about the seismic safety of concrete dams have been growing recently because the population at risk in locations downstream of major dams continues to expand and because the seismic design concepts in use at the time most existing dams were built were inadequate.

In this book, the committee evaluates current knowledge about the earthquake performance of concrete dams, including procedures for investigating the seismic safety of such structures. Earthquake Engineering for Concrete Dams specifically informs researchers about state-of-the-art earthquake analysis of concrete dams and identifies subject areas where additional knowledge is needed.