December 2012 Joint SEAoNY – EERI NY-NE Meeting

The New Normal for Natural Disasters New York-Northeast Chapter December Joint Meeting with SEAoNY

  • Presenter: 2012 EERI Distinguished Lecturer and former EERI President  Dr. Tom O’ROurke
  • Date: December 12, 2012
  • Time: 8:00 am – 10:30 am
  • Location: AIA Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village
  • RSVP: Please RSVP at http://www.seaony.org/programs/event_details.php?id=203 to secure advance registration fee.
  • For SEAoNY and EERI Members, registration is $25 in advance, $35 at the door
  • For Non-Members, registration is $40 in advance, $50 at the door

  • One PDH will be offered 

ABSTRACT:

The effects of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy are discussed with respect to their impact on regional and international economics, national practices for security and recovery, and worldwide energy policy. The severity and far ranging consequences of these extreme events have established in effect a new normal for natural disasters. The lecture explains why these events require a fundamental re-thinking of the way we evaluate the risks of extreme events, as well as define and protect critical infrastructure. Examples of critical infrastructure at risk are discussed with respect to earthquake effects on the water supply of Southern California and hurricane effects on New York City. To address the need for protection against rare, high consequence events with limited financial resources, a strategy for improving infrastructure resilience is proposed.

DR. TOM O’ROURKE

Tom O’Rourke is the Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received a number of distinctions for his research and teaching, some of which are ASTM C.A. Hogentogler Award, ASCE Collingwood, Huber Research, C. Martin Duke, Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering, and Ralph B. Peck Awards, and the British ICE Trevithick Prize. He gave the 2009 Rankine Lecture. He served as President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and as a member of the US National Science Foundation Engineering Advisory Committee. He authored or co-authored over 350 technical publications. His research interests cover geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, underground construction technologies, engineering for large, geographically distributed systems, and geographic information technologies and database management. He has served on numerous government and professional society projects, as well as the peer reviews for projects associated with highway, rapid transit, water supply, and energy distribution systems.

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New York-Northeast EERI Chapter

President: Sissy Nikolaou                  Treasurer/Secretary: Jesse Richins

Board of Directors: Frank Clemente, Ramon Gilsanz, Jagtar Khinda, Aspa Zerva

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