Measuring the Resilience of Businesses Following the 2014 South Napa Earthquake in California

Abstract eng:
Following the 2014 South Napa Earthquake in California, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute convened a small team of researchers to develop an approach for studying the resilience of businesses impacted by major earthquakes. Over the course of the next 18 months, the team developed a flexible survey tool to be used for both real-time monitoring of business recovery issues over time after an earthquake, and also for addressing longer-term research questions. In overview, the survey tool comprises a master list of questions covering a broad range of topics, from basic information about a business or building (e.g., number of employees, industry sector, annual revenue, building age, lateral system, etc.) to more detailed observations of damage, downtime, business impacts, and resilience strategies. This master list of questions serves as the basis for shorter, more focused surveys for a particular audience or situation (e.g., business managers, building owners, reconnaissance engineers, etc.). The team designed these shorter surveys to be administered multiple times after an earthquake, thus enabling a more comprehensive and longitudinal record of business recovery to be obtained. This paper describes the survey tool in detail. It begins with an overview of the development process, which involved (1) working backwards from a comprehensive list of research and monitoring needs to create a detailed set of survey questions that can generate the necessary data; (2) reviewing existing survey tools and techniques, especially those deployed following the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, to learn from previous experience; and (3) asking researchers from relevant fields and local government officials to review a draft of the survey tool to assess whether it addresses their needs, in terms of both real-time monitoring and long-term research. The paper then describes the organizational structure and content of the survey before discussing potential deployment strategies following a major earthquake. The paper also describes the field-testing process employed by the research team, which, at the time of writing this paper, is currently underway. Currently, the team is trialing the survey tool on a diverse set of businesses throughout the region affected by the 2014 South Napa Earthquake to refine and improve the survey. After incorporating feedback from the field test, the survey tool will be ready for deployment in the next major earthquake.

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