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Critical infrastructure provides services to help support activities and functions of communities and industries. These activities/functions contribute socially and economically when performed efficiently in reliance with related critical infrastructure. During disasters, the critical infrastructure gets impacted and is unable to provide the full services which in turn affect the activities depending on that particular infrastructure. This reduces the contribution of the activities which results in impact on communities and industries. This research provides a unique perspective of preparing cities and industries against natural disasters in pre-, during and post-disaster situation. It is based on the inter-relationship that exists between communities, industries and related critical infrastructure. Identifying and fortifying infrastructure ahead of time will protect and support not only people and properties but also industrial activities and services. Moreover, it will become easier for governmental and industrial organizations to prepare mitigation plans and strategies that would help to prepare, prevent, respond, and recover from potential natural disasters. Thus, public agencies, industries and communities can largely benefit from natural disaster mitigation strategies that would help to speed up the recovery process as well as provide an effective tool to handle the disaster-related resources. The study presents a severity assessment tool (SAT) for evaluating the social and economic impacts on communities and industries due to disaster impacted infrastructure in the context of a case study of 2008 Midwest Floods in the United States. The case study demonstrates the inter-relationship between infrastructure, communities and industries as well as assessment of impacts if the level of serviceability of infrastructure was to be influenced dur-ing/after disaster situations. The results of this case study will help the city managers and emergency response agencies in understanding the social and economic impacts of disasters on infrastructure and the associated industries and communities and will assist them in preparing appropriate disaster mitigation strategies.
critical infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, floods, severity, social and economic impacts
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