ARkStorm
The USGS Multi Hazards Demonstration Project (MHDP) uses hazards science to improve communities’ resiliency to natural disasters, including earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, landslides, floods and coastal erosion. The project engages the user community in setting research goals and directs efforts towards research products that can be applied to loss reduction and improved resiliency. The first public product of the MHDP was the ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario published in May 2008. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake scenario served as the scientifically credible basis of the largest earthquake drill in United States history involving over 5,000 emergency responders and diaster recovery agents and the participation of over 5.5 million citizens.
The USGS MHDP is now preparing for its next major public project, a Winter Storm Scenario. Like the earthquake scenario, experts will design a large but scientifically plausible physical event followed by an expert analysis of the secondary hazards, and the physical, social, and economic consequences. Experts will examine in detail the possibility, cost and consequences of floods, landslides, coastal erosion and inundation; debris flows; environmental consequences like pollution and extirpation of endangered species; physical damage possibilities like bridge scour, road closures, dam failure, property loss, and levee system collapse. Consideration will be given to the vulnerabilities associated with a catastrophic disruption to the water supply to California; the resulting impacts on ground water pumping, seawater intrusion, water supply degradation, and land subsidence; and a detailed examination on climatic change forces that could exacerbate the problems.
The hypothetical Winter Storm Scenario would impact the US West Coast and be analogous to the intense California winter storms of 1861-1862, providing a reality check on what is historically possible. Unlike the recent US East and Gulf Coast hurricanes, only recently have scientific and technological advances documented the ferocity and strength of US West Coast storms. The task of ARk Storm is to elevate the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property, and ecosystems posed by extreme winter storms on the US West Coast. This enhanced visibility will help increase preparedness of the emergency management community and public to such a storm.
Background:
Beginning on Christmas Eve, 1861, and continuing into 1862, an extreme series of storms lasting 45 days struck California. The storms caused severe flooding, turning the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea, forcing Governor Leland Stanford to take a rowboat for his inauguration and the State Capital to be moved from Sacramento to San Francisco for a time. William Brewer, author of “Up and Down California,” wrote on January 19, 1862, “The great central valley of the state is under water – the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys — a region 250 to 300 miles long and an average of at least twenty miles wide, or probably three to three and a half millions of acres!” In southern California lakes were formed in the Mojave Desert and the Los Angeles Basin. The Santa Ana River tripled the highest-ever estimated discharge, cutting arroyos in to the southern California landscape and obliterating the ironically named, Agua Mansa (Smooth Water), the largest community between New Mexico and Los Angeles. The storms wiped out nearly a third of the taxable land in California, leaving the State bankrupt.
The 1861 and 1862 series of storms were probably the largest and longest California storms on record. However, geological evidence suggests that earlier, prehistoric floods were likely bigger. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that these extreme storms could not happen again. Yet, despite the historical, and pre-historical, evidence for extreme winter storms on the West Coast, the potential for these extreme events has not attracted public concern, as have hurricanes. The storms the size of 1861 and 1862 happened prior to living memory and the hazards associated with these extreme winter storms have not tested modern infrastructure and the preparedness of the emergency management community.
Atmospheric Rivers: Wind, Rain, and Waves
The non-technical term “Pineapple Express” is popularly used to describe the meteorological phenomenon that causes moisture to be drawn from the Pacific Ocean near the equator and transported to the US West Coast with fire-hose like ferocity. This meteorological phenomenon of intense wind and rain is technically associated with “extratropical cyclones.” While these cyclones are not of the iconic circular patterns commonly associated with hurricanes, they do carry within them an observable phenomenon similar to the eye wall of a mature hurricane. This eye wall has only recently become observable through satellite technology and is now more aptly termed an “atmospheric river” (AR).
The atmospheric mechanisms behind the storms of 1861 and 1862 are unknown, however, the storms were likely the result of an intense atmospherics river, or a series of atmospheric rivers, striking the US West Coast. With the right preconditions, just one intense atmospheric river hitting the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range east of Sacramento, could bring devastation to the Central Valley of California. An independent panel wrote in October 2007 to California’s Departement of Water Resources, “California’s Central Valley faces significant flood risks. Many experts feel that the Central Valley is the next big disaster waiting to happen. This fast-growing region in the country’s most populous state, the Central Valley encompasses the floodplains of two major rivers—the Sacramento and the San Joaquin—as well as additional rivers and tributaries that drain the Sierra Nevada mountains. Expanding urban centers lie in floodplains where flooding could result in extensive loss of life and billions in damages.”
The storm scenario is named, “ARk Storm” to represent an atmospheric river (AR) with a value of 1000 (k) – on a scale of atmospheric rivers being devised by atmospheric scientists. The scenario storm then will be an “AR 1000,” and other US West Coast storms will be scaled in comparison.
Atmospheric Scenario: Ralph and Dettinger
To raise awareness and adequately prepare for extreme US West Coast storms, the USGS Multi-hazards Demonstration Project is developing a next-generation winter storm scenario event to follow its Great Southern California ShakeOut scenario of November 2008. This new winter storm scenario will define in some detail a large, hypothetical, but realistic event similar to the storms that struck California in 1861 and 1862. While adequate historical evidence exists to verify the scope and severity of those events, it is insufficient for the needs of scientists, engineers, sociologists, and economists to estimate in detail the costs and other consequences of a 21st Century repetition of those storms.
A team of atmospheric scientists with expertise in west coast storms associated with US federal and state agencies, and academic institutions, will create a model for use in devising the storm scenario, and future scenarios. The 1861/1862 scenario, the first of the scenarios, will adapt information from up to three recent US West Coast storms for which data exist to produce preconditioning information, such as rainfall and soil saturation. The experts will then model the windspeeds, rainfall, flooding, and other meteorological and hydrological inputs that would realistically accompany two large storms similar to the 1861 and 1862 events that would impact both northern and southern California.
Coastal Model: Barnard and Hoover
Concurrent to the design the atmospheric event, a Coastal Erosion Team is developing a state-of-the-art model to assess coastal vulnerability using data (i.e., wind, pressure, etc) from the hypthetical storm. Ultimately, the effort will lead to real-time understanding and prediction of coastal flooding, inundation, erosion, wave heights, current strength, and cliff failure on the entire Southern California coast. The output of the model will be used in the winter storm scenairo to determine plausible consequences of the hypotheitcal storm. Utlimately, the model output will be used beyond Southern California and incorporate real-time data inputs for use in a real-time warning system to be used by the emergency managers, lifeline continuity operators, and resource managers.
Landslide: Wills and Stock
To address the secondary hazards associated with the scenario storm, additional teams will detail the potential for landslides and debris flows, floods, and environmental impacts. To advance our understanding of landslide susceptibility, the USGS Multi-hazards Initiative is forming a team to relate storm size to landslide potential. To do this the project will acquire, digitize, and quantify maps and aerial photographs of landslides from past storms to estimate landslide potential, The team will create a database of stratigraphy, soils, and slope for southern California and portions of northern California that can be used to determine landslide and debris flow susceptibility associated with storms like the scenario storm. This will build on estimates of susceptibility to earthquake-triggered landslides prepared for the ShakeOut, with additional maps and analysis of debris flow susceptibility and maps showing areas likely to be inundated by flooding and debris flows. Output of the analysis and expert opinion will be used to inform the emergency response, physical damage and other aspects of the scenario. To demonstrate the future of landslide hazard science, the project will develop next-generation landslide hazard maps as part of the Winter Storm Scenario by using high resolution digital topography and new mapping techniques in a focus area.
Floods: Croyle and Ferris
Using the meteorological simulations produced for the winter storm scenario, a team will be formed from experts within the California Department of Water Resources, the National Weather Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Army Corps of Engineers to determine the resultant flooding for northern and southern California. Considering the size and duration of this storm scenario, the expected runoff, inundation, and routing of storm water will be described, as well as describing general locations that are uniquely vulnerable to a storm of this magnitude and specific sites (levees, dams, and monitoring equipment) that would fail for the purpose of proving a challenging emergency response scenario for the planning and preparedness community. Numerical simulations of river hydraulics and flood heights will be conducted for key reaches or river, and paleoflood hydrology will be used to provide “ground truthing” for the computer models. The scenario will examine the many interrelated components of flood response, including: adaptive river forecasting, real-time data collection, reservoir management, information dissemination, patrolling, and flood fighting. The scenario will also detail various stages of flood recovery and mitigation. The Flood Hazard team will create a table-top exercise for use in a wider Golden Guardian the flood emergency response scenario, and will detail the emergency response plans implemented when dealing with a flood of this scope and magnitude. Dale, will sediment transport be considered?
Physical Damages: Porter
Once primary and secondary hazards are defined, a team of engineers will use this information to estimate the storms’ impact in terms of physical damage, repair costs, and restoration time for buildings and other infrastructure such as dams, levees, harbors, bridges, roads, water supply systems, electric power, etc. To accomplish this, the Co-Principal Investigator for engineering will identify and solicit the participation of researchers, government employees, and other engineering professionals involved in the design, construction, operation, maintenance, or risk assessment of these systems. The experts will perform the engineering risk assessments and report their findings. The findings will generally include an historical review of storm impacts to the system of interest, a summary of the facilities currently exposed to risk, one realistic assessment of damage and repair implications, a brief discussion of practical risk-mitigation measures, and where appropriate a summary of limitations or pressing needs for further study.
Environmental and Health Impacts: Plumlee and Alpers
The rainfall, flooding, winds, and physical damage to infrastructure from an extreme storm would likely also result in adverse physical, chemical, and ecological impacts on the environment in northern and southern California, including the possible extirpation of species. For example, the storm would likely lead to widespread erosion, transport, and redistribution of soils, sediments, and rock materials that would affect riverine, lacustrine, and coastal environments. Storm damage to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial facilities (such as sewage treatment plants, petroleum refineries, mines, chemical manufacturing plants, etc.) could release debris, contaminants, and microbial pathogens into the environment. Erosion or flooding of agricultural lands could lead to extensive loss or contamination of arable soils. Water supplies used for human consumption, livestock consumption, or agricultural irrigation could become contaminated by a wide variety of contaminants or pathogens. Following the storm, sediments, debris, and contaminants redistributed by landslides or flood waters could then dry out and become available for further redistribution by human disturbance and wind transport.
The storm scenario will integrate input from a broad sepctrum of experts to examine the potential for a wide variety of possible environmental impacts, such as: 1) effects from flood-induced erosion and sedimentation on riverine, lacustrine, and coastal marine environments; 2) effects from infrastructure or industrial facilities damaged by the storm that lead to releases of contaminants or debris into the environment; 3) effects on the urban/suburban environment; 4) effects on agriculture through loss or contamination of arable soils; 5) effects on water quality, both in the environment and in water supplies used for human consumption, livestock consumption, and agricultural irrigation; 6) effects on species habitat and species viability; and 7) effects of dusts released following the storm from landslides, flood deposits, and other redistributed materials. The storm scenario will also allow recovery managers to better understand the types and nature of materials that would be in need of clean-up and disposal, thereby enabling more effective planning for post-storm cleanup and recovery.
In addition to the acute physical threats to safety posed by the storm, the possibility also exists for adverse health effects on humans and ecosystems. These could include, for example, potential outbreaks of disease from consumption of contaminated drinking water, or outbreaks of Valley Fever resulting from exposure to dusts from flood deposits containing the soil fungus C. Immitis. Through collaborations with appropriate public health and environmental agencies, the scenario will also model potential exposures to storm-related environmental contaminants and pathogens, potential health risks posed by these exposures, and ways to mitigate these exposures and health risks.
Emergency Response: Miller
Like the ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario, the winter storm scenario could serve as the basis for a large emergency response drill like the State of California’s annual emergency response drill called “Golden Guardian.” The Golden Guardian drill associated with the ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario was the largest-ever, with nearly 5,000 emergency responders and managers participating. While the ShakeOut earthquake was a sudden onset event largely contained to southern California, the winter storm event, or series of events, would cover both southern and northern California and would extend over a period of weeks, or perhaps months. Emergency response would work closely with weather and flood managers to provide command and control to mobilize responders and the resource needed to protect citizens from peril. The emergency response section will detail that interaction and seek improvements in relation to a scenario-size storm. The emergency response section will incorporate the upcoming bay/delta emergency response exercise into the scenario, using scenairo storm as the basis of the exercise. The outcome of that exercise would be incorporated into the scenario for a possible statewide exercises.
Forecast:
Unlike the earthquake scenario, a winter storm is largely predictable. While uncertainty is an element of every forecast, the predictability of a winter storm of this magnitude would give the pubic and emergency management community some time to prepare. The winter storm scenario would provide a useful mechanism to exercise and test the use of forecast in emergency management decision-making.
The scenario-size storm would give land-use planners and policy-maker a scientifically credible framework on which to base their decision. A winter storm scenario will convene following the design of the storm and prior to completion of the physical damages section of the scenario.
Policy: Topping
Rather than detailing all policy concerns related to all consequences of the storms, the Policy Section will draw out policy connections between this massive super storm scenario and current planning and operational procedures based on existed policy. We might also focus on how this scenario can be used by agencies to 1.) Qualify for FEMA and state disaster recovery funds (e.g., PA, CDAA), and 2.) Satisfy FEMA, state, and local EOP plans and preparation. We will also focus on how a storm of this magnitude will provide a “wake-up call,” raising the question of what pre- and post-disaster hazard mitigation planning and funding resources (e.g., NFIP, PDM, HMGP) need to be sought in light of this scenario – such as moving local emergency operations centers and equipment out of a flood plain, guiding development away from flood plains, adding access-evacuation points for single-access areas inundated or isolated by flooding, and strengthening existing flood works. Another focus will be on how the scenario could be a standard reference point for application of future FEMA guidance in California in state and local multi-hazard mitigation plans under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. There are detriments to creating a scenario larger than a 200-year storm. This section will identify the importance to local hazard mitigation planning of connecting this super storm scenario to the 200-year flood plain mapping produced by the California Department of Water Resources.”
Economics: Wein and Rose
The ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario exposed the vulnerabilities associated with a large-scale regional disaster on the economy of southern California and the US. Likewise, the winter storm scenario will examine the economic costs associated with a storm analagous to the series of storms that pummeled California in 1861 and 1862. While the population of California was only about 500,000 people in 1862, nearly a third of the taxable land was lost in those storms. Modern engineering of flood channels, dams and levees have saved many lives and much property since 1862, however, the population of California has increase since 1862 putting more at risk. The storms of 1997 and 1998 caused nearly $1.1 billion in losses in California alone. (Changnon, 2000). The potential for loss in the Sacramento area alone could exceed $25 billion.
Public Hazard Awareness Campaign: Art Center College of Design
Advertising and design students from the Art Center College of Design are working with the Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project to brand and develop a media campaign to raise awareness of nautral hazards in general, with specific emphasis on the Winter Storm Scenario. The class of eight semester students were selected to participate in effort will be led by the internationally acclaimed David Droga, creator or the international advertsing agency, Droga5. The class will address the awareness problems associated with US West Coast storms, work to redesign the NOAA/NWS Weather one-stop page to include multiple hazards information to include earthquakes, weather, debris flows, landslides, coastal concerns, pollution, etc. The class would not only brand the scenario, but create a campaign to promote it – bring it out of obscurity – so that it is on every desktop.
