Framing a new approach to critical infrastructure modelling and extreme events

This paper proposes a new framework to evaluate and improve the resiliency of communities as they face the risk of multiple hazards and cascading infrastructure failure. The central idea is to extend engineering-based fragility models of the effect of extreme events on physical infrastructure and to combine them with regional, economic and social impact models. The modelling framework would support analyses of the sensitivity of a community to varying events, signalling weak links in regional infrastructure systems and subsystems, and suggesting a more efficient allocation of federal, state, and local preparedness resources.