Information Materials

Homeowners Handbook to Prepare for Natural Hazards (2007)

by Hwang, D and Okimoto, D., University of Hawai Sea Grant, Honolulu, Hawai, 108pp.

(English)

This handbook helps prepare for natural hazard so that risks to family and property may be reduced. It also lists some practical ways that might be very helpful for you in safeguarding your family and properties during disasters. It provides detailed information on how to prepare a home for a hurricane and other natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods. It outlines small and cost-effective steps that can significantly reduce the risks of damage and loss due to a natural hazard.

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Is your Home Protected From Hurricane Disaster? A Homeowners Guide to Hurricane Retrofit (2002)

by Institute of Business and Home Safety. Tampa, Florida, USA, (35pp)

(English)

This is a guide for homeowners on ways to retrofit one and two-family homes in order to reduce losses from hurricane winds. It contains suggestions and recommendations based on professional judgment; experience and research on retrofitting parts of a house like doors, walls, doors and windows.

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Disaster Resistant Construction Practices: A Reference Manual (2007)

by Santhakumar, A. R., UNDP, New York, 24 pp

(English)

This handbook was prepared for the benefit of technical supervisors and masons in India for post Tsunami shelter reconstruction. It shows with the aid of sketches guidance on settlement patterns, design of foundations, walls, openings, columns and beams, junctions, overhangs and slabs. It deals with the common construction practices. It also shows some technical data and basic calculations.

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Techniques for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings (FEMA-547) (2006) by Rutherford and Chekene Consulting Engineers and National

Institute of Standards and Technology. FEMA, Washington,
D.C.,(571pp)

(English)

This document is a compilation of selected practical and effective rehabilitation techniques. The techniques include detailing and constructability tips that might not be otherwise available to engineering offices or individual structural engineers who have limited experience in seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings. It also provides guidance on which techniques are commonly used to mitigate specific seismic deficiencies in various model building types. It provides background on seismic evaluation, categories of seismic deficiencies, classes of rehabilitation techniques and general strategies to develop rehabilitation schemes. It contains detailed descriptions of seismic deficiencies that are characteristic of each FEMA model building type and techniques commonly used to mitigate them. It also contains seismic rehabilitation techniques common to multiple building types such as those related to diaphragms and foundations.

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Rapid Visual Screening of Buildings for Potential Seismic Hazards: Supporting Documentation (2002)

(FEMA 155, 2nd Edition). FEMA, Washington, D.C.

(English)

The FEMA 155 report contains the technical basis for the second edition of rapid visual screening procedure, including (1) a summary of results from the efforts to solicit user feedback, and (2) a detailed description of the Basic Structural Hazard Score and the Score Modifier developmental effort.

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Vulnerability Assessment of Shelters in the Eastern Caribbean Retrofitting (1998)

Gibbs, T. (1998) OAS, Washington, D.C., 40 pp.

(English)

This document focuses on how safety of buildings that will be used as emergency shelters to natural hazards can be improved. Among the factors that make the buildings suitable as emergency shelters are location, size, water storage and supply, sanitary facilities, kitchen facilities, standby power and telecommunications within the facility and externally. The focus of this document is on the physical vulnerability of the built facilities to wind forces, seismic forces and torrential rain.

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Rapid Visual Screening of Buildings for Potential Seismic Hazards: A Handbook (2002), FEMA 154, 2nd Edition

by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Washington, D.C., (164 pp).

(English)

The FEMA 154 report (2nd edition) describes a rapid visual screening procedure for identifying those buildings that might pose serious risk of loss of life and injury, or of severe curtailment of community services, in case of a damaging earthquake. The screening procedure utilizes a methodology based on a sidewalk survey approach that involves identification of the primary structural load resisting system and building materials, and assignment of a basic structural hazards score and modification factors based on observed building characteristics. Application of the methodology identifies those buildings that are potentially hazardous and should be analyzed in more detail by a professional engineer experienced in seismic design.

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Structural Vulnerability Assessment of Selected Government Facilities: Antigua and Barbuda (2001)

by Cornelius, E OAS/USAID, Washington, D. C. (12pp)

(English)

This paper audits the design, construction, maintenance status, location characteristics and damage history of the selected facilities in Antigua/Barbuda including 20 school facilities and 8 medical facilities. Natural hazards were explained very briefly and how these hazards became disastrous to important facilities in the Caribbean region.

The author listed down in the report the how facilities were assessed considering factors like environment, location, structural and non-structural components and the general state of the building. Recommendations were also made for retrofitting the potential component of the structure that is potential to risk with cost estimates. This is a useful document as a case study.

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UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction (2009)

by UNISDR, 13 pp.

The UNISDR Terminology is a useful quick reference on common terms related to disaster risk reduction concepts. The Terminology includes words that are central to the contemporary understanding and evolving practice of disaster risk reduction but exclude words that have a common dictionary usage. Also included are a number of emerging new concepts that are not in widespread use but are of growing professional relevance in the area of DRR.

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General References