Telecom, Traffic Cones, and the Big One: Identifying Transportation and Communications Emergency Support Workforces and Calculating Their Exposure to Seismic Peak Ground Accelerations

Successful post-disaster response and recovery depends on prompt restoration of infrastructure, including transportation or communications. However, disasters can have an impact on the workforce responsible for restoration, for example, by damaging their homes. This study has two goals: 1. Identify workers potentially participating in restoring transportation and communications infrastructure; 2. Calculate these workers’ exposure to the peak ground accelerations (PGAs) of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in a Southern California scenario, and compare it with the rest of the working population’s exposure. Four steps are required. First, calculate the mean PGA for each affected public use microdata area (PUMA). Second, identify the infrastructure restoration workforce by specifying Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes. When specifying, use the Emergency Support Function (ESF) Annexes for Transportation (ESF#1) and Communications (ESF#2) to clarify workers’ roles and responsibilities. This ESF-specific listing of codes is a novel contribution. Third, via frequency table, calculate the mean and standard deviation of transportation and communications workers’ exposure to PGAs in their PUMAs of residence. Finally, test the difference in mean PGA exposures between two populations: (a) transportation or communications workers and (b) the rest of the working population. This study finds that, for this scenario, transportation workers are exposed to statistically significant higher PGAs than non-transportation workers, and communication workers to significantly lower PGAs. For practitioners, knowing which worker categories a disaster disproportionately affects could justify pre-event investments in workforce preparedness and recovery planning efforts.