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Producción Científica, The database of the HWind project sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for hurricanes between 1994 and 2013 is analysed. This is the first objective of the current research. Among these hurricanes, Hurricane Sandy was selected for a detailed study due to the number of files available and its social relevance, with this being the second objective of this study. Robust wind speed statistics showed a sharp increase in wind speed, around 6 m s-1 at the initial stage as Category 1, and a linear progression of its interquartile range, which increased at a rate of 0.54 m s-1 per day. Wind speed distributions were initially right-skewed. However, they evolved to nearly symmetrical or even left-skewed distributions. Robust kurtosis was similar to that of the Gaussian distribution. Due to the noticeable fraction of wind speed intermediate values, the Laplace distribution was used, its scale parameter increasing slightly during the hurricane’s lifecycle. The key features of the current study were the surface and recirculation factor calculation. The surface area with a category equal to, or higher than, a tropical storm was calculated and assumed to be circular. Its radius increased linearly up to 600 km. Finally, parcel trajectories were spirals in the lower atmosphere but loops in the mid-troposphere due to wind translation and rotation. The recirculation factor varied, reaching values close to 0.9 and revealing atmospheric stratification.

Newspaper clipping of an article titled "The long road to recovery," published in the Daily Times on October 1, 2014, describing the grants awarded to various Somerset County restoration projects following the damage done by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Department: Sustainable Interior Environments.

Color photograph (dated 2013) of a handmade sign thanking University of Scranton students for their assistance with clean-up following Hurricane Sandy.

Color photograph (dated March 2013) of University of Scranton student volunteers, helping with the clean-up effort after Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast.

Color photograph (dated March 2013) of University of Scranton student volunteers, helping with the clean-up effort after Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast.

Department: Sustainable Interior Environments.

This presentation describes the goals and purpose of the Crisis, Tragedy and Recovery network (CTRnet) and how CTRnet's efforts can be applied to real-life disasters such as Hurricane Sandy.

Issue of the University of Scranton student newspaper, The Aquinas.

This series consists of archival copies of the publicly accessible websites of the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery.

During the course of the study, the team scanned roughly 80 miles of storm-ravaged neighborhoods—including Seaside Heights and Mantoloking, New Jersey; selected areas of Staten Island, New York; and Rockaway Beach in Queens, New York. The high-resolution 3-D output will help officials in these municipalities and others develop better response strategies and prepare critical infrastructure to withstand the effects of disaster events. Data collected from CAIT’s Sandy evaluation will help researchers like Gong analyze how different types of infrastructure react to heavy winds or floods. This analysis will prove especially beneficial to USDOT, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and city and state government agencies for post-storm damage evaluation and reconstruction.

The emergency response to Hurricane Katrina is vital to understanding the development of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Incident Management System, Defense Support to Civil Authority guidelines, and the National Guard's Homeland Response Force. While Hurricane Katrina is considered an emergency response failure it led to the development of 6 United States Code 701, Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. Although the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act made successful changes in processes and procedures of military and civilian emergency response, a deficiency in operational and strategic level integration remains. The deficiency can be linked to an absence of a strategic and operational level training program.

Although Defense Support of Civil Authorities continues to be considered a mission essential task for many Army units, there is very little emphasis on the proper employment of forces in the domestic environment. The Global War on Terrorism has forced most operational-level planning to focus on deploying forces outside of the continental United States. This has created a gap in the understanding of how to integrate and employ forces within the constraints of a multi-state, domestic operational environment. This study examined the operational constraints founded in law and national policy that planners must consider. This study assessed the key decisions of joint task force commanders, their integration of Title 10 and Title 32 forces, and the impacts those decisions made during the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy responses. These large-scale natural disaster response cases illuminate the range of decisions required to employ an operational force in the domestic environment. The findings of this study extend beyond a hurricane response, and are applicable to similar large-scale domestic events such as earthquakes, pandemics, and terrorist attacks.

Major natural disasters inflict severe damages to property and present everlasting danger to human lives despite technological advances and increased capabilities to provide early warning and response. Developed countries incorporate lessons learned with traditional observable disaster trends in their area to create disaster management systems that provide the best model for mitigating the catastrophic effects of natural disasters. Historically, disaster management systems include more than one governmental organization across a span of hierarchical levels. Recognizing what impedes the response by those cross-organizational systems would offer a chance to address and mitigate observed deficiencies. This study is essential to both military organizations that contribute to the disaster management and to civilian authorities that establish, organize, equip, train, and mobilize disaster management system. The study reveals those impeding elements that are observable despite geographical, cultural, or ethical differences among selected disaster management systems.

The complexity of emergency supply chains represents challenges towards their efficiency and effectiveness during disaster response. Petroleum is a key commodity distributed by emergency supply chains, to offset petroleum shortages caused by a catastrophic incident. Safeguarding petroleum supply distribution is an economic interest of the National Security Strategy and is addressed by the National Response Framework through the core capability of "Logistics and Supply Chain Management." Leveraging this core capability is coordinated through the Emergency Support Function 12: Energy to facilitate the restoration of petroleum supply chains and return communities to a sense of normalcy after a disaster. During Hurricane Sandy, petroleum supply was severely disrupted requiring the necessity of emergency petroleum supply chains. To assess emergency petroleum supply chains during Hurricane Sandy, a Center of Gravity (COG) analysis is applied to ascertain the critical capabilities, critical requirements, and critical vulnerabilities. As an alternative approach towards reducing the complexity of emergency supply chains, the goal of the application is to demonstrate how the COG concept can assist in future disaster-based planning and response.

A dual status commander is authorized to command both Title 10 and Title 32 forces in support of civil authorities. Though successfully employed for planned national security events, the requirement for a dual status commander during unplanned, limited notice, or no notice events became apparent during the military response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, the dual status commander construct was implemented in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy with both success and challenges. The dual status commander construct is one of legal authorities and emphasizes command and control. The intentional use of operational art under the dual status commander construct during natural disasters is not readily apparent due to the short planning timeline, current defense support of civil authorities doctrine, and the legal constraints of the dual status commander. The purpose of this study is to encourage the consideration of operational art as the dual status commander concept matures and as defense support of civil authorities doctrine develops.

An issue of The Scranton Journal, a publication for University of Scranton alumni and friends.

The involvement of military units in emergencies is not a twenty-first century invention. For ages, armies have supported civilian authorities in relief efforts through their unique capabilities. In 2005, following several natural and man-made disasters, the government of Spain decided to create a new permanent unit within the national civil protection system. The Unidad Militar de Emergencias or Emergency Military Unit (UME) had to have special capabilities beyond the traditional kinetic and lethal ones. Eight years later, the new unit has reached its full mission capability. However, do their unique capabilities fulfill the civil requirements for major disasters and add value within the system? This study addresses the UME preparation and readiness to accomplish a defined military requirement pattern requested by civil authorities defined by US case studies. The first section of the paper provides a description of the UME within the national civil protection system. The second section examines the three US case studies Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and Sandy to look for the pattern. The third section of the paper presents the comparison of the pattern with the current UME capabilities, and therefore the value within the system.

The involvement of military units in emergencies is not a twenty-first century invention. For ages, armies have supported civilian authorities in relief efforts through their unique capabilities. In 2005, following several natural and man-made disasters, the government of Spain decided to create a new permanent unit within the national civil protection system. The Unidad Militar de Emergencias or Emergency Military Unit (UME) had to have special capabilities beyond the traditional kinetic and lethal ones. Eight years later, the new unit has reached its full mission capability. However, do their unique capabilities fulfill the civil requirements for major disasters and add value within the system? This study addresses the UME preparation and readiness to accomplish a defined military requirement pattern requested by civil authorities defined by US case studies. The first section of the paper provides a description of the UME within the national civil protection system. The second section examines the three US case studies Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and Sandy to look for the pattern. The third section of the paper presents the comparison of the pattern with the current UME capabilities, and therefore the value within the system.

The President approved the National Response Framework (NRF) in January 2008 to serve as the nation's overarching document guiding the Federal Government's management of all-hazards response. The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of the NRF and identify any transcending capability gaps and performance shortfalls in the Framework. Addressing these gaps and shortfalls may lead to greater government efficiencies in future disaster response efforts. Research seeks to answer the following question: How has the NRF performed in guiding emergency response actions in major natural disasters? The following recent major disasters serve as backdrops to help assess the performance of the NRF: (1) Missouri Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Flooding (April-June 2011), (2) Colorado High Park and Waldo Canyon Wildfires (June-July 2012), and (3) Hurricane Sandy (October-November 2012). This multiple case study reports findings across 14 common disaster response capabilities, identifies transcending deficiencies across multiple states, and recommends new areas of emphasis and strategies to integrate the NRF into the National Preparedness System. The NRF proved to be moderately successful in guiding the delivery of response core capabilities in the aforementioned disasters.