Geospatial Analysis
Disaster Resilience
Urban Planning

Evaluating Hurricane Safety

 

In times of hurricanes, the City opens hurricane evacuation centers throughout the five boroughs for those seeking temporary shelter. Unfortunately, it’s likely that not all communities have the same level of access to these facilities. Team members include: Gertie Ma, & Kavyaa Rizal.

Context

🌊 New York City’s extensive, densely populated and built coastline makes it one of the most vulnerable cities from coastal storms

🌊 In times of hurricanes, the City opens hurricane evacuation centers for those seeking temporary shelter

Challenge

🖥️ How strong is the existing network of hurricane evacuation centers related to neighborhood walkability, social vulnerability, and flood vulnerability?

🖥️ Where can new evacuation centers be sited, meeting current specifications?

🖥️ How does the inclusion of these new sites improve the overall network of NYC evacuation centers?

Components

💾 Walkability: Buffer Analysis of 1 mile, 2 miles, and 4 miles from the centers

💾 Social vulnerability: a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Population density, Elderly, Youth, Minorities, English fluency, Median household income, and Renter-occupied units

💾 Flood vulnerability: City-coordinated Hurricane evacuation zones

Considerations

📊 Are hurricane evacuation centers situated where populations are most vulnerable socially and to flooding?

📊 Does the addition of more evacuation center sites strengthen the network throughout the City?

outcome

 

Combining social vulnerability, flood vulnerability, and the buffer analysis in a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis enabled the creation of a combined vulnerability map. Within this, areas in the Far Rockaways, Coney Island, Lower East Side Manhattan, and East Harlem stand out as the most vulnerable. 

By integrating network analysis, this study pinpointed 10 new hurricane evacuation sites strategically located across the city, addressing the shortcomings revealed in the existing network.

Software used include: Python Programming (Jupyter Notebook), InDesign.