November 10, 2021
2:30-4:00 PM (Eastern), 11:30 AM-1:00 PM (Pacific)
This event was the third in a series of free public webinars featuring Dr. Craig Davis and building on the themes of his 2021 EERI Distinguished Lecture! Note: if you already registered for the series, you are pre-registered for this event, so all you need to do is save the date.
Historically, seismic design and building codes have focused primarily on ensuring safety in the event of an earthquake, with less attention to the state of structures and infrastructure systems in the aftermath. However, an increasing focus on resiliency in recent years has brought new attention to the concept of designing for functional recovery: a post-earthquake state in which capacity is sufficiently maintained or swiftly restored to support pre-earthquake functionality. As detailed in the January 2021 FEMA/NIST report “Recommended Options for Improving the Built Environment for Post-Earthquake Reoccupancy and Functional Recovery Time,” this means considering not only safety and recovery time for buildings, but ensuring recovery-based design, upgrade, and maintenance of a lifeline infrastructure systems as well. In this webinar, co-hosted by the EERI New England Regional Chapter and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Student Chapter, EERI 2021 Distinguished Lecturer Craig Davis presented a short lecture on Lifeline Infrastructure System Functional Recovery and Operability, followed by a live panel with speakers from the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. They spoke on the role, preparedness, and plans of their organizations to mitigate damage and restore service of critical lifeline systems after a disaster, and joined Dr. Davis for a Q&A session with the webinar audience.
Panelists:
- Dr. Craig Davis
EERI 2021 Distinguished Lecturer - Dr. Stephen Potts
Geologist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Tirzah Shakespeare
Public Utilities Engineer, Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities
About Dr. Craig Davis
In his three-decade-long career at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Dr. Davis worked as the Departmental Chief Resilience Officer, Seismic Manager, and Geotechnical Engineering Manager, and developed a comprehensive L.A. Water System resilience program. He has served on professional committees, including the Building Seismic Safety Council, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction, and ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division. Dr. Davis has published more than 150 technical papers and investigated numerous earthquakes.
Davis has been honored with the ASCE 2016 Le Val Lund Award for Practicing Lifeline Risk Reduction, the 2020 Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award, and the EERI Distinguished Lecture Award. The annual Distinguished Lecture Award is awarded to EERI members to recognize and encourage communication of outstanding professional contributions of major importance for earthquake hazard mitigation.
