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Underground Storage Tanks: Preparing and Responding to Extreme Events
Citation:
Hall, A. AND F. Kremer. Underground Storage Tanks: Preparing and Responding to Extreme Events. To be Presented at Underground Storage Tanks: Preparing and Responding to Extreme Events Webinar, n/a, OH, April 13, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Climate change and extreme weather events are increasingly important in how we prevent, prepare and respond to the management of underground storage tanks. As the former Senior Director for Resilience Policy in the National Security Council, Alice Hill, has framed this issue, “We are colliding with a future of extremes. We base all our choices about risk management on what’s occurred in the past, and that is no longer a safe guide.” The fuel supply network and its infrastructure are critical elements in the supply chain to prepare for and address in the recovery of disasters. As an example, in Hurricane Harvey, the ability of the emergency managers to understand post-storm supply chain issues was constrained by limited pre-storm assessment of vulnerable and critical supply chain nodes. ORD developed and recently released UST Finder, the first comprehensive national database on underground storage tanks in the US, providing the first national accounting of this infrastructure and its geospatial data. This public, open-source data provides information to emergency responders at the national, state and local levels with time critical data to identify facilities at risk in advance, during and after emergency situations. This presentation will address emergency response scenarios and the use of UST Finder in assisting these efforts.
Description:
Climate change and extreme weather events are increasingly important in how we prevent, prepare and respond to the management of underground storage tanks. As the former Senior Director for Resilience Policy in the National Security Council, Alice Hill, has framed this issue, “We are colliding with a future of extremes. We base all our choices about risk management on what’s occurred in the past, and that is no longer a safe guide.” The fuel supply network and its infrastructure are critical elements in the supply chain to prepare for and address in the recovery of disasters. As an example, in Hurricane Harvey, the ability of the emergency managers to understand post-storm supply chain issues was constrained by limited pre-storm assessment of vulnerable and critical supply chain nodes. ORD developed and recently released UST Finder, the first comprehensive national database on underground storage tanks in the US, providing the first national accounting of this infrastructure and its geospatial data. This public, open-source data provides information to emergency responders at the national, state and local levels with time critical data to identify facilities at risk in advance, during and after emergency situations. This presentation will address emergency response scenarios and the use of UST Finder in assisting these efforts.