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2024 EERI Annual Meeting (2024AM)

April 9–12, 2024

Sheraton Grand Seattle, 1400 6th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101

3D: Preparing Critical Energy Infrastructure in Pacific Northwest for a Cascadia Earthquake Event

Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 10:30 AM–12:00 PM PDT add to calendar
Redwood
Topic Area

Cascadia Subduction Zone (particularly topics of broad national/international interest)

Description

Critical energy infrastructure (CEI) such as tank farms and distribution networks makes fuel and other petroleum products available to over 145,000 gas stations and 5,000 airports across the country. For economic and logistical reasons, these facilities are often located in coastal and riverine regions that are susceptible to co-seismic ground failure under earthquakes. Flammable and toxic content in these facilities poses significant cascading risk after initial damage and failure. One salient example is the CEI hub located in Portland, Oregon. The hub supplies 90% of Oregon’s liquid fuel. The CEI hub extends 9 km on the Willamette River on young alluvial soils and non-engineered fill soils. Most of the CEI hub was developed prior to the understanding of hazard from a Cascadia Subduction Zone event. There is significant concern that strong shaking and widespread liquefaction will have devastating impacts from damaged CEI facilities, fuel spills and combustion, and fuel shortages. This session will focus on major challenges related to the engineering analysis, risk assessment, and mitigation planning for the CEI hub and similar facilities. Specific topics will include: (1) an overview of the resilience challenges for such facilities; (2) past, present and future efforts by public agencies and government to improve resilience at the CEI hub; and (3) modeling and risk assessment of cascading events.

Session Organizers

Diane Moug, Portland State University
David Yang, Portland State University

Speakers

Yumei Wang, Senior Advisor on Infrastructure Resilience and Risk, Affiliate Faculty, Portland State University
Presentation Title

Averting Catastrophic Disasters: Identify, Engage and Mitigate

Jonna Papaefthimiou, State Resilience Officer, State of Oregon
Presentation Title

Research to Action: Partnerships for Informed Policy Making

Luke Hanst, Partnership Coordinator, Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Portland State University
Presentation Title

Translating Research and Policy into Rule and Implementation

David Yang, Assistant Professor, Portland State University
Presentation Title

Seismic Fragility of Tank Farms: Practice and Challenges

Technical Session Organizers

Ozgun Alp Numanoglu, Schnabel Engineering

Session Moderators

Diane Moug, Portland State University
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