Guest speaker: Dr. Ashly Cabas
Format: Zoom (invitation to be shared later)
Topic:
Turning Disaster into Knowledge: What compounding effects made the 2021 Haiti and the 2018 Alaska earthquakes so different?
Abstract:
Reconnaissance missions seek to turn disasters into knowledge. This presentation will provide an overview of the damage and geotechnical engineering lessons after the moment magnitude, Mw, 7.1 2018 Alaska and the Mw 7.2 2021 Haiti earthquakes. Unique reconnaissance approaches in response to these seismic events will be described, while highlighting how they addressed different challenges in the collection of perishable data and the documentation of relevant case studies. The Alaska earthquake on November 30, 2018 is one of the largest earthquakes to strike near a major U.S. city since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. No fatalities were reported, but the earthquake caused widespread power outages, structural damage to residential buildings, damage to roadways and railways, and ground failures. On the other hand, the August 14, 2021 Nippes, Haiti earthquake posed significant challenges for response and recovery in Haiti, while causing around 2,000 fatalities. The dual hazards of this earthquake and Tropical Storm Grace, which took place two days after the mainshock, had significant impacts on the landscape and infrastructure of Haiti’s southwestern peninsula, including: structural damage to buildings and ground failures. In addition, response efforts faced challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing political instability in the country. While these reconnaissance missions will provide evidence of similarities between these large magnitude events and the damage caused to the built environment, the examination of the intersection with social impacts will enable discussions beyond resilient infrastructure and into resilient communities.
Ashly Cabas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. She completed her undergraduate studies at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) in Caracas, Venezuela, and she earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech. Dr. Cabas' research interests are interdisciplinary with a focus on geotechnical aspects of earthquake engineering. Her research team focuses on seismic hazard assessments at multiple scales, ground motion characterization, variability and uncertainty in site response analysis, and geohazards such as liquefaction-induced lateral spreading. Dr. Cabas was awarded the 2022 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and the 2021 EERI Shah Family Innovation Prize. Her group’s work has also been recognized with the EERI best paper awards in 2014 and 2018. She is an Associate Editor of Earthquake Spectra and an elected-member of the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America (SSA). She has joined NSF-sponsored GEER teams in response to the 2018 Mw 7.1 Alaska, and 2021 Mw 7.2 Haiti earthquakes. Her research program has been funded by the USGS, NSF, PG&E, and the Alaska DOT, while contributing to international collaborations with the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, and the IFSTTAR in France.
