Prepositioning for flooding in the Sacramento region

Abstract

The Sacramento region is prone to flooding disasters. This thesis uses an optimization model to recommend where to preposition and/or expand warehouses, health-care personnel, ramp space, and transportation vehicle capacity. Adequate prepositioning helps evacuate the emergency population (EP), supply commodities to affected population (AP) that stays back in the affected areas (AAs), and transport other displaced population (DP) to the relief locations (RLs) for shelter. The goal is to minimize the expected number of EP and AP casualties, and then to maximize the DP transported to RL shelters, both during the first 72 hours after a flood disaster. We model a network of eight AAs and ten RLs, four flooding scenarios of different severity, and several budget levels for expansion of the initially prepositioned resources. We find that the RLs that the Federal Emergency Relief Agency (FEMA) has already selected have enough warehouse space to support the AP. This model recommends minor investment in additional health-care providers and emergency rescue vehicles for the EP. On the other hand, we observe a shortfall in mass housing capacity for the DP, even after fully expanding the capacity of existing facilities.