The Effect Of Blast Loads On Buildings

Furthermore, some considerations and precautionary measures should be addressed, such as does the residence have any animals or protection dogs, if children reside in the home, how many occupants could and would be present during the time of the raid, if weapons will be present, bystanders, schools located nearby, and if specific people need to be notified, etc.

The failure to remove any debris from the fire escape or exit constitutes a fire hazard. Any obstruction on or to any fire escape or exit could jeopardize the safety of my family and any others during a fire. In case of a fire, other people or firefighters may be blocked, injured or death by the debris. The seriousness of a fire at night can trip in the dark over unseen objects that is heavy and hard to push or remove of any objects that cause delay of trying to escape a fire especially mobile homes light up in seconds from a home that is made from wood structure.

April 19, 1995, 9:02 a.m: a bomb was set off beneath the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The bomb damaged the structural support beams and the Northern support columns. Half of the building collapsed. 168 people died (Cook 5). Eric McKisick, a district manager, recalls the incident, ¨I made an assumption that, hey, everybody is out, everybody is good, and I left at that point. It wasn't ´till much later that I saw the devastation and understood they didn't respond because they couldn't.” Not only were there a large number of casualties, 300 people were also injured, some of whom were physically impaired for the rest of their life. A child who was in the building at the time of the explosion states, “I have no recollection of that day, but I’m reminded everyday about it because of my breathing problems (Brandes, Heide, Schapiro).”

The Hillsborough tragedy is the worst tragedy in a stadium in the history of United Kingdom that resulted in the death of ninety six people. Disasters such as the Hillsborough tragedy do not just happen out of the blues but, are a sum of various mistakes as well as negligence or misjudgements. When these factors come together, the end result is a disaster that involves loss of lives and life threatening injuries. Before any event organizer or premises owner agrees to enter in such massive liabilities, it is important that all systems are critically evaluated in order to address any lapses in structural capacity, design or even security and management aspects that could result in human injury or death (The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 2009).

Homes may be destroyed. Transport and communication links may be disrupted. Water pipes may burst and water supplies may be contaminated. Shops and business may be destroyed. Looting may take place. The damage to transport and communication links can make trade difficult. The built landscape may be destroyed. Fires can spread due to gas pipe explosions. Fires can damage areas of woodland. Landslides may occur. Tsunamis may cause flooding in coastal areas.

If the risk is going to cause injury or damage to health and safety of others or property then the risk should be reported straight away to the manager, senior, or senior on call, or the correct emergency agencies. i.e. gas

On April 19, 1995, a terrorist set off a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building. The explosion killed 168 people and injured 842 more. The bomb went off at 9:02 a.m., and it “destroying a third of the building and left a thirty-foot-wide crater” (Casey 2).

No steel-beam high-rise had ever before (or since) completely collapsed due to fires! However, such complete and nearly symmetrical collapses in tall steel-frame buildings have occurred many times before—all of them due to pre-positioned explosives in a procedure called “implosion” or controlled demolition. (22)

The first step to any emergency action plan is to conduct a hazard assessment and the best way conduct to do that is to conduct a walk-through of the facility or area (Haight, 2012). In this scenario, our facility is a service station with fuel holding tanks and convenience store items which is located in close proximity to the center of town, a housing development, an elementary school, playground, baseball field, and wooded area. The nature of the business makes it a hazard, the location of it makes it a hazard to the community. Using the General Behavior Model, possible hazards and their reactions, as well as ways to prevent them are discussed.

The FEMA document focuses on numerous different ways to minimize damage by car bombs to buildings. The publication focuses on site design for buildings at high risk of car bombs, because they have the capacity for maximum damage and casualties. There are design alternatives, such as re-alignment of the approach to buildings that slows down vehicles and providing adequate stand-off distance between bomb vehicles and the buildings to reduce impact. Car Bombs require a different set of mitigation measures that often require modifications to buildings.

This has been seen in Montserrat on 25th June 1997 when 19 people died and seven people were injured and this was mostly due to the lack of planning and management.

An emergency is a severe, sudden and sometimes risky circumstances requiring urgent action (Salman Sawalha, 2014). Escalation of an emergency situation can lead to disaster; which is an unusual event that can cause lost of life and property (Salman Sawalha, 2014). International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRRCS) define disaster as “unexpected devastating events that disrupts the operations of a population or public which leads to huge losses and overwhelmed the affected community 's ability to respond to the situation with the resources they have at hand”. There are two main types of disaster that can lead to emergency situations; these include natural and man-made disasters.

and emotional turmoil of the people on the ground. They see people jumping from the building to

I have diligently worked on all these projects to attain something new in Structural & Earthquake Engineering. Currently, all that is on my mind is Structural Engineering, and finding a new strategy to increase Structures’ capacity and their stability under different conditions. To improve their seismic performance, to decrease their damages when they are subjected to natural disasters, to decrease the cost of their damages, and their construction, to reach the most effective approach to construct, maintain and rehabilitate different structures, I have so much on my mind, so much to experience, and numerous approaches to try; A complete list of my research interests is enumerated on my

This extract will elaborate on some of the legal considerations that the emergency manager must consider when conducting searches, seizures, and evacuation operations during an emergency management activity. Unfortunately with the unforeseen nature of the emergency and/or disaster one must consider whether this event involves imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, harm, lost of life or property resulting from any natural or man-made cause, the choices that must be made by local officials frequently are not easy to make in a split of a second (Nicholson, n.d.). Most of their decisions may not be the most popular choice but must be the course of action that will benefit the cause.