L'Aquila Earthquake of April 6, 2009 in Italy: Rebuilding a Resilient City to Multiple Hazard

Keywords: L'Aquila, Italy earthquake, April 6, 2009.  Disaster resilient communities.  Multihazard resiliency.  Reconnaissance reports.  Natural disasters.  Extreme events.  Damage assessment.  Remote sensing.  Engineered structures.  Historical structures.  Decision making.  Hospitals.

Abstract: A multidisciplinary team of investigators from the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) together with a team from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, conducted post-disaster field reconnaissance to examine the impact of the April 6, 2009 L’Aquila, Italy earthquake on physical engineered systems and the response and recovery efforts that followed.  By collecting information, the authors are seeking to develop engineering design strategies and organizational strategies that will make the L’Aquila community more resilient against future earthquakes and any extreme event in general.  The report was initiated to present the findings from the field reconnaissance mission, but the topic addressed includes advance damage identification using remote sensing, damage to engineered and historical structures, and organizational decision making primarily in hospitals.