optimization models for emergency relief shelter planning for anticipated hurricane events

94 Pages·2007·0.92 MB·English

by  Abeer T. Sharawi

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Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019
2007
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Abeer Tarief Sharawi
University of Central Florida
Part of the Industrial Engineering Commons
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Sharawi, Abeer Tarief, "Optimization Models For Emergency Relief Shelter Planning For Anticipated
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https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/3343
OPTIMIZATION MODELS FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF SHELTER
PLANNING FOR ANTICIPATED HURRICANE EVENTS

by

ABEER TARIEF SHARAWI
B.S., Princess Sumaya University for Technology, 2002
M.S., University of Central Florida, 2005

A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
in the College of Engineering and Computer Science
at the University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida

Fall Term
2007

Major Professor: Christopher D. Geiger
Co-Advisor: Renee J. Butler
© 2007 Abeer Tarief Sharawi

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ABSTRACT
Natural disasters, specifically hurricanes, can cause catastrophic loss of life and property.
In recent years, the United States has endured significant losses due to a series of devastating
hurricanes (e.g., Hurricanes Charley and Ivan in 2004, and Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in
2005). Several Federal authorities report that there are weaknesses in the emergency and disaster
planning and response models that are currently employed in practice, thus creating a need for
better decision models in emergency situations. The current models not only lack fast
communication with emergency responders and the public, but are also inadequate for advising
the pre-positioning of supplies at emergency shelters before the storm’s impact.
The problem of emergency evacuation relief shelter planning during anticipated hurricane
events is addressed in this research. The shelter planning problem is modeled as a joint location-
allocation-inventory problem, where the number and location of shelter facilities must be
identified. In addition, the evacuating citizens must be assigned to the designated shelter
facilities, and the amount of emergency supply inventory to pre-position at each facility must be
determined. The objective is to minimize total emergency evacuation costs, which is equal to the
combined facility opening and preparation cost, evacuee transportation cost and emergency
supply inventory cost. A review of the emergency evacuation planning literature reveals that this
class of problems has not been largely addressed to date.
First, the emergency evacuation relief sheltering problem is formulated under
deterministic conditions as a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model. For three
different evacuation scenarios, the proposed MINLP model yields a plan that identifies the
locations of relief shelters for evacuees, the assignment of evacuees to those shelters and the
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amount of emergency supplies to stockpile in advance of an anticipated hurricane. The MINLP
model is then used (with minor modifications) to explore the idea of equally distributing the
evacuees across the open shelters. The results for the three different scenarios indicate that a
balanced utilization of the open shelters is achieved with little increase in the total evacuation
cost.
Next, the MINLP is enhanced to consider the stochastic characteristics of both hurricane
strength and projected trajectory, which can directly influence the storm’s behavior. The
hurricane’s strength is based on its hurricane category according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane
Scale. Its trajectory is represented as a Markov chain, where the storm’s path is modeled as
transitions among states (i.e., coordinate locations) within a spherical coordinate system. A
specific hurricane that made landfall in the state of Florida is used as a test case for the model.
Finally, the stochastic model is employed within a robust optimization strategy, where
several probable hurricane behavioral scenarios are solved. Then, a single, robust evacuation
sheltering plan that provides the best results, not only in terms of maximum deviation of total
evacuation cost across the likely scenarios, but also in terms of maximum deviation of unmet
evacuee demand at the shelter locations, is generated. The practical value of this robust plan is
quite significant. This plan should accommodate unexpected changes in the behavior of an
approaching storm to a reasonable degree with minimal negative impact to the total evacuation
cost and the fulfillment of evacuee demand at the shelter locations. Most importantly, the re-
allocation and re-mobilization of emergency personnel and supplies are not required, which can
cause confusion and potentially increase the response time of responders to the hurricane
emergency.
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The computational results show the promise of this research and usefulness of the
proposed models. This work is an initial step in addressing the simultaneous identification of
shelter locations, assignment of citizens to those shelters, and determination of a policy for
stockpiling emergency supplies in advance of a hurricane. Both the location-allocation problem
and the inventory problem have been extensively and individually studied by researchers as well
as practitioners. However, this joint location-allocation-inventory problem is a difficult problem
to solve, especially in the presence of stochastic storm behavior. The proposed models, even in
the deterministic case, are a significant step beyond the current state-of-the-art in the area of
emergency and disaster planning.
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To my parents, my husband and my beautiful sisters,
For your love and constant support
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No research endeavor is ever carried out in solitude. I owe my deep gratitude to a great
number of people. My thanks and appreciation to Christopher D. Geiger for persevering with me
as my advisor through out the time it took me to complete this research and write the
dissertation. The inspiration for doing the research came from the work of Renee J. Butler, who
kindly accepted to be my co-advisor. Both Drs. Geiger and Butler were more akin to colleagues
and friends, than advisors. They always looked at my research as a team work that we all tried to
accomplish. Their invaluable insights and comments enhanced the research immeasurably. I
would especially like to thank Dr. Geiger who gave up valuable time from his work and family
activities to ensure that the dissertation document was completed on time with impeccable
quality.
I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Drs. Mohamed Abdel-
Aty, Ahmad Rahal and Charles Reilly who have generously given their time and expertise to
better my work. I thank them for their valuable comments that provided me with thoughtful and
insightful feedback, their understanding, their flexibility when things didn’t go as planned and
their good-natured support.
On a personal note, I am indebted to my family for their boundless love and support. My
husband, for moral support and his help with all the computer crisis I had. He has always
supported my research, never complained when I got too busy to take care of him or our house.
My friends have provided much encouragement, support, and laughter over the years. My sisters
who made stress disappear just by being there, giving me all the love and support I needed.
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And for an entire lifetime of support and encouragement, thanks to my family, especially
to my parents for teaching me that everything is possible if we put our minds to it, and that if you
work hard you’ll reap the rewards.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................................xii
LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................................xiii
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................1
1.1. Hurricane Katrina – A Motivational Example.................................................................1
1.2. Managing Shelter Resources in the Face of Hurricane Events........................................2
1.3. Significance of the Problem.............................................................................................4
1.4. Research Objectives.........................................................................................................4
1.5. Expected Contributions of This Research........................................................................6
1.6. Organization of This Dissertation....................................................................................7
CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW......................................................................................8
2.1. Introduction......................................................................................................................8
2.2. Models for Emergency Response Planning.....................................................................8
2.3. The Uncapacitated Fixed Charge Facility Location Problem........................................12
2.4. The Joint Location-Allocation-Inventory Problem........................................................14
2.5. The Facility Location Problem under Uncertainty........................................................18
2.6. Statement of Research Gap............................................................................................19
CHAPTER 3 : A DETERMINISTIC MODELING APPROACH FOR THE EMERGENCY
RELIEF SHELTER PLANNING PROBLEM.............................................................................21
3.1. Introduction....................................................................................................................21
3.2. A Deterministic Model for Relief Shelter Planning......................................................21
3.3. Computational Analysis.................................................................................................24
3.4. Emergency Evacuation Planning Model for Equal Shelter Utilization.........................33
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