GETTING OUT OF DODGE
LSU blends hurricane and traffic models into faster ways to safety

Evacuation. In theory, it’s a quick and efficient process of moving people out of harm’s way. The reality, proven in numerous past disasters, is gridlock, mass frustration, and panic—an exodus almost completely without guidance. Brian Wolshon, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a faculty member at LSU’s Hurricane Center, is working hard to help people in Louisiana and elsewhere find a better way to get out of town.

Gridlock during evacuation

“About six or eight years ago, no one had done any research on evacuations,” said Wolshon. “The general mindset seemed to be that there wasn’t any need for planning; people could just leave whichever way they wanted. Although still true, we have learned from our research that we can far better utilize the roads that are available.”

The 2004 evacuation of New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Ivan proved how disastrous this lack of planning can be. Reported delays spanned 10 hours at the worst, all outbound traffic frozen. In response to the chaos, Wolshon put his engineering skills to use and began modeling New Orleans’ traffic patterns with computer simulations, hoping to develop more efficient evacuation plans.

Marc Levitan, director of the LSU Hurricane Center, lauded Wolshon’s efforts: “Because of his work after Ivan, the Katrina vehicular evacuation was the largest, most successful in New Orleans’ – and possibly U.S. – history.”

“It was a major improvement,” said Wolshon. “The time to evacuate was cut just about in half. But there were also major flaws, and people got stuck. That’s something we really can’t tolerate.”

Wolshon’s ground floor position in this emerging field skyrocketed to that of international expert when Katrina focused the world’s attention on evacuation issues. The increased recognition spawned new research partnerships for Wolshon’s group, one with an unlikely leader in efforts to reduce chaos: the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

What does Los Alamos, established in secret during World War II with the sole purpose of developing nuclear weapons, have to do with traffic modeling and hurricane evacuations? The lab has expanded since its inception, recruiting experts from around the globe to study national security threats in all possible forms – including natural disasters. Wolshon’s group now works with Los Alamos scientists to develop large-scale computer modeling systems capable of very specific and detailed hurricane and evacuation simulations.

“Their focus is primarily on energy reliability and distribution,” Wolshon said. “The goal is to get power and resources to critical locations as quickly as possible after a disaster. Los Alamos is interested in our effort to model transportation networks during these same scenarios, and they recognize our work as leading the way in this field.”

In addition to hurricane simulations, Wolshon is working to better model vehicular traffic during evacuations. “Basically, we’re trying to simulate traffic patterns [in] various situations to see the result of certain influences … Say you wanted to reset all the traffic lights in a certain area. Would it make congestion worse, or better? If we direct traffic one way, will it work, or will the roads exceed capacity? It’s imperative we be able to test these things in advance, rather than … find out after the fact that the approach just didn’t work.”

The evacuation modeling systems now in development will have far-reaching implications, applicable to multiple emergency situations. Terrorist threats, like natural disasters, can prompt the rapid evacuation of large numbers of people.

“If we can show that [the simulation] works in New Orleans, cities like Chicago and New York will be next on the list,” Wolshon said. “These places are watching our work eagerly, waiting to see if they’ll be able to use our models. Cities with concentrated population levels definitely need to have a plan, no matter how far-fetched the idea of a terrorist event might be.”

In as little as three years, Wolshon’s group has already seen aspects of its work implemented—a rarity in the world of academia. “States have already started to make changes in the way they handle evacuations,” he said. “And that’s the way we want it. We want people to use our discoveries and models. We want to save lives.”

Next spring, Dr. Wolshon plans to spend his sabbatical term on appointment at the Sandia National Laboratories helping to model and analyze evacuation scenarios associated with another potential emergency area: nuclear power plants.

ON THE WEB:
LSU Hurricane Center
Los Alamos National Laboratory

from Summer 2007 Issue