SGER: Household Impacts of the Nisqually Earthquake

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Household Impacts of the Nisqually Earthquake The February 28, 2001 Nisqually earthquake was moderate in magnitude (Mw = 6.8) and thus provides a unique opportunity to measure the economic impacts of an event of this type. This project will amass systematic evidence regarding the economic impacts on households through a telephone survey of randomly selected households according to zones defined by ground motion levels. This is in sharp contrast to typical spatial criteria: political units, zip codes, or census tracts. Three or four categories of ground motion will be defined. Survey data will be correlated with major categories of impact; damage at the home; financing for repairs; changes in economic behavior made as a result of this event; changes in mitigation and preparedness (e.g., insurance); and baseline economic and demographic information about the households themselves. The results of this study will include a large, unique database on household losses. The database will serve to test the hypothesis that actual losses exceeded official estimates. The explanation for the difference is that many categories of loss are never reported. Insights into the nature and extent of unreported losses may help public agencies respond to future disasters as well as better evaluate the benefits of pre-disaster mitigation investments. The database will also allos reliable estimation of the total amount of loss incurred by households in the region. This can provide a baseline against which other loss estimations can be compared, e.g., FEMA's HAZUS .