Replicating the Recovery following the 2014 South Napa Earthquake using Stochastic Process Models

Abstract

Post-earthquake recovery models can be used as decision support tools for pre-event planning. However, due to a lack of available data, there have been very few opportunities to validate and/or calibrate these models. This paper describes the use of building damage, permitting, and repair data from the 2014 South Napa Earthquake to evaluate a stochastic process post-earthquake recovery model. Damage data were obtained for 1,470 buildings, and permitting and repair time data were obtained for a subset (456) of those buildings. A “blind” prediction is shown to adequately capture the shape of the recovery trajectory despite overpredicting the overall pace of the recovery. Using the mean time to permit and repair time from the acquired data set significantly improves the accuracy of the recovery prediction. A generalized model is formulated by establishing statistical relationships between key time parameters and endogenous and exogenous factors that have been shown to influence the pace of recovery.