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Other PDC Activities
The Pacific Disaster Center also supports communities and first responders in a variety of ways:
- Support of humanitarian organizations at every level
- Response teams that go out into the field
- Mock tabletop-disaster exercises
- Tsunami awareness
- First alert procedures
- Advanced computer modeling and probability analysis
Although the focus rests firmly on preserving human life and economic livelihood through preparation, education, and revitalization, the PDC also reaches out to many nations worldwide. The PDC works alongside pubic officials in the public and private sectors, as well as with other experts worldwide, in determining infrastructure vulnerabilities, conducting planning workshops, and providing support. For instance, mock tabletop-disaster exercises and annual disaster drills help communities to work together by being freshly prepared to spring into action when disaster strikes. Drills are scheduled (some annually) utilizing "storm track maps, weather situation products, and wind damage estimates."
PDC response teams also go out into the field to survey the land, gather maps, and pool other relative information into terabytes of databases, in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other mapping tools. The PDC collaborates with the community to determine the preeminent path to developing disaster-mitigation planning. For example, if an earthquake wipes out a gambling casino and an electric power plant, each worth $1 billion, in the eyes of an insurance adjustor the two buildings have essentially the same value. Obviously, however, the loss of the power plant has a far more devastating social and economic impact in the community. As a quasi-public agency, the PDC is one of the few resources that not only can gauge the effect of disasters in actuarial or monetary terms; it also can help with assessing the more nebulous social impact. (Each nation has its own economic capabilities that must be addressed when making these assessments, but you get the idea.)