Society is heavily dependent on a reliable electric supply; all infrastructure systems depend on electricity to operate. When the electric system fails, the impacts can be catastrophic (food spoilage, inoperable medical devices, lack of access to water, etc.). The social impacts, defined as the direct and indirect impacts on people, of power outages must be explored as the likelihood of power outages and blackouts are increasing. However, compared to other hazards, such as heat and flooding, the knowledge base on the impacts of power outages is relatively small. The purpose of this thesis is to identify what is currently known about the social impacts of power outages, identify where gaps in the literature exist, and deploy a survey to explore power outage experiences at the household level. This thesis is comprised of two chapters, a systematic literature review on the current knowledge of the social impacts of power outages and a multi-city survey focused on power outage experiences.

The first chapter comprised of a systematic literature review using a combined search of in Scopus which returned 762 candidate articles were identified that potentially explored the social impacts of power outages. However, after multiple filtering criteria were applied, only 45 articles met all criteria. Four themes were used to classify the literature, not exclusively, including modeling, social, technical, and other. Only papers that were classified as “social” - meaning they observed how people were affected by a power outage - or in combination with other categories were used within the review.

From the literature, populations of concern were identified, including minority demographics - specifically Blacks or African Americans, children, elderly, and rural populations. The most commonly reported health concerns were from those that rely on medical devices for chronic conditions and unsafe generator practices. Criminal activity was also reported to increase during prolonged power outages and can be mitigated by consistent messaging on where to receive assistance and when power will be restored. Providing financial assistance and resources such as food and water can reduce the crime rate temporarily, but the crime rate can be expected to increase once the relief expires. Authorities should expect looting to occur, especially in poorer areas, during prolonged power outages. Gaps in the literature were identified and future directions for research were provided.

The second chapter consists of a multi-city survey that targeted three major cities across the United States (Detroit, MI; Miami, FL; and Phoenix, AZ). The survey was disseminated through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and hosted by Qualtrics. 896 participants from the three cities qualified to complete the full version of the survey. Three criteria had to be met for participants to complete the full survey including residing in one of the three target cities, living at their primary address for a majority of the year, and indicate they had experienced a power outage within the last five years.

Participants were asked questions regarding the number of outages experienced in the last five years, the length of their most recent and longest outage experienced, if they owned a generator, how they managed their longest power outage, if participants or anyone in their household relies on a medical device, the financial burden their power outage caused, and standard demographic- and income-related questions. Race was a significant variable that influenced the outage duration length but not frequency in Phoenix and Detroit. Income was not a significant variable associated with experiencing greater economic impacts, such as having thrown food away because of an outage and not receiving help during the longest outage. Additional assessments similar to this survey are needed to better understand household power outage experiences.

Findings from this thesis demonstrate traditional metrics used in vulnerability indices were not indicative of who experienced the greatest effects of power outages. Additionally, other factors that are not included in these indices, such as owning adaptive resources including medical devices and generators in Phoenix and Detroit, are factors in reducing negative outcomes. More research is needed on this topic to indicate which populations are more likely to experience factors that can influence positive or negative outage outcomes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more people die in the U.S. from heat than from all other natural disasters combined. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than 1,300 deaths per year in the United States are due to extreme heat. Arizona, California and Texas are the three states with the highest burden, accounting for 43% of all heat-related deaths according to the CDC.

Although only 5% of housing in Maricopa County, Arizona, is mobile homes, approximately 30% of indoor heat-related deaths occur in these homes. Thus, the residents of mobile homes in Maricopa County are disproportionately affected by heat. Mobile home residents are extremely exposed to heat due to the high density of mobile home parks, poor construction of dwellings, lack of vegetation, socio-demographic features and not being eligible to get utility and financial assistance.

We researched numerous solutions across different domains that could help build the heat resilience of mobile home residents. As a result we found 50 different solutions for diverse stakeholders, budgets and available resources. The goal of this toolbox is to present these solutions and to explain how to apply them in order to get the most optimal result and build About this Solutions Guide People who live in mobile homes are 6 to 8 times more likely to die of heat-associated deaths. heat resilience for mobile home residents. These solutions were designed as a coordinated set of actions for everyone — individual households, mobile home residents, mobile home park owners, cities and counties, private businesses and nonprofits serving mobile home parks, and other stakeholders — to be able to contribute to heat mitigation for mobile home residents.

When we invest in a collective, coordinated suite of solutions that are designed specifically to address the heat vulnerability of mobile homes residents, we can realize a resilience dividend in maintaining affordable, feasible, liveable housing for the 20 million Americans who choose mobile homes and manufactured housing as their place to live and thrive.

En la zona metropolitana de Phoenix, el calor urbano está afectando la salud, la seguridad y la economía y se espera que estos impactos empeoren con el tiempo. Se prevé que el número de días por encima de 110˚F aumentará más del doble para el 2060. En mayo de 2017, The Nature Conservancy, el Departamento de Salud Pública del condado de Maricopa, Central Arizona Conservation Alliance, la Red de Investigación en Sostenibilidad sobre la Resiliencia Urbana a Eventos Extremos, el Centro de Investigación del Clima Urbano de Arizona State University y el Center for Whole Communities lanzaron un proceso participativo de planificación de acciones contra el calor para identificar tanto estrategias de mitigación como de adaptación a fin de reducir directamente el calor y mejorar la capacidad de los residentes para lidiar con el calor. Las organizaciones comunitarias con relaciones existentes en tres vecindarios seleccionados para la planificación de acciones contra el calor se unieron más tarde al equipo del proyecto: Phoenix Revitalization Corporation, RAILMesa y Puente Movement. Más allá de construir un plan de acción comunitario contra el calor y completar proyectos de demostración, este proceso participativo fue diseñado para desarrollar conciencia, iniciativa y cohesión social en las comunidades subrepresentadas. Asimismo el proceso de planificación de acciones contra el calor fue diseñado para servir como modelo para esfuerzos futuros de resiliencia al calor y crear una visión local, contextual y culturalmente apropiada de un futuro más seguro y saludable. El método iterativo de planificación y participación utilizado por el equipo del proyecto fortaleció las relaciones dentro y entre los vecindarios, las organizaciones comunitarias, los responsables de la toma de decisiones y el equipo núcleo, y combinó la sabiduría de la narración de historias y la evidencia científica para comprender mejor los desafíos actuales y futuros que enfrentan los residentes durante eventos de calor extremo. Como resultado de tres talleres en cada comunidad, los residentes presentaron ideas que quieren ver implementadas para aumentar su comodidad y seguridad térmica durante los días de calor extremo.

Como se muestra a continuación, las ideas de los residentes se interceptaron en torno a conceptos similares, pero las soluciones específicas variaron entre los vecindarios. Por ejemplo, a todos los vecindarios les gustaría agregar sombra a sus corredores peatonales, pero variaron las preferencias para la ubicación de las mejoras para dar sombra. Algunos vecindarios priorizaron las rutas de transporte público, otros priorizaron las rutas utilizadas por los niños en su camino a la escuela y otros quieren paradas de descanso con sombra en lugares clave. Surgieron cuatro temas estratégicos generales en los tres vecindarios: promover y educar; mejorar la comodidad/capacidad de afrontamiento; mejorar la seguridad; fortalecer la capacidad. Estos temas señalan que existen serios desafíos de seguridad contra el calor en la vida diaria de los residentes y que la comunidad, los negocios y los sectores responsables de la toma de decisión deben abordar esos desafíos.

Los elementos del plan de acción contra el calor están diseñados para incorporarse a otros esfuerzos para aliviar el calor, crear ciudades resilientes al clima y brindar salud y seguridad pública. Los socios de implementación del plan de acción contra el calor provienen de la región de la zona metropolitana de Phoenix, y se brindan recomendaciones para apoyar la transformación a una ciudad más fresca.

Para ampliar la escala de este enfoque, los miembros del equipo del proyecto recomiendan a) compromiso continuo e inversiones en estos vecindarios para implementar el cambio señalado como vital por los residentes, b) repetir el proceso de planificación de acción contra el calor con líderes comunitarios en otros vecindarios, y c) trabajar con las ciudades, los planificadores urbanos y otras partes interesadas para institucionalizar este proceso, apoyando las políticas y el uso de las métricas propuestas para crear comunidades más frescas.

BACKGROUND: The City of Phoenix initiated the HeatReady program in 2018 to prepare for extreme heat, as there was no official tool, framework, or mechanism at the city level to manage extreme heat. The current landscape of heat safety culture in schools, which are critical community hubs, has received less illumination. HeatReady Schools—a critical component of a HeatReady City—are those that are increasingly able to identify, prepare for, mitigate, track, and respond to the negative impacts of schoolgrounds heat. However, minimal attention has been given to formalize heat preparedness in schools to mitigate high temperatures and health concerns in schoolchildren, a heat-vulnerable population. This study set out to understand heat perceptions, (re)actions, and recommendations of key stakeholders and to identify critical themes around heat readiness. METHODS: An exploratory sequential mixed-methods case study approach was used. These methods focused on acquiring new insight on heat perceptions at elementary schools through semi-structured interviews using thematic analysis and the Delphi panel. Participants included public health professionals and school community members at two elementary schools—one public charter, one public—in South Phoenix, Arizona, a region that has been burdened historically with inequitable distribution of heat resources due to environmental racism and injustices. RESULTS: Findings demonstrated that 1) current heat safety resources are available but not fully utilized within the school sites, 2) expert opinions support that extreme heat readiness plans must account for site-specific needs, particularly education as a first step, and 3) students are negatively impacted by the effects of extreme heat, whether direct or indirect, both inside and outside the classroom. CONCLUSIONS: From key informant interviews and a Delphi panel, a list of 30 final recommendations were developed as important actions to be taken to become “HeatReady.” Future work will apply these recommendations in a HeatReady School Growth Tool that schools can tailor be to their individual needs to improve heat safety and protection measures at schools.

To address the dearth of knowledge about person-based and trip-level exposure, we developed the Icarus model. Icarus uses mesoscale traffic model—activity-based model—to analyze the heat exposure of regions of interest at an individual level. The goal with Icarus was to design accurate, granular models of population and temperature behavior for a target region, which could be transformed into a heat exposure model by means of simulation and spatial-temporal joining. By combining and implementing the most robust software and data available, Icarus was able to capture person-based exposure with unparalleled detail. Here we describe the model methodology. We use the metropolitan region of Phoenix, Arizona, USA to carry out a case study using Icarus.

Maricopa County is the home of the Phoenix metropolitan area, an expansive city with serious air quality concerns. To ameliorate air quality in the county, the Maricopa County Air Quality Department developed a website and mobile application called "Clean Air Make More" as a means of outreach and engagement. In doing this, the county has found a way to engender a bilateral relationship between individuals and their government agency. This study analyzes the effectiveness of Clean Air Make More in establishing this relationship and engaging the community in efforts to improve air quality. It concludes that the design of the application effectively meets user needs, but marketing efforts should target populations disposed to taking action regarding air quality.

Many coastal cities around the world are becoming increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters, particularly flooding driven by tropical storm and hurricane storm surge – typically the most destructive feature of these storms, generating significant economic damage and loss of life. This increase in vulnerability is driven by the interactions between a wide number of complex social and climatic factors, including population growth, irresponsible urban development, a decrease in essential service provision, sea level rise, and changing storm regimes. These issues are exacerbated by the short-term strategic planning that dominates political action and economic decision-making, resulting in many vulnerable coastal communities being particularly unprepared for large, infrequent storm surge events. This lack of preparedness manifests in several ways, but one of the most visible is the lack of comprehensive evacuation and rescue operation plans for use after major storm surge flooding occurs. Typical evacuation or rescue plans are built using a model of a region’s intact road network. While useful for pre-disaster purposes, the immediate aftermath of large floods sees enormous swaths of a given region’s road system flooded, rendering most of these plans largely useless. Post-storm evacuation and rescue requires large amounts of atypical travel through a region (i.e., across non-road surfaces). Traditional road network models (such as those that are used to generate evacuation routes) are unable to conceptualize this type of transportation, and so are of limited utility during post-disaster scenarios. To solve these problems, this dissertation introduces an alternative network conceptualization that preserves important on-network information but also accounts for the possibility of off-network travel during a disaster. Providing this in situ context is necessary to adequately model transportation through a post-storm landscape, one in which evacuees and rescuers are regularly departing from roads and one in which many roads are completely interdicted by flooding. This modeling approach is used to automatically generate routes through a flooded coastal urban area, as well as to identify potentially critical road segments in advance of an actual storm. These tools may help both emergency managers better prepare for large storms, and urban planners in their efforts to mitigate flood damage.

Urban climate conditions are the physical manifestation of formal and informal social forces of design, policy, and urban management. The urban design community (e.g. planners, architects, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers) impacts urban development through influential built projects and design discourse. Their decisions create urban landscapes that impact physiological and mental health for people that live in and around them. Therefore, to understand possible opportunities for decision-making to support healthier urban environments and communities, this dissertation examines the role of neighborhood design on the thermal environment and the effect the thermal environment has on mental health. In situ data collection and numerical modeling are used to assess current and proposed urban design configurations in the Edison Eastlake public housing community in central Phoenix for their efficacy in cooling the thermal environment. A distributed lagged non-linear model is used to investigate the relative risk of hospitalization for schizophrenia in Maricopa County based on atmospheric conditions. The dissertation incorporates both an assessment of design strategies for the cooling of the thermal environment and an analysis of the existing thermal environment’s relationship with mental health. By reframing the urban design of neighborhoods through the lens of urban climate, this research reinforces the importance of incorporating the community into the planning process and highlights some unintended outcomes of prioritizing the thermal environment in urban design.