Most transportation actions regarding disaster conditions cannot be tested or evaluated in a laboratory or inferred from normal situations. They have to be acquired through real-life experiences which in the case of an earthquake is a rare occurrence. The most significant events in the transportation and transportation-related field that followed the October 1, 1987 Whittier earthquake is the organized evacuations of special facilities such as convalescent homes, hospitals and public and high rise buildings. The main focus of this study will be on analyzing and evaluating the immediate and short-term actions of these evacuations and comparing the results in terms of evacuation times, training needs, transportation requirements and operational problems. Special emphasis will be placed on the evacuation of the health care facilities such as the Long Beach naval Hospital. In that regard, an interactive computer program will be developed to simulate the evacuation of a health care facility under natural disasters. The data from the evacuation of the Naval Hospital will be used to test and calibrate the model. The model outputs will provide an evaluation of the system performance under different evacuation conditions. The model is intended to be a decision support tool that can assist the facility manager to determine the best allocation of resources to efficiently execute a quick and smooth evacuation.
