Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project
Implemented by the Organization of American States
Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment
for the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Caribbean Regional Program

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CDMP Progress Bulletin

Causes of Building and Infrastructure Failure due to Natural Hazards

Bulletin Date: December 1999

Many factors determine the ability of a building to withstand the effects of natural hazards. Decisions made throughout the life of an infrastructure project or a building—from design and construction through ongoing maintenance—affect the resilience and, consequently, the life span of these investments. To better understand the causes of building and infrastructure failure, the Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project has completed a case study of public and private projects that have suffered damages from tropical storms. The purpose of this study was to examine the decision making processes underlying the design and construction of these facilities to determine whether the failures could have been prevented by appropriate design and construction principles and by effective use of hazard and vulnerability information in the conceptual planning and implementation of the project. This study  focused on four projects, located in Dominica, Jamaica, St. Lucia and the US Virgin Islands.

The first phase of this project covered the collection of information about the selected projects through review of project files and discussions with responsible agencies, firms and individuals. This background information includes documentation of the project concept, financing, selection of consultants, project monitoring, building standards used and hazard vulnerability studies that were conducted or incorporated into project design. Details of the hazard event that caused failure and the damages suffered were also collected. For two of the projects, detailed estimates were made of the increased capital cost that would have been required—in project studies, design or construction—to avoid most, if not all, of the damages suffered. Results of this phase of the project are summarized in the paper Costs and Benefits of Hazard Mitigation for Building and Infrastructure Development: A Case Study in Small Island Developing States, which was presented at the conference of the International Emergency Management Society in Washington DC in May 1998, and detailed in full in a final report.

Based on the experience gained from this study and meetings with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), a a manual containing Reference Criteria for Consulting Services for Infrastructure Projects was created. The principal aim of the document is to sensitize government and private sector entities who are investing in infrastructure projects about the natural hazard risk to their projects and to the services they can demand from consulting engineers in identifying and mitigating those risks. The document also provides a practical and concise reference to the latest technical construction standards and codes and sources of information on natural hazards. Finally, a policy paper, entitled Natural Hazards and Economic Development: Policy Considerations, has been developed based on the experiences gained in this activity. This paper discusses the institutional aspects, costs and benefits of integrating hazard mitigation into infrastructure design throughout the Caribbean.

CDMP home page: http://www.oas.org/en/cdmp/ Project Contacts Page Last Updated: 20 April 2001