Hinman Response to Haiti Earthquake

SAN FRANCISCO (March. 5, 2010) —In response to the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on the 12th of January 2010, Hinman Consulting Engineers, Inc. has donated money to support relief efforts in Haiti. The donation was made to the American Red Cross, which is providing desperately needed supplies and disaster-management services to the area through its International Response Fund. Haitian President, Rene Preval stated that the earthquake killed at least 217,000 people, destroyed about 255,000 houses and left one million homeless. Haiti is still in desperate need of ongoing medical support as well as adequate housing, fresh water and food. It is critical to get public health and other essential services in place before the hurricane season which is expected to cause additional devastation.

At Hinman we are committed to protecting people, operations and property against structural damage caused by explosions, earthquakes, and other natural and man-made hazards. In response to the crisis in Haiti, we strongly encourage every major city to implement an Emergency Action Plan.

FEMA 455 - Handbook For Rapid Visual Screening To Evaluate The Vulnerability Of Buildings To Potential Terrorist Attacks now published.

Eve Hinman, as the project director for this effort, worked with a group of experts in security, anti-terrorism and risk to develop an extremely rapid tool which may be completed within 1-4 hours including pre-field, field and post-field assessment work. The procedure entails filling in a Data Collection Form using publicly accessible information and observation of the exterior and publicly accessible interior spaces.

This rapid visual screening procedure has been developed for use in assessing risk of terrorist attack on standard commercial buildings in urban or semi-urban areas, but is intended to be applicable nationwide for all conventional building types. It can be used to identify the level of risk for a single building, or the relative risk among buildings in a portfolio, community, or region as a prioritization tool for further risk management activities. The information gathered as part of this screening procedure can also be used to support and facilitate higher level assessments by expert investigators performing building-specific evaluations of threat, risk, and vulnerability.