Disaster impact analysis based on inter‐relationship of critical infrastructure and associated industries

Purpose – Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina (the most destructive natural calamity in US history), have destructive impact on residents, critical infrastructure, as well as, functions and services of associated industries in the affected areas. In addition, due to a lack of both understanding of natural disaster impacts and preparedness to the hurricane, it was revealed that the emergency‐related organizations were not prepared to maximize the use of the critical infrastructure to mitigate the impacts. The purpose of this paper is to help those organizations have more understanding of disaster impacts and facilitate their decision making in order to prepare better mitigation plans.Design/methodology/approach – A disaster impact mechanism and inter‐relationships based on the main functions of associated industries are derived through an extensive literature review and case analyses. Based on these inter‐relationships, a decision support system is developed and evaluated using a winter flood disa...