CORS 220: HW#3: Escape From Napoli - Evacuation of a major metropolitan area (Naples, Italy)
Your third homework assignment of the semester is a group exercise. You need to devise a plan for the large-scale evacuation of a city prior to an impending disaster; in this case, a major volcanic eruption. Naples, Italy, is a city with 3 million inhabitants nestled between the flanks of Mount Vesuvius and the caldera of Campi Flegrei, a major rhyolite caldera volcano. The geologic setting and associated hazard is described in your textbook on pages 165-168. Of course, Vesuvius is the volcano that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum during a Plinian eruption in 79 AD. A future eruption is inevitable from Vesuvius and perhaps even from Campi Flegrei.
For this exercise, I would like you to do some sleuthing into the state of current preparation of the city of Naples regarding monitoring of the volcanoes and the development of a contingency plan in the event of an eruption. Is there an evacuation plan and is it feasible? Should evacuation even be attempted? What infrastructure exists to move so many people in perhaps a short period of time? Where would they go? Can YOU think of potential and perhaps innovative ways to come at this problem (perhaps using as a model any other cities that have their own emergency evacuation plans)?
As this is a group exercise, you will devise 5 roles (one for each member of your group - one group will have 6 roles) for personnel involved with the emergency evacuation plan development. Each member is responsible for writing their portion of the group's 10-12 page report (i.e., 2 pages per group member). The types of roles you devise must consider the following factors: the nature of the hazard and risk to Naples; the historic and geologic evidence for volcanic eruptions (Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei); the geography of the city and transportation systems that can be used in an evacuation; an actual evacuation plan in a time frame dictated by the likely characteristics of the eruption; a plan to deal with evacuees and ultimate recovery and return to Naples (if deemed possible).
Initial planning will be done in class on Tuesday, October 12th. At this meeting, decide on your roles and devise a plan for group meeting times and deadlines for working towards a completed project. All other group interactions must be outside of class time. You can decide amongst yourselves what form of interactions you would like to have as a group. You will have until Tuesday, October 26th to complete this exercise. If, for some reason, four members of a group decide that a fifth member is not pulling their weight, not meeting deadlines, and essentially being an irresponsible group member, the fifth member can be fired from the group (by 4 unanimous votes only). If this happens, the fired member will have to write their own report that covers ALL aspects of the project on which the group was working. The remaining four members will have to pick up the duties of the fired group member.
After the reports have been handed in, one representative from each group will be required to give a 3-5 minute presentation to the class in which they outline their evacuation plan (on Tuesday, October 26th). This can be done with a Powerpoint presentation or using the chalk board. At the end, the class will vote on which plan they felt to be the most thorough, realistic, and innovative. The winning group will each receive a 1% bonus on their FINAL grade in this class (so pick your group representative wisely!).
Report Guidelines:
* Your report must be 10-12.5 pages in length, or 2 to 2.5 pages per person (cannot be less than 2 pages per person).
* Use a 1.5 line spacing, 10-12pt Times Roman or Calibri text, and 1" margins. The same formatting must be used by every person contributing to the paper.
* Your report must include a title.
* Use sub-headings to differentiate the individual contributions of the group members. Each sub-heading must have a title, your name, and your official "role" in the evacuation.
* One person must be designated the group leader. She/he will be responsible for collating everyone's contributions and handing in the final report (hard copy only).
* Your grade will be determined by content, writing style, and grammar. Grades will be individual. Although all members of the group can give feedback to other group members regarding their contributions during the development stage, no-one may alter the final text submitted by any other group member for the final report.
* You may include figures with your report at the end of the text. The figures will not count towards the page limit. Figure numbers must be provided and referred to explicitly in the main text.
* Include a references list at the end of the report (will not count towards the page limit). Everyone MUST use the same referencing style within the text of the report (e.g., McDonald, 2005; Smith & Jones, 1984; Peterson et al., 2000; USGS, 2008; MSNBC, 2008 etc.).
This report will be worth 25 points.
PROJECT DUE DATE: Tuesday, October 26th.
GROUP MEMBERS:
Group 1: Barg, Cumber, Hart, Jackson, Randall, Thie
Group 2: Bigelow, Edmonds, Heiner, Jacobsen, Saxe
Group 3: Carlson, Filter, Hendricks, Lauer, Smotherman
Group 4: Cox, Haberman, Hirst, Li, Stevenson
BACK