The NHERI post-disaster, rapid response research (or “RAPID”) facility, headquartered at the University of Washington (UW), is a collaboration between UW, Oregon State University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Florida. The RAPID facility will enable natural hazard researchers to conduct next generation quick response research through reliable acquisition and community sharing of high-quality, post-disaster data sets that will enable characterization of civil infrastructure performance under natural hazard loads, evaluation of the effectiveness of current and previous design methodologies, understanding of socio-economic dynamics, calibration of computational models used to predict civil infrastructure component and system response to natural hazards, and development of solutions for resilient communities. In support of this goal, the facility will provide the following resources: (1) a portfolio of state-of-the-art data collection tools (including geomatics technologies; image capture and laser scanning equipment; seismological, wind, and inundation instruments; unmanned aircraft systems, and mobile devices for social science fieldwork, among others); (2) new software tools to aid in quantitative and qualitative data collection and processing; (3) education, outreach, and training services. The facility also includes a 3D mini Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) at UW for viewing and preliminary analysis of the various forms of image data collected during field campaigns. The facility commenced operations in September 2016 and will begin field deployments beginning in September 2018. Over the next year, the facility will be convening community workshops and solicit feedback from stakeholders to develop a facility science plan and establish deployment protocols. During the following year (2017-2018), the facility will acquire and commission major instrumentation to support post-disaster investigations. User training workshops will begin during the summer of 2018 with the goal of having reconnaissance teams ready to deploy when the equipment comes online.

This website will be evolving during the development of the NHERI RAPID facility and will host information on the community and user workshops, site user manuals and contact information, user rates, and scheduling protocols.