The NHERI Natural Hazards Reconnaissance Facility (referred to as the “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 facility will enable the natural hazards and disaster research communities to conduct next-generation rapid response investigations to characterize civil infrastructure performance and community response to natural hazards, evaluate the effectiveness of design methodologies, calibrate simulation models, and develop solutions for resilient communities. The facility engages in a range of activities including (1) acquiring, maintaining, and operating state-of-the-art data collection equipment, (2) developing and supporting mobile applications for interdisciplinary field reconnaissance, (3) providing advisory services and basic equipment logistics support for research investigations, (4) facilitating the systematic archiving, processing and visualization of acquired data in DesignSafe-CI, (5) training a broad user base through workshops and other activities, and (6) engaging the public by facilitating citizen science initiatives, as well as through community outreach and education.

The RAPID facility is currently commissioning and procuring instrumentation and will begin supporting field deployments in September 2018. The facility will be holding a series of 1-day user training workshops during Spring 2018 and offering a 1-week comprehensive hands-on instrumentation training in the late Summer 2018. 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.