Strategies for Logistics in Case of a Natural Disaster

Abstract

The need to effectively and efficiently provide emergency supplies and services is increasing all over the world. We investigate four policy options prepositioning supplemental resources, preemptive as well as phased deployment of assets, and a surge of supplies and services as potential strategies for responding to a disaster. We illustrate the linkage between our four policy options and a disaster classification based upon disaster localization (dispersed or local) and speed of disaster onset (slow or sudden). We summarize our work by introducing a matrix that aligns logistics strategies with disaster types in order to assist policy-makers in their resource management decisions.