Despite the criticality of agriculture to U.S. and global food production, the lack of economic diversity and prevalence of agriculture in most rural areas is theorized to be a major contributor to low disaster resilience. Resilience is a complex function of socio-economic dimensions and the built environment; and the population, economics, and physical infrastructure that comprise agricultural regions are distinct from the urban and suburban areas. As one step towards enhancing the resilience of rural communities to natural hazards, this research focuses specifically on the physical infrastructure that support agricultural communities and farms and its performance during extreme windstorms. This presentation will pay particular attention to steel grain bins as a case study structure from the perspective of initial, post-event damage mechanisms as well as the various contributing factors to their recovery over time.

Dr. Wittich joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in January 2017 and established The Wittich Research Lab focused on structural engineering for natural hazards and extreme events. She holds a Ph.D. (2016) and M.S. (2012) in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and a B.S. (2010) in Civil Engineering from Lafayette College in Easton, PA. As the PI of the lab, her research interests focus on enhancing fundamental knowledge of how structural systems behave individually and how they interact at the community level during and after natural hazards and extreme events. In addition to her research efforts through the Wittich Lab, she teaches undergraduate courses in structural engineering and steel design as well as graduate courses in structural dynamics and remote sensing.