CHAPTER 4

Case Examples

This chapter contains a series of transit agency examples from agencies across the United States that have experienced severe weather events, such as hurricanes and snow/ice storms, that have disrupted the services of the agency, including

• Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART), Tampa, Florida
• Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA), Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas
• King County Metro, Seattle, Washington
• Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), Houston, Texas
• New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA), New Orleans, Louisiana

Each example provides an overview of the agency and the common weather events encountered, along with a summary of recovery at the agency. The typical recovery time, an overview of the agency recovery plan, if any, recovery approaches, local/community coordination, and any funding received for recovery taken are discussed, along with lessons learned by the agency from their recovery experiences.

4.1 Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority

Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART), a public transit agency authorized by the state of Florida, provides public transportation for Hillsborough County, Florida, including Tampa. The agency operates fixed-route local and express bus service, paratransit service, demand-response service, MetroRapid service, and the TECO Line Streetcar system. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 10,967,535 (unlinked passenger trips), with about 33,500 average weekday riders (FTA NTD, 2024).

The National Risk Index (NRI) is a FEMA tool that computes a natural hazard risk measurement for U.S. communities based on hazard and community risk factors. The NRI for Hillsborough County is high. The highest risk index scores are for lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, cold waves, and wildfires (FEMA, 2024d). The Tampa region is significantly vulnerable to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and sinkholes (City of Tampa, 2024).

Hurricane Irma formed in 2017—the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, outside of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea—and headed for the Tampa Bay area (HART, 2018). When Irma reached Hillsborough County, it had weakened to a Category 1 storm and arrived at low tide, which minimized the storm surge and related flooding. The storm did result in debris on roadways and a power outage that left traffic lights out and at least 300,000 homes without power. The following sections detail how HART plans for and implements recovery from hurricanes such as Irma.

4.1.1 Typical Recovery Timing

Depending on the severity of the weather event and its impacts, recovery can occur as soon as the next day or later. After Irma, HART quickly received clearance from the County Sheriff ’s Department and Tampa Police to put vehicles on the streets and was able to assess damage to facilities the next day. Service returned to normal three days after Hurricane Irma.

4.1.2 Recovery Plan

HART has a Hurricane Action Plan, including SOPs with different scenarios. It spells out pre-, during, and post-activities, such as how to shut down facilities and reopen, how operators are scheduled, how to communicate, and how to handle vehicles and routes, including

• Where vehicles will be moved to prevent water damage
• Alternate routes for vehicles to take when roads are closed
• Vehicle staging locations for keeping vehicles that will be used during a storm in a central location and ready to go

Recovery-specific actions include

• Assessing property damage to ensure facilities were safe to occupy. The director of facilities goes out to make sure that transit centers have power and water, that the infrastructure is safe, and that the agency is ready to resume service.
• Retrieving vehicles from satellite locations and returning them to HART properties.
• Providing up-to-date information via the customer service call center on when and where buses and paratransit vans are running.

The agency found that having a recovery plan resulted in less confusion—employees understand who is coming and who is not—along with a cleaner operation and the ability to provide more service to the community.

4.1.3 Recovery Approach

In response to an event, HART operates its normal service on a reduced level minus some routes, such as express routes with reduced frequency. The routes run more frequently, depending on demand, to return to normal or recover. The changes in service frequency start on the next day after the routes are found to be clear and safe.

Whatever day the agency shuts down due to the event, that day’s schedule becomes the activated emergency schedule for operations. For example, if the event was a Tuesday, it is the Tuesday emergency schedule; if it is Wednesday, it is the Wednesday emergency schedule, and so on. That way, there is no confusion about which schedule operators and drivers will use. On-demand service is available for the low-lying areas, and school buses are available at transfer centers on the regular routes to take people to the shelters.

During Hurricane Irma, the HART hurricane level of service consisted of nine emergency or evacuation routes that were designed to transport people from low-lying areas to higher ground and shelters. The routes ran in areas where HART may not normally provide service with three or four buses on those nine routes. The agency found that people continued to use, or wanted to use, their regular bus route instead of switching to an evacuation route.

HART used to have an emergency response team for operations maintenance that was activated when a hurricane was coming for the nine evacuation routes. Now, because the current approach utilizes the normal schedule, it requires more buses and people. As part of the van and

bus operator bids throughout the year, when operators and drivers bid for regular work, they also bid for emergency work.

4.1.4 Local and Regional Coordination

Each spring, HART leadership begins annual storm preparations by participating in quarterly meetings with the city and county emergency services personnel to discuss strategies for evacuating residents, setting up temporary shelters, communicating with the public and first responders, and other tactics to be deployed before, during, and after a weather-related event.

Coordination and training continue throughout the hurricane season, with additional coordination when a threat is identified. Schools comprise the majority of designated shelters. School buses are now designated as the primary vehicles to transport people from the transport routes and hubs to and from the actual shelters, while HART operates close to regular service.

In the recovery from Hurricane Irma, HART performed a vital role in supporting first responder teams from out of state. When out-of-state responders reported a need for diesel fuel, HART determined that it could use its compressed natural gas buses to return people from shelters, releasing diesel reserves to fuel first responders’ vehicles (HART, 2018).

4.1.5 Recovery Funding

HART has received FTA ER funding for weather events. In 2018, the agency received $110,000 for Hurricane Irma. In 2024, the agency received $2.1 million for providing emergency services during Hurricane Ian in 2022.

4.1.6 Lessons Learned

• Make sure all vehicles are fully fueled before the storm hits. Determine which vehicles might be needed before storing them; for example, buses were used to form a protective shield around paratransit vans, but vans were needed to transport people.
• Keep accurate records of personnel hours and expenses for reimbursement by FEMA.

4.2 Kansas City Area Transportation Authority

Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) is a public transit agency in metropolitan Kansas City. It operates the Metro Area Express bus rapid transit service in Kansas City, Missouri, and 78 local bus routes in seven counties of Missouri and Kansas. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 10,967,362 (unlinked passenger trips), with 32,704 riders on an average weekday (FTA NTD, 2024). The agency is a bi-state agency created by a compact between the states of Missouri and Kansas and approved by the U.S. Congress.

The FEMA national risk index for Kansas City, Missouri, is relatively high (FEMA, 2024d). The highest risk index scores are for winter weather, tornadoes, heat waves, strong winds, ice storms, and lightning. Because of Missouri and Kansas geography, the region frequently experiences natural disasters. Ice storms, tornadoes, severe storms, and flooding are all common occurrences (Missouri SEMA, 2024).

According to KCATA, severe weather events have not generally been frequent enough or severe enough to cause a major disruption of service. However, the winter ice storm of 2022 forced the system to shut down completely for the first time in more than 30 years. Service has also been disrupted for a series of special events, such as sports-related events (e.g., Superbowl parades, FIFA,

NFL Draft days) and presidential visits, that have provided opportunities to develop plans and practice approaches for disruption and resumption of service that can apply to weather events.

The following sections provide details on how KCATA plans for and implements recovery from weather events that disrupt transit service.

4.2.1 Typical Recovery Timing

If a snow or ice storm disrupts service, the agency typically recovers in 48 hours or less.

4.2.2 Recovery Plan

Over time, the inclement weather routes in agency plans have been simplified. Once, there were many different routes to use, such as snow, holidays, and Sundays. The agency combined the snow/holiday/Sunday routes into one Sunday service route to use for all reduced service occasions. The agency found that using simplified routes made it easier to communicate changes to the public and that it was also easier for operators. KCATA frequently reviews the combined route schedule to see if it still makes sense.

KCATA does its route clearing, such as snow clearing and ice treatment, in coordination with the Kansas City, Missouri, Public Works department. Leadership, through pre-season meetings, communicates where KCATA will pre-treat and what it will plow. The KCATA focus is on priority routes—12 out of 30—with 80 percent of the daily ridership, which may not be a city priority for clearing. Kansas City Public Works handles the secondary road clearance exclusively, which has an impact on the KCATA paratransit service.

The agency has had its own crew and equipment to clear snow from the bus routes for 30 years or so. Clearance crews are staged prior to anticipated weather events, with cots placed in the vehicle facilities area so crews are on hand and able to access the clearance vehicles.

4.2.3 Recovery Approach

KCATA does not have a uniform SOP for recovery or a rule of thumb for going back to normal service. The timeline is determined by event and based on information and feedback from agency personnel on the streets. Data is measured at least every half hour, which allows the agency to determine what the situation is—for example, what is clear, what is being cleared, what vehicles are available, and what vehicles are stuck.

Recovery of normal service starts the next day once the determination is made that the route is clear. Because people want to know when the agency will return to normal, resuming service the next day versus when the route is clear provides a predictable level of service for passengers and drivers each day.

4.2.4 Local and Regional Coordination

The agency closely coordinates with the Kansas City Public Works on winter weather road clearance, identifying which agency will do what on which routes. As noted previously, the KCATA primary routes may not be a city priority for clearing. Kansas City Public Works handles secondary road clearance.

4.2.5 Recovery Issues

The major recovery issue is having bus operators available to operate the vehicles to resume service. The drivers may not live in neighborhoods that are cleared and may have difficulty arriving at the agency.

4.2.6 Funding for Recovery

KCATA has an inclement weather budget number in the facilities budget that includes clearance expenses such as maintenance of the salt dome, ordering sand or salt, and so forth. The agency itself is primarily funded by community contracts, with Kansas City being the largest contract. Others buy services from the agency on an annual basis.

4.2.7 Lessons Learned

• It is better to keep service changes and restoration processes as simple as possible, which makes communication easier and less confusing. People want to know when service will return to normal, and employees want to know where to go and when.
• When rolling out the recovery plan, it is important to remind people of what the plan is and for them to stay tuned if there is an update or change.

4.3 King County Department of Metro Transit

King County Metro, officially the King County Metro Transit Department, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle. It is the eighth-largest transit bus agency in the United States. Metro operates buses, trollies, streetcar rail (owned by the city of Seattle), vanpools, demand response, and ferryboats. Metro is also contracted to operate and maintain Sound Transit’s Link light rail line and eight of Sound Transit’s express bus routes. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 66.4 million, or more than 207,000 per weekday (FTA NTD, 2024). King County Metro is a county entity, answerable to the county executive.

The FEMA national risk index for King County, Washington, is high. The highest risk factors are earthquakes, volcanic activity, avalanches, and landslides (FEMA, 2024d). The Seattle region ranks number one in the country in terms of the number of hazards faced. The city of Seattle has identified 18 hazards that carry the greatest risk to the city and considers earthquakes, winter storms, and wind storms to pose the highest risk due to their likelihood and potential consequences (Seattle Washington Government, 2024). The risk of an ice storm is relatively moderate, and the risk of winter weather is low, but these events have recently caused the most disruption to the region and King County Metro service. High heat has also been an issue recently, causing overheating and air conditioning system failures that reduce the available operating fleet.

The historic snow and ice storm that hit the Seattle area on December 22, 2022, required the cessation of all service for one day, the first time in 30 years that service was completely canceled. The following sections detail how King County Metro plans for and implements recovery from snow and ice storms.

4.3.1 Typical Recovery Timing

After the December 2022 storm, King County Metro announced that limited service would resume the next day, with phased increases in service over succeeding days. Full-service restoration depends on neighborhood roadway conditions, such as snow or ice clearance, and can take several days.

4.3.2 Recovery Plan

King County Metro does not have a recovery plan or policy; however, the agency has a snow plan. The agency has an emergency network plan in place. King County Metro developed its emergency snow routes plan in 2008 (basically avoiding hills) but did not need to update it to a full snow emergency plan until 2018. Since then, the snow plan has been activated every year. The plan identifies five stages of potential snow impacts with operations schedules for each level of

operations. Flexibility is provided to account for different weather conditions in different parts of the region. The agency aims to keep as much service on the road as possible, especially in areas of high need, while balancing early communication with passengers.

The 2023–2024 Snow Plan (King County Metro, 2023) recognizes that plans for one hazard can be utilized for other hazards as well. It states, “While the Emergency Snow Network is designated as stage five of Metro’s Snow Plan, the basic concept and format with adjustments, as necessary, could be utilized to address continued transit operations during various types of emergencies (i.e., earthquake or flu pandemic).”

The planning allows the agency to get service back more quickly. Specifically, the process and application of phased service that Metro developed for everyday operations through major service disruptions has facilitated decision-making and operations, with community members included in the prioritization. Prior to this process, the effort of deciding what and where to cut or add back service was extremely labor intensive. Having a plan that everyone, including leadership, has approved gives the individual scheduler at the base the authority to make those changes. That facilitates getting service scaled back and restored as quickly as possible with the fewest people or decision points involved. The recovery portion of the current snow plan is brief, as shown in Box 6: Post-emergency activity and recovery.

Recovery communications in the plan are addressed as follows: “PIO [Public Information Officer] stays in close touch with TCC [Transit Control Center]/DOC [Department Operation Center] and CITRS [Customer Information Technological Resources & Solutions] to monitor when the Emergency Snow Network (ESN) is deactivated and more normal service resumes. At that time, an update is distributed via all the outlets identified above” (King County Metro, 2023).

King County Metro is currently working on an emergency operations plan that will address resiliency, keeping core functions going, applying lessons learned, and incorporating recovery. Staff members hope to have the plan in place in 2025.

4.3.3 Recovery Approach

King County Metro operates with a strategy of expanding and contracting services based on operational needs during extreme weather conditions using a phased approach. There are

core basic services that must be provided and then move up from there. Consistent, specified service levels, in five stages based on potential impacts and operations, are publicized in service schedules.

As an example, stage five, the highest stage of the 2023–2024 King County Snow Plan, is the activation of the Emergency Snow Network (ESN). When this occurs, Metro’s regular weekday, Saturday, and Sunday fixed route bus and deviated fixed route service profile is greatly reduced. Sixty-four core bus routes, Dial-a-Ride Transit (DART) routes, and chained shuttles, including the route 90 First Hill Shuttle, will operate as part of the ESN service profile in snow conditions.

Announcing the day before what service will be in place the next day is now the standard operating procedure during any emergency activation or significant service disruption. Doing so establishes expectations that service will not change midday. This procedure facilitates communications with the public and greatly facilitates operations planning and scheduling. Supervisors, operators, dispatchers, and communications people know the plan, know when and where they will and will not work, and know what they need to convey to the public with a high degree of certainty.

According to the 2023–2024 Snow Plan (King County Metro, 2023), “The Transit General Manager or his/her designee, upon consultation with the King County Executive, as may be required, will order the restoration of regular Metro Transit fixed route bus and deviated fixed route service from the ESN to a level commensurate with existing snow or transit emergency conditions by 10:00 a.m. on the day prior to the restoration. The implementation of this directive will commence at the start of service on the day following the decision date. The ESN cannot be terminated and regular service restored in the middle of the service day.”

4.3.4 Local and Regional Coordination

King County Metro owns and operates snow removal equipment, including backhoes, trucks with sanders and plows, and brine capabilities. The agency clears its bases, transit centers, and park-and-ride lots and has resources to plow and treat light rail pull-outs, bus pull-outs, and some roads that are higher priorities for the bus system than for the local municipalities. The transit agency prioritizes clearing and cleaning roads based on ridership and other factors.

King County Metro has an MOU with the city of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) that addresses snow clearing. Each year prior to the start of the winter weather season, KCM Transit Facilities Maintenance personnel meet with SDOT personnel to review snow-clearing plans and coordinate on clearance and treatment. In the fall, Metro collaborates with SDOT personnel in snow removal training, which may include classroom training.

King County Metro also operates contracted services for schools and employers. The agency coordinates closely with county agencies, including schools, employers, service agencies, and riders, to coordinate and communicate plans and service updates on a timely, predictable basis.

4.3.5 Recovery Issues

Resource management and staffing constraints are challenging during recovery. Understanding what the agency resources are requires substantial resource management, knowing in real-time how many buses the agency has, how many are damaged, and how many are out. How many employees does the agency have that can drive? How many buses are drivable? Which routes can be brought back based on road conditions and so forth? It is a challenge to understand what can be done with what the agency has and how to make priority route decisions, including considering where buses are staged across the county as the agency goes through recovery.

Knowing what recovery is can be challenging, too. What does recovery look like? Is recovery just getting back to the way things were, or does it include wanting to do better or change?

Alternative fuel vehicles are among the tough emerging issues to consider in recovery planning. How to deal with mixed fuel fleets in recovery and how to make decisions about where those vehicles go must be determined. For example, the agency and the community want to put zero-emission buses on the routes that are the most impacted (by air pollution). However, those are also going to be the ones that probably will not function if power is lost. How to balance some of those issues during recovery with a mixed fuel system may be difficult.

4.3.6 Recovery Funding

King County Metro has not received external funding for weather-related events.

4.3.7 Lessons Learned

• Take care to systematically review events, learn from them, and apply those lessons in updated plans.
• Having a plan allows the agency to be more fluid in decisions without having to bring many people together. That facilitates getting service back as quickly as possible with the fewest levels of decision-makers involved.

4.4 Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County

Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), a public transit agency authorized by the state of Texas, provides transportation services to the city of Houston, major portions of unincorporated Harris County, and 14 smaller surrounding cities. METRO operates buses, light rail, commuter bus, demand response, vanpool, and bus rapid transit. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 57.3 million or about 182,000 per weekday (FTA NTD, 2024).

The FEMA national risk index for Harris County, Texas, is high (FEMA, 2024d). The highest risk index scores are for hurricanes, riverine flooding, lightning, heat waves, cold waves, and strong wind. A climate assessment commissioned by the city of Houston reflected that higher temperatures and more frequent rain/storm events will continue to increase (City of Houston, 2020).

As of July 2024, FEMA has declared a disaster in the Greater Houston area 28 times since 1980, with 10 of those declarations made since 2015 (FEMA, 2024c). Figure 6 illustrates disaster declarations over time through 2022 in Houston (Greater Houston Foundation, 2024).

Hurricane Harvey in 2017 exceeded all previous rainfall totals, setting continental U.S. rainfall records. The destruction of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 showed that severe weather events were increasingly becoming a regular occurrence (Houston METRO, 2022).

Winter Storm Uri in 2021 caused week-long power and water outages, busted pipes, and boil water notices. On May 17, 2024, at least seven people were killed in the Houston area as a destructive complex of storms with winds up to 100 mph tore through the area, triggering power outages that could stretch on for weeks amid soaring temperatures. The weeks-long restoration timeframe was for homes and businesses tied into the 10 steel power transmission towers downed in the state, seven of which were in Harris County (Sutton and Wolfe, 2024). More than 900,000 homes and businesses lost power in Houston’s Harris County during the peak of the storm’s violent winds, and nearly 600,000 remained in the dark Friday evening (Bluefire Studios LLC, 2024). More recently, Hurricane Beryl hit Texas July 5–9, 2024, with flooding and wind.

The following sections provide details on METRO’s plans for and implementation of recovery from weather events such as Hurricane Harvey and severe winter storms such as Uri.

4.4.1 Typical Recovery Timing

Recovery timing depends on the event, the extent of damage to infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and the subsidence of flooding or other impacts. Houston METRO works to restore core service as soon as possible, phasing in other services as roads clear. That may take as much as a week and a half to two weeks after the core routes come up unless, of course, they are still experiencing ongoing flooding or disaster. “In 2008, after Hurricane Ike, two days into recovery, we could only bring up about 11 percent of the routes back to operations,” Thomas Lambert, METRO CEO, said (Mass Transit, 2017). Hurricane Harvey made landfall on August 25 and continued to hit Houston with massive winds and rainfall until August 29. Once the storm subsided in Houston, Texas, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (Metro) began medical-related paratransit services on Wednesday, August 30. They started bringing back bus service the next day. About 50 percent of the bus service was brought up on Thursday. The remainder was up by September 5.

After Hurricane Harvey, the agency was able to deploy buses back onto limited routes five days after the storm hit. After nearly a week of service at a standstill, METRO started running buses along some of its regular routes on August 31. “We carried 43,000 boardings when we brought on limited service,” Lambert said. The system was expected to be almost fully operational by September 5, Lambert noted, and METRO would be closely monitoring boarding numbers to add capacity where it’s needed. “There were probably four or five routes where we had to have detours because they were in neighborhoods that were severely impacted flood areas,” said Jerome Gray, vice president and senior press officer for METRO. “We tried to create routes that accommodated as many people as possible in those areas” (Bliss, 2017).

4.4.2 Recovery Plan

METRO has two major plans that include recovery—the continuity of operations plan and the emergency management plan. Each is updated biannually, staggered every other year. Input from METRO’s departments on activities and capabilities is requested so that METRO can keep both plans relatively accurate. With the frequency of activations in Houston and the changing situations, new ideas are often coming forward. If an idea has been used more than two times, it may be incorporated into the updated plan.

There are separate chapters for different types of events, but many of the activities are similar. New activities have been added for cold weather based on recent events.

METRO recognizes the importance of having a well-planned recovery strategy in place before disaster strikes. Much of the recovery planning and effectiveness is grounded in the pre-planning—activities such as establishing partnerships and setting expectations with partners, safeguarding vehicles and personnel with effective staging expectations, and phased plans to return to service.

Each bus operating facility has an internal plan for incoming tropical weather or riverine flooding. Each bus operating facility superintendent, maintenance superintendent, or transit superintendent is in charge of staging their buses appropriately. Staging includes not only keeping buses out of the water (or other danger) but also having a certain number of buses stationed so that they can move out as soon as the roads clear. After Hurricane Harvey, pictures of METRO buses staged on the elevated HOV lane were widely published. That plan was

actually put together 20 years ago. Hurricane Harvey was just the first opportunity METRO had to use it.

4.4.3 Recovery Approach

Houston METRO recovery works from a three-phase grouping of buses to get services back in order. As each phase transitions into the next phase, a wider range of services is provided going to major areas. The Planning Department uses the data from ridership to figure out how many people will get where. The emphasis is getting communities moving and back in motion, prioritizing neighborhoods with high bus utilization. In the initial phase, METRO core bus routes (grouping of buses) go to the medical center, other major hospitals, and major supply chain partners who have hardened their facilities to ensure the public availability of food, water, and other necessary supplies.

Somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million cars were destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. During recovery, METRO positioned itself as a resource for residents who lost vehicles. Through various channels such as social media and local news channels and directly to shelters, the agency provided information about bus routes, light rail lines, and park-and-ride services. The agency worked with state and federal agencies to distribute transit schedules and loaded fare cards to those in shelters and other government-paid housing. “You discover in an event like Harvey that there are development patterns that are more resilient than others. . . . In neighborhoods where it’s easier to use transit . . . whether it’s downtown Houston or a well-planned suburb, not having gas in your gas tank or having your car flooded isn’t as big of a deal, because you can get around in other ways,” said Christof Spieler, METRO board member (Bliss, 2017).

4.4.4 Local and Regional Coordination

Houston TranStar is an emergency management and traffic management partnership for the Houston, Texas, region between Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), METRO, the city of Houston, and Harris County. Established in 1993, the consortium shares resources and exchanges information with the goal of coordinated, innovative transportation and emergency management services (Houston TranStar, 2024). With representatives of each partner located together in the same building to enable routine interaction, TranStar is the primary coordination site for state, county, and local agencies when responding to incidents and emergencies. Partnership monthly meetings discuss major activities. The TranStar conference center supports training and planning for hurricanes, tornadoes, and other disasters.

The sharing of resources (people, network monitoring systems) and data/information (e.g., cameras and flood sensors) across jurisdictional and institutional boundaries makes TranStar unique in the United States. It was the first center in the nation to combine transportation management and emergency management technologies. During Hurricane Harvey, allowing all partners to access the Harris County and TxDOT flood sensors proved to be invaluable. TranStar coordinated flood monitoring and traffic management of closed roads during the 10-day extreme weather event and provided real-time map updates and information that was vital for first responders and rescue teams to reach people in need and help people return to work when many roads remained closed for days after the hurricane. The TranStar website was accessed by 1 million people and local and national news media during the event (Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2017).

Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) helped conceptualize the TranStar facility in the early 1990s and continues to update system software that allows multiple agencies to share information across jurisdictional and institutional boundaries. The software running at TranStar uses data

from all the agency partners and provides a central location for providing traffic and emergency management information (Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2017).

4.4.5 Recovery Issues

• Setting expectations with passengers. After Hurricanes Harvey and Imelda, which hit Houston shortly after Harvey, there was considerable backlash because people did not feel like they knew what was happening with the transit system. The average rider still needed to go to work but felt that they did not have any idea whether they would have a ride to work. The more METRO keeps people notified about its intentions after a service suspension or any interruption, the less of a backlash there has been.
• Setting expectations with partners. METRO works with city agencies to set realistic expectations for recovery. Letting partners in the city know what the agency can and cannot do has saved much work on the back end.

4.4.6 Funding for Recovery

Funding for recovery is at least partially reliant on reimbursement for the event. It is critical to establish, share, and practice documentation processes before an event, including both the event and recovery. Document equipment and resources used during an event so you can track them down after the event. It would be ideal if all divisions contributed to the documentation on a standard, easy-to-use platform without having to learn new software. However, it is difficult to find something effective that is also easy for everyone.

4.4.7 Lessons Learned

• There are benefits to being able to provide a recovery plan to review, especially with personnel changes. There have been major transitions, position changes, and personnel losses at METRO, which makes institutional knowledge and continuity even more critical.
• Document and update what you know and learn “for the next guy,” but leave room for fluidity. It is a balance to try to tie down something that you need to be able to rely on in the future based on the lessons learned from experience in the past decade but, at the same time, to leave a certain amount of fluidity.
• Be prepared to adapt to changing conditions. When the Army Corps of Engineers released a dam in response to Hurricane Harvey flooding, some neighborhoods were severely impacted. “We couldn’t get across the roadway system. . . . They (the service planning team) had to adapt our service plan and basically set up two distinct routes, one south of the flooded area and one north of the flooded area, and do all the things that we needed to do to get that information out to our customers,” Thomas Lambert said (Mass Transit, 2017).
• You do not know what you do not know. The February 2021 deep freeze was a dramatic departure from anything Houston was used to, and METRO learned the hard way that they had not been preparing as they needed to. All of their facilities had backup power with backup generators, but they did not realize that the backup power generators had waterlines running over their critical systems. When that water line freezes, cracks, and thaws out, the generator does not work. Several of the generators at METRO’s major bus and rail operating facilities were knocked out because of frozen water lines.
• The key to service suspension and recovery is communication. With customers, it is important to send out service alerts and notifications every time METRO has a service suspension or any interruption. Online services and social media are critical. People can sign up for METRO service alerts on the website or through the METRO app.

• Clarify expectations and coordinate language with partners. “The key to success is working with your partners to figure out what the needs are and constantly communicating over and over again before, during, and after. It’s dynamic, and things will change,” according to Jerome Gray, Vice President and Senior Press Officer at Houston Metro (Transit Center, 2017). As an example, during events, the Emergency Center used to request a specific number of vehicles from METRO to move people, which the majority of times would be more than was actually needed, putting an unnecessary strain on the agency to find that number of buses and operators from the available resources. Changing the language has significantly improved the situation. Now, METRO asks the number of people that need to be moved and what they have with them—for example, luggage, pets, and so forth, to determine the number and types of vehicles needed.
• Work to make the plans more effective and more practical so that they are used.

4.5 New Orleans Regional Transit Authority

New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) provides transportation services to the city of New Orleans and throughout Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Bernard parishes in Louisiana. RTA currently operates five streetcar lines, 30 bus routes, two ferry routes, and paratransit services. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 11.9 million or about 35,500 per weekday (FTA NTD, 2024). The RTA is a political subdivision of the state of Louisiana.

The FEMA national risk index for New Orleans is relatively high (FEMA, 2024d). The highest risk index scores are for hurricanes, heat waves, lightning, and hail.

Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 was one of the most destructive and costliest natural disasters in the history of the United States. It claimed more than 1,800 lives and left an estimated three million people without electricity, and more than 90,000 square miles were declared disaster areas (Grenzeback and Lukmann, 2008). The storm surge in New Orleans resulted in levee failures and flooding (up to 20 feet in depth) of about 80 percent of New Orleans proper and all of adjacent St. Bernard Parish. It took 43 days after Katrina’s landfall to pump all of the floodwaters from the city.

Prior to Katrina, RTA had 306 buses at peak service, providing service on 82 routes. Flood-waters destroyed approximately 200 buses, 66 streetcars, and 115 paratransit vehicles, as well as streetcar tracks, wiring, and other infrastructure. All but one of the RTA New Orleans facilities suffered extensive damage, and the agency had to conduct much of its business out of offices in Baton Rouge. RTA employees lost their homes in the storm (Metro Magazine Staff, 2006).

Nearly four weeks later, Hurricane Rita made landfall in the southwestern portion of the state, further damaging Louisiana’s infrastructure and, once again, bringing destruction to portions of the New Orleans area.

RTA has faced unique challenges; even the transit systems affected by Hurricane Sandy did not have to deal with the mass population displacement or degree of infrastructure damage New Orleans sustained (Landman, 2014). Katrina hollowed out the city and drastically reduced demand for public transit.

The city’s economy sharply contracted following the storm. There was a sharp reduction in the size of the low-wage labor market, which was the primary user of the city’s transit system. Many of these workers never returned to New Orleans. During the first 10 months after the hurricane, the city suffered a massive loss of jobs, an over-the-year average loss of 95,000 jobs. At the trough of the job loss, in November 2005, employment was 105,300 below the previous year’s November figure. By June 2006, the over-the-year job loss, though smaller, was still substantial (92,900) (Dolfman, Wasser, and Bergman, 2007).

The storm also caused more permanent demographic changes in the city. The population grew by about 40,000 people between 2010 and 2020, but the demographics of incoming residents looked quite different from the existing city. New Orleans today has about 79 percent of its pre-Katrina population. New Orleans’s population recovery has been largely defined by gentrification, with higher-income and less transit-dependent residents moving into the neighborhoods (Brey, 2023).

Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, made landfall on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The storm knocked out power to almost all of New Orleans. High winds damaged building roofs, toppled trees, and scattered debris across sections of the city. RTA sustained damage to a transit center, and the wind caused some minor damage to vehicles.

The following sections provide information on the short-term and long-term recovery by RTA after Hurricane Katrina and current agency recovery approaches based on lessons learned from that hurricane.

4.5.1 Typical Recovery Timing

After Katrina, as of February 2006, half of RTA routes had been restored. As of that date, 30 of the 62 pre-Katrina routes were up and running. On December 18, 2006, the streetcar service returned to New Orleans, restoring the entire Riverfront line and partial service to the Canal streetcar line. RTA averaged approximately 13,000 to 15,000 rides per day compared to more than 124,000 rides daily pre-Katrina (Metro Magazine Staff, 2006). In 2024, the agency still has fewer buses and routes than it did in 2005, although all streetcar lines have been restored. Daily ridership is less than a third of pre-Katrina levels.

After Hurricane Ida in 2021, RTA was able to get the bus fleet back in service fairly quickly. Getting the streetcars back in service as soon as possible was an agency focus after the storm as well, to support the city’s tourism.

4.5.2 Recovery Plan

After Katrina, RTA developed and implemented an emergency transportation plan that included providing public transportation in New Orleans, as well as augmenting transit services to CATS, the transit agency in Baton Rouge. In addition, park-and-ride services from the city of Baton Rouge to surrounding municipalities were started with resources from FTA/FEMA. RTA also managed LA SWIFT, a shuttle service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

In 2006, RTA developed a Strategic Recovery Plan (SRP) to assist agency management in recovery from the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The plan attempted to “balance revenue with operations while providing flexibility to allow RTA to lead the region’s recovery” (New Orleans RTA, 2006). It recognized that public transit was critical to New Orleans’s recovery and that the “demographics and travel demands dramatically changed.” As a result, the proposed service levels would be travel-demand driven, with all of the scenarios developed in the plan providing lower levels of service than prior to the hurricanes due to reduced travel demands and constrained funding. The scenarios were based on projected ridership, density of residential development, proximity to schools, health care facilities, shopping centers, and employment centers, and the potential to stimulate the local economy. Demand-response or flexible route service was suggested to supplement the proposed fixed route service as a transition service until there was enough demand for a fixed route.

The SRP suggested establishing both in-house and independent monitoring programs to “evaluate service quality and effectiveness, regional demographics and the agency’s finances”

using key financial and service statistics (for example, ridership, cost per service hour, passengers per service hour, fare recovery ratio) and passenger surveys.

Today, RTA has a Severe Weather Annex, part of the agency All Hazards Plan that provides “fundamental procedures, program strategies, and assumptions and provide a concept of operations spanning direction and control from initial monitoring to post-disaster response, recovery, and mitigation during severe weather.” It also “assigns specific functional responsibilities to appropriate RTA departments” (New Orleans RTA, 2023).

Included in the Severe Weather Annex is a Transit Restoration Plan with a prioritized list of service routes and restoration goals. Agency routes are prioritized based on criticality, proximity to carless households, and links to essential services such as hospitals, grocery stores, and centers of employment. Current bus routes are grouped into two categories, with each category listed from the highest to the lowest priority. The agency’s goal is to first establish connections between major areas of the city of New Orleans post-storm, with 60- to 80-minute run times on Priority 1 bus routes.

Also included is a COOP plan with locations for the agency incident management team and other essential personnel, along with pre-identified fueling stop locations for RTA bus routes.

4.5.3 Recovery Approach

After Katrina, RTA leased an old grocery store in Baton Rouge that was converted into a maintenance and office facility. Some of the employees who lost their homes in the storm lived in the building. RTA worked with FEMA to obtain trailers for office space for more than 100 employees on the grounds of RTA’s A. Philip Randolph facility on Canal Street until it was restored. That facility sustained almost 5 feet of water (Metro Magazine Staff, 2006).

After Ida, shuttles were used to take drivers to and from their parking to the locations where the buses were stored to restore service.

The agency received 83 buses donated from other transit agencies around the country after Katrina to replace lost vehicles. NORTA did not charge passenger fares for nearly a year; instead, it relied on FEMA loans to cover operating expenses.

4.5.4 Local and Regional Coordination

After Hurricane Katrina, the agency worked with the state of Louisiana and the FTA to develop and manage a multijurisdictional free bus service for persons displaced to Baton Rouge to their jobs in New Orleans. The new service, the LA SWIFT project, recognized the importance of transportation to economic recovery. The service was funded by FEMA (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2009).

RTA works with the New Orleans Emergency Management Agency to coordinate emergency plans and approaches.

4.5.5 Recovery Issues

One of the greatest immediate post-Katrina challenges was securing temporary housing for RTA operators, maintenance, and administrative staff. Most of the workers had extensive damage to their homes, and many had completely lost their residences.

Investments in the streetcar network versus those in the bus system after Katrina raised questions about the transit agency’s priorities. The bus network carried most of the agency’s daily passengers and was critical to the city’s transit dependent. The main focus of the city was

rebuilding the bus system until New Orleans received a grant for the streetcar system. The city believed that streetcars would bring in more revenue from tourism than the bus revenue from locals. In New Orleans, tourism and hospitality are leading industries.

After Katrina, many lower-income residents did not return, which drastically reduced demand for public transit. The city’s population recovery since the storm has been higher-income and less-transit-dependent residents moving to many of the city’s neighborhoods. Adapting the transit service to the existing travel demand and still addressing the needs of the community has been a challenge.

4.5.6 Recovery Funding

Through FTA and FEMA, RTA secured $47 million in federal funds for the emergency transportation plan after Katrina. New Orleans was given funding to revamp the transportation system after Katrina. New Orleans received a $45 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) categorical grant with the sole purpose of rebuilding the streetcar system. However, the TIGER funding only covered the creation of the Loyola Line, leaving the Rampart and St. Claude lines to be restored by other government funds.

In 2022, RTA received an FTA Public Transportation Emergency Relief federal grant for over $222,000 for personnel expenses and damages to one of the agency’s transit centers due to hurricanes Ida and Zeta (Dardano, 2023).

4.5.7 Lessons Learned

• Transit recovery can be a long-term process, especially if events cause major changes in community population, demographics, and travel demand.
• Recovery challenges can occur from conflicts in priorities, community needs, and limited resources. RTA had to make difficult decisions about how recovery funds and resources were used to restore its major transit services, buses, and streetcars.
• Transit agencies need to recognize the importance of addressing the needs of employees after an event. Understanding how they and their families were impacted by the event and aiding in meeting their personal needs, such as housing and transportation, will ensure that they are available to participate in the agency’s recovery.
• A transit agency may be called on to support a regional approach to recovery, such as implementing a regional service to address gaps in post-event services or to meet new community needs. When many workers in New Orleans relocated to Baton Rouge to avoid the hurricane and its impacts, a new transportation service was required to transport them into New Orleans when they returned to work.

4.6 Key Takeaways

The case examples focused on various aspects of recovery and recovery planning from transit agencies across the country. Most agencies that have experienced frequent severe weather, such as hurricanes and snow or ice storms, have developed hazard-specific plans that are tested and updated on a regular basis. These plans enable the agencies to quickly recover from the event using established pre- and post-event procedures for vehicles and employees, prioritized route adjustments, and situational awareness/damage assessment processes.

The agencies faced some common challenges.

• Resource management, especially getting vehicles and drivers back on the routes after the event, can be an issue. How many vehicles are available, how many drivers are able to report

• to the agency, and how to make priority route decisions based on road conditions change with each event. Recovery plans can guide how to address resource management and potentially reduce the time needed for decision-making.
• Determining the goals of recovery is another common challenge. Agency recovery plans do not always define recovery or state what the end goal is beyond returning to normal service. When the event creates major changes in a community, such as after Hurricane Katrina, it may not be clear what normal service is anymore. A recovery plan can guide policy as well as operations if definitions and goals are included.
• Sometimes, there can be conflicts between agency capabilities and community and local and regional economic needs after an event. Recovery partners may have unrealistic expectations about the transit agency, not knowing what the agency can and cannot do to support recovery. Clarifying expectations in coordinated recovery plans and MOUs can reduce this issue.
• Alternative fuel vehicles and mixed fuel fleets are emerging issues for transit agencies in recovery planning. Agencies need to make decisions about which routes those vehicles are used on during recovery and understand the impacts of power outages, a common post-event occurrence, on their availability.

There were a number of successful strategies identified in the case examples:

• Much of the recovery planning and effectiveness is grounded in the pre-planning: Establishing partnerships and setting expectations with partners, safeguarding vehicles and personnel with effective staging expectations, and defining phased plans to return to service.
• It is better to keep service changes and restoration processes as simple as possible, such as making changes effective at the start of a day vs. during the day to avoid confusion.
• A key to effective recovery is communication with the riding public, the community, and the employees. Clarifying expectations, maintaining constant contact and consistent messaging with local government and other agencies involved in recovery, and providing frequent communications are important during recovery.
• Establishing MOUs with local and community agencies and organizations before an event can expedite recovery and ensure that expectations are met.
• Understanding the requirements for recovery funding before an event happens and keeping accurate records of personnel hours and expenses during recovery for reimbursement is critical.
• Document and update recovery plans based on experience, but leave room for fluidity. Because each event is unique, having flexibility in the plan is important. Be prepared to adapt to changing conditions.