According to Silva and Reddy (2011), 73 percent of US firms with more than $1 billion in sales suffered at least on disruption in their supply chain within the past five years, and one of the most frequent causes of these disruptions were natural disasters. These disruptions often paralyze portions of the supply chain in a significant manner, and for an extend period of time (Altay and Ramirez, 2010). The Taiwan earthquake of September 1999, which sent shock waves through the global semiconductor market (Papadakis and Ziemba, 2001) and the 2011 To ¯hoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan which affected a wide range of manufacturing industries worldwide are just two examples of the potential for significant disruptions to supply chains.