For example, when a governor signs a disaster declaration agreement with the federal government, he/she pledges to take mitigation actions regarding the disaster agent that just caused the destruction.  So if federal money, collected from us taxpayers, is going into Moore, OK, for at least the 3rd time in 14 years, wouldn’t it be smart and economic to have some of go for mitigative measures to reduce the fatalities and costs of the next disaster?

And while TV viewers are horrified at yet another disaster affecting elementary school children, shouldn’t more be done about the construction of schools and making provisions for sheltering? Last night on NPR, Judy Woodruff interviewed the Governor of OK and pressed very hard from an answer.  The Governor waffled and said something about the extra cost. Yet $2B. or more of damages just occurred!!!!  And the two Senators from OK are no help at all. Perhaps the federal government should grant their wish and provide no federal assistance!!!

I surely have reached my tipping point with this event. I am beginning to think federal assistance money should have more requirement for states attached to them.

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I am not the only one wondering about these things.  Here is some commentary from an economist on the topic:  Real World Economics: Government responses to disasters raise economic questions. May 23.

And I would like to add that Jewish institutions, such as synagogues and day schools, also have a strong interest in this topic. A great deal of work is going on in NYC regarding the role of religious institutions as supporters of community life.

Update on May 23: NOAA just issued its annual Hurricane Forecast for 2013.  The CO State Groups issues theirs several weeks ago.  Sorry to say it probably will be a busy summer for emergency managers.

• Why No Safe Room to Run to? Cost and Plains Culture.
• A Survival Plan for American’s Tornado Danger Zone

And it appears that the Mayor of Moore thinks safe rooms should be required! See;  Mayor of tornado-ravaged town: New law needed to keep people safe; CNN, May 22.

The mayor of tornado-ravaged Moore, Oklahoma, will push for a law requiring storm shelters or safe rooms in new homes, he told CNN Wednesday.”We’ll try to get it passed as soon as I can,” Glenn Lewis said.The ordinance would apply to single-family and multi-family homes.

Too bad it did not happen sooner…..

Update at 7pm, May 22: I have seen TV interviews of both the Governor and Lt. Governor of OK today and both dodged the question about making shelters in public buildings a mandatory requirement. Judy Woodruth of NPR really pressed Governor Fallin quite hard on the topic, but the Governor essentially said the cost ( a few thousand dollars per building) was an issue.

Tornado Alley

NBC has done a nice job explaining some of the science behind the OK city tornado outbreaks.  And they provide an interesting chart that compares the current events with the deadly tornadoes of 1999, which is the frame of reference for many people in OK. The article is titled Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past and future

Related articles

• How to Understand the Scale of Today’s Oklahoma Tornado (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
• A Brief History Of Oklahoma Tornadoes (wnyc.org)

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I never get the kind of info I want from the news accounts. Since OK is centrally located in Tornado Alley, I would like to know things like:

• what type of building/construction codes were in place in OK City?
• what percentage of the population had a storm cellar or a safe room in their house?
• how much tornado preparedness information and/or training was provided locally?

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It is worth citing the quote from the Christian Science Monitor that I mentioned in May 2011, right after the devastating Joplin, MO tornadoes:

Yet the stunning death tolls from tornadoes this spring raise new questions about government subsidies for storm shelters, the psychology of warning response, the possibility of limited tornado evacuations, and the argument that tornado warning and response should be considered a national security issue.

They have grant readers free access to selected journal articles about hurricanes that they have published in the past few years.  One article (cited on page 2) may be of special  interest among our readers: The Long Road Home: Race, Class and Recovery After H. Katrina.

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The co. also offers another two pages of articles on general  Safety and Preparedness at this site.

He offered the following observations about the findings:

I have been polling since 1984 and have a perspective on these things. When I first started: Americans still littered and smoked, and they did not recycle. We have changed a lot. Here are some of things I have shared with clients and audiences along the way:

1. Fear is not the motivator we hope it will be. People just don’t want to live their lives looking over their shoulders. The message has to be more pro-active, protecting our children, providing a safer world and community
2. They will always trust the personal, familial, and local more than bigger agencies.
3. When Margaret Mead testified before the Senate about whether or not Americans would conserve on energy in the 1970s she noted that if the cause is right, the leadership is there, and everyone is assured that everyone else is participating, they will do it.
4. Today, most children come home from Kindergarten their first day of school with a message about saving the earth by not littering and about recycling. This is the long-haul strategy, too.

So, I guess we need the take the long view and keep trucking!!!

This news comes from a recent SUNYIT-Zogby Analytics Poll with the results reported on in Forbes. See: Americans Neither Worried Nor Prepared In Case of a Disaster.   As someone who has spent decades trying to enlighten our citizenry and public officials, this report is terrible news.  Here are some excerpts:

Only one in four Americans or less are concerned that an emergency situation like a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or health pandemic will affect their community, according to a new SUNYIT/Zogby Analytics Poll.

The poll of 1,000 adults nationwide was conducted online by Zogby Analytics on May 8-9 and has a margin of sampling error of +/-3.2 percentage points. A wide range of national security topics was covered.When asked of the likelihood if a series of emergency situations were to occur in their community, the following percentages said the emergency was “likely” or “very likely”: 26% a general emergency, 24% an industrial accident, 23% a natural disaster, 20% a mass shooting, 19% a terrorist attack, and 15% a health pandemic.

If such an emergency situation were to occur, the most likely locations cited were a shopping mall (46%), an airport or train station (43%), a stadium or arena (42%), on a bus/plane or train (38%), an outdoor sporting or community event (35%), a school (30%), a roadway (28% ) or office building (28%), a bridge (27%), a hospital (25%), or at home (22%).

While 55% of respondents said that they were “confident in (their) knowledge of proper safety procedures”, only 36% said that they presently “have an emergency plan in place” in case of a major emergency.In case of a neighborhood emergency, Americans expressed more confidence in their family’s preparedness (53%) over local government (44%), their airport (41%), local school (39%), or employer (31%). In case of a national emergency, Americans are most trusting in local law enforcement in case of a shooting (58%), the FBI in case of a terrorist attack (53%), the Centers for Disease Control in case of a pandemic (49%), and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in case of a natural disaster (45%).

The results suggest to me that not only are people complacent or apathetic, they also are not making the correct assumptions about who and what organizations/institutions they could rely on. Has anyone been reading the research, books, or informed articles the emergency management community has produced????

The latest report from the Strategic Foresight Initiatives program at FEMA is titled Toward More Resilient Futures: Putting Foresight into Practice.  It was issued May 2013; 46 pp.

I read it over quickly, and I liked some of it and did not like other parts.  The part I liked least was Section 3, Bold Leaders in Action, which I did not find inspiring. I was expecting a discussion of resilience and some mention of the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences titled Disaster Resilience; A National Imperative, because DHS was one of the funding sources. Oh, well.

For more information about the activities and reports of FEMA’s Strategic Foresight Initiative go to this website.