I was browsing the new RAND publications catalog and came across this document, which may be of interest to readers.  The NonGovernmental Sector in Disaster Resilience is about 50 pages long and available as a free pdf download.  It is well written, as is generally true of RAND publications.

In the New York Times on Jan. 22, there was an article titled Blogs vs. Term Papers. I would be interested in reader feedback on this topic.

Just to remove the suspense, this author believes in term papers, journal articles, and books. In my view, blogs are on the lowest rung of literate writing!

Good comments. Keep them coming.

As reported in the Washington Post on Jan, 4, 2012, 2011 topped the record for the costliest year for disasters worldwide. See: Reinsurer says earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand make 2011 industry’s costliest yet. The article noted:

The devastating earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand made 2011 the costliest year yet for the insurance industry in terms of natural disaster losses, a leading reinsurance company said Wednesday.

Munich Re AG said in an annual report that insured losses last year totaled $105 billion — exceeding the previous record of $101 billion set in 2005, when losses were swollen by claims from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The company said the total economic cost last year from natural disasters — including uninsured losses — totaled about $380 billion. That was far above the 2005 record of $220 billion.

Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in March caused overall losses of $210 billion and insured losses of between $35 billion and $40 billion, Munich Re said. That didn’t include the consequences of the subsequent meltdowns at

For a related article, see this one from Nature.com, which discusses some of the factors behind the high cost of the disasters.

NEW: On Jan. 18, the New York Times reported that NOAA has just providing additional data to show that there were in fact 14  U.S. disasters that cost $1. B or more in 2011.

Eight states received a total of $400. million for disaster assistance in 2011, according to CNN on Jan. 21, 2012.

Excellent article in the Economist Magazine, Jan. 2012, titled The Rising Cost of Catastrophes.  The article concludes with the phrase: “Disasters are inevitable; their consequences need not be.”  This line was quoted by former DHS Sec. Tom Ridge at an international disaster conference in New Orleans this week.

Image by StuSeeger via Flickr

A well-done Disaster Recovery Guide, for personal use, is available in both an ebook format and as a pdf text pamphlet (20 pp).  Plus, individual pages can be downloaded for use as fact sheets.

Credit for this and other useful resources goes to TX  Disaster Extension Network. See their main page for more resources.