In the newly-released issue of the Hazards Observer, published by Univ. of CO, the Diva is the co-author of “What Keeps Me Up at Night?, pages 6-10. The article provides a summary of the excellent session on that topic, held last July at the Broomfield, CO conference, sponsored by the Hazards Center at the Univ. of CO/Boulder. And the cartoons are terrific!
The article lists 8 nightmare-producing issues identified and discussed at the conference. As readers of this blog will notice, one of the issues — the composition of the FEMA workforce — has been the topic of several blog postings. In fact, the topic has received a record no. of hits (over 2,200) and comments ( more than 40) here.
The authors of the article intend to do additional research on the nightmare themes noted in the article, so please use the comment feature at the bottom of this posting and add your thoughts and suggestions. If your prefer to send them offline, please send them to <cbrubinatcomcast dot net >.
P.S. Subscriptions to the Hazards Observer are free. We suggest you sign up if you do not yet subscribe.
Recovery Diva 
In the excellent article in the November 2012 of the Natural Hazards Observer [p.8 hard copy] the authors of the What Keeps Me Up At Night” invited comment quote DHS grants personnel as stating “well, if we throw all grants together and compete, natural hazards cannot get funded because it is subject to the 9/11Act which says if there is no terrorism link it does not get funded.”
First not all grants have been thrown together. And second the 9/11 Implemntation Act [which can be found by clicking on the key statutes section of the VACATION LANE BLOG home page found at http://www.vlg338.blogspot.com/ in full text one finds that in section 101 of that statute a laundry list of grant programs specifically exempted from its application exists. This is in plain English and DHS grant officials are simply wrong.
You are welcome to use this letter in any way you deem appropriate.
/S/
William R. Cumming
President
The Vacation Lane Group, Inc
I would just like to mention in response to your article that there is a research library within FEMA, at the National Emergency Training Center. While it tends to principally serve the programs and activities of the National Fire Academy and the Emergency Management Institute it nevertheless represents one of the most comprehensive all-hazards collections to be found in the United States. It’s available as an essential as a discovery tool, 24/7, to students, researchers and emergency managers around the country from our public website: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/library/. Some 26,000 reports and articles and in some cases even books found in our database can be downloaded. We also recently launched a special landing page and online search for all-hazards-related scholarly articles.