I had a reply ready, but will not post it at this time.  I think this thread has run long enough and is no longer productive.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.  And I truly appreciate the support.

On to other matters.

Below is a slightly-shortened note from a reader, questioning the way I write this blog and suggesting a more subjective and passionate approach. My reply will be included in the next posting, because of space limitations here. The writer, Vicki Campbell, said she wanted to open the topic up for discussion publicly.

NOTE:
Claire, we’ve never actually met, but you’ve been asking for support and feedback, and I’d like to offer some. I received my MPA in Emergency Management a while ago, have been deploying nationally with the Red Cross for about 8 years now, and also gone on to do further grad work in disasters and human rights, and relief and recovery/reconstruction issues and economics, etc. I’ve been following your blog for awhile now, and I have to say, with all due respect, I have honestly felt much more disappointment in than support for it , for several reasons.
(1) There’s really not much to your blog but a lot of links to articles elsewhere, that are at least as often as not hardly the better ones on the subject. People don’t read expert blogs to get primarily nothing but simple links to go elsewhere to read entire articles or reports or whatever; they read them to get a summary, analysis and no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase commentary on them, or on a topic, or or a piece of news, etc.- and there’s usually nothing close to that in your blog. Linking to relevant material elsewhere is just for reference and backing comments and analysis up – it’s not supposed to be the main point or substance of a post. And people don’t start blogs to make money – they start them because they’re driven by and passionate about their subject and the issues surrounding it, and have a frame of analysis and perspective that they feel is important to be put out there and be heard about. In turn, those blogs are comparatively popular, and useful, and as I understand it, do in fact eventually make a little money, etc. But again, I don’t find any of that anywhere in your blog posts almost ever. In fact I almost spilled my coffee yesterday when you actual made a very mild statement ever so slightly suggesting that the bad
location of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion might have something to do with lax regulation, and might be “tragic.” (Ya think?) And you did it in a very casual, off-hand way, linking to and leaving others to make the actual real points, and sounding yourself fairly detached, rather than like the issue was important or indicative of anything larger that actually mattered and needed to be addressed or changed.

(2) You almost never seem to focus properly or proportionally on what really matters about disasters – which is of course not the disasters themselves, but the actual people affected by them – and you’re hardly alone in that. For me, it is the human dimensions of every aspect of disasters, and emergency management more generally, that is what is both most interesting and immeasurably more important about the subject and all of its many, many attendant aspects. It has really saddened me to see you seem to follow right along with the hyper-male-dominated field of ours in all but never uttering a word about the very real and often massive human impacts of the social, economic and political nexus of issues surrounding every phase of emergency management policies and processes – often ESPECIALLY in relation to disaster recovery.

Whether its the appallingly discriminatory and otherwise incompetent recovery process that unfolded after Katrina, or the inexcusable lack of any response to and effective abandonment of thousands of elderly, disabled, and otherwise especially vulnerable populations in lower income and minority communities and housing projects all along the northeast coast in the wake of Sandy, or the unbelievably irresponsible state oversight of the location and fraudulent mismanagement of the fertilizer plant in TX right next to some of the most vulnerable populations in that area – the abject silence on the part of supposed EM “professionals” or otherwise self-proclaimed disaster experts who have gone before me about these things as well as so many other issues unfolding all the time regarding real or potential disasters has absolutely shocked me, and left me feeling almost foolish for taking the profession as seriously as I did when I went into and began studying it. Climate change, disaster capitalism, nuclear power, FNSS issues, poor to non-existent mass care planning and management, utterly uncontrolled growth and development, as well as increasing deregulation of an ever growing number of ever more hazardous industries, the alarming militarization of emergency management overall, and yes, terrorism, and the failing neo-liberal economic context underlying all of this, amongst many other topics all raise issues incredibly important to our society and that can and has had a dramatic impact on many people’s lives, as they potentially provide both cause and context for increasing risks of hazards
and subsequent disaster events. Emergency Management professionals of every stripe – and recovery professionals in  particular to my mind – should be fighting to be at the very center of discussing these things, widely and loudly, and generally having a helluva lot to say about all of it. But instead there’s pretty much just dead silence from almost every corner of the profession, for all intents and purposes – and that silence and general passivity in no way reflects the professional obligations and responsibilities of emergency managers as I was taught them – not by a long shot.

And I don’t see anything different here in your blog, Claire. I mean, lets just take the 2010 Haiti earthquake for instance. It was one of the worst disasters on record anywhere, and the only disaster in human history to effectively destroy the capital of a entire nation, etc. As an EM professional, I was not only naturally concerned and interested, but felt an obligation to learn about and follow it, and stay informed about it – especially given its exceptionally close proximity to the U.S., as well as
the long and very destructive history of U.S. intervention in Haiti, and the fact that both U.S. disaster management and U.S.AID international disaster assistance norms and policies will probably shape the disaster’s aftermath more than any other. As a result, I’ve watched, as appalled as much of the rest of the world has been, as the disaster-after-the-disaster reconstruction effort unfolds down there. In a nutshell, Haiti is “disaster capitalism” laid bare, for all the world to see – and its not just what happens “over there” – its also what happens after any major disaster here as well – and its a very poor and certainly abusive substitute for an even half-serious approach to disaster recovery. One woman to another, I’d wondered what you, as a supposed recovery expert, had to say about it all – and was very disappointed to find that you basically have not much of anything to say about what is widely considered to be possibly the worst sham of a recovery effort of all time. That may be your idea of a “Recovery Diva” – but it is definitely not mine. It also in all honesty does not make me want to hire you as a staff or research assistant.

For those working with the provisions of the Stafford Act who want the latest version, FEMA just posted this 85 page online document that you can download.  It has some interactive features for ease of use.

The Stafford Act is the statutory authority for most Federal disaster response activities especially as they pertain to FEMA and FEMA programs. This document contains all of the changes to the Stafford Act since 2007, including the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act (SRIA) of 2013.

What is unique about the format is that the document is optimized for portable tablet devices:

·       From the Table of Contents, you can click on the statute name or number and you’ll jump to the statutory text

·       From any page with the statutory text, you have two navigation options (in addition to simply scrolling as usual)Click on the words “Stafford Act” at the top, you’ll return to the Table of Contents page.

·       Click on the words “Stafford Act” at the top, you’ll return to the Table of Contents page.

·       Click on the Title # at the top, you’ll be returned to the start of that Title in the document (i.e., if you’re in Section 408, click “Title IV” and you’ll jump back to Section 401).

Note that this e-booklet replaces FEMA P-592 dated 2007, and FEMA will not be producing printed versions of this e-booklet.

The last posting complained about the pace of recovery. Regarding recovery from Superstorm Sandy, here is some good news: FEMA Has Most N.J. Flood Insurance Claims Settled; April 22, 2013

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it has settled 96 percent of post-Sandy National Flood Insurance Program claims in New Jersey.The agency says that as of April 9, there had been 74,825 claims filed and 70,689 had been closed. That’s a major change from two months ago when N. J. Gov. Chris Christie was complaining that the agency was processing claims too slowly.

Once again we see the great state of TX and its attitude toward government in the news. If you do not believe in inspections or in regulation, often the results are tragic.

This is the recent blog post from the firm IEM. It summarizes the latest issue quite well, I think.

Texas Fertilizer Plant Explosion Raises Questions About Planning and Zoning

Posted: 18 Apr 2013 06:41 PM PDT

Author: David Willauer, Transportation Manager, IEM

The explosion at the West Fertilizer plant in West, Texas, this week serves as a sobering reminder of the role of planning and zoning for facilities near chemical plants. Why were a middle school and a nursing home located so close to a fertilizer plant that stores and uses dangerous chemicals, such as anhydrous ammonia?

Planning and zoning officials often do not have critical information such as downwind hazard zones or isolation protective action distances during the planning board process. As a result, schools, nursing homes, residential subdivisions, and child care facilities are often built too close to chemical facilities with downwind hazard zones or too close to highways and railroads transporting chemicals with known recommended isolation protective action distances.

[The authors notes that his firm is working with local officials and industries in several states to gather real data about hazardous materials storage and transport and to translate that into actionable intelligence that helps planning officials make more informed zoning and facility siting decisions. This process is also building stronger bonds between industry, communities, and local officials as they collaborate more closely to improve public protection.]

________________________________

For those interested in the important details, situation reports are being issued by the Texas Dept. of Emergency Management.

Updates

1. As of April 20th, West TX received a Presidential Emergency Declaration. The text of the declaration is here.
2. Also at issue is the role of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Plus, the role of the EPA is being questioned.
3. As of April 21, there is mention of a special federal investigation panel. That probably refers to the Chemical Safety Board.