Monthly Archives: August 2014

Additional Updates on Recovery in Christchurch, NZ

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The population of Christchurch’s richest areas has grown by more than 13,000 people as a “new breed of wealth” transforms the city’s economic landscape.

 New research by the University of Otago maps different levels of poverty across New Zealand and shows that Christchurch is better off than it was in 2006.

The number of people living in the least-deprived parts of Christchurch has grown by about 13,000, while the number in the most deprived areas has fallen by about the same number, the latest deprivation index by the University of Otago reveals.

The second article deals with infrastructure restoration in CHCH.

Disaster Threats and Risks on the Rise

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From the Miami Herald: As natural disaster threats around the world increase, so do risks to businesses’ customers, supplies

 Richard S. Olson, director of the Extreme Events Institute at Florida International University, said companies have a growing incentive to reduce the risk of disaster damage to suppliers and customers because the insurance and reinsurance industries increasingly account for such risk in pricing their coverage.

Natural disaster risk is starting to command more attention because it is increasing worldwide. “The private sector’s awareness has spiked because of the vulnerabilities they’ve seen in their supply and production chains, and because the insurance and reinsurance industries are paying more attention to track recurrences of hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons,” Olson said. “There’s much more attention being paid by risk modelers to natural disasters.”

National Protection Framework

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National Protection Framework Released.

The National Planning Frameworks consists of five separate documents that describe how the whole community works together in preparedness, response and recovery to become a secure and resilient nation. They are the cornerstone for the implementation of Presidential Policy Directive / PPD-8: National Preparedness. The National Protection Framework was the last to be released; it describes what the whole community should do to safeguard against acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and other threats or hazards. It describes the core capabilities; roles and responsibilities; and coordinating structures that facilitate the protection of individuals, communities, and the Nation.

FEMA Criticized by GAO and DHS’s OIG – updated

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I now have direct links to all of the reports. I have not yet had time to read them all, but they appear to be a significant recap of the many reports both the OIG and GAO have completed in recent years.

As of Monday aft., here is the revised version of what is available:

#1: From HS Today, article titled “FEMA Under Fire for Excessive Costs and Mismanagement of Disaster Aid Programs.” Some quotes from that article:

In an attempt to stem the increasing costs of disaster aid programs, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently advanced proposals to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster response and recovery programs.

 

The OIG and GAO detailed systemic risk issues within the various grant programs that have led to redundancy of disaster aid requests and managerial issues within FEMA.

The OIG report said many of those responsible for administering disaster grant programs have little to no experience managing federal grants and are often disaster survivors themselves, resulting in ineligible and unsupported costs and noncompliance with federal contracting requirements.

 

“In June 2011, we found that FEMA’s Strategic Human Capital Plan did not define critical skills and competencies that FEMA would need in the coming years or provide specific strategies and program objectives to motivate, deploy and retain employees, among other things,” GAO said. “As a result, we recommended that FEMA develop a comprehensive workforce plan that identifies agency staffing and skills requirements, addresses turnover and staff vacancies, and analyzes FEMA’s use of contractors.”

 

While demand grows for professionally trained managers, FEMA is forced to hire from a population pool with no real world experience or training in disaster management. Until this gap in experience is filled, FEMA will have no choice but to continue to hire unqualified managers and put those employees through extensive disaster management training.

#2: Here is the link directly to the GAO site for their recent testimony report (18 pp) titled FEMA: Opportunities to Achieve  Efficiencies and  Strengthen Operations.

#3: Here is the link to the DHS IG report based on testimony to the Senate on July 24 (38 pp).

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Thanks to reader Christine Lilly-Holbrook for the URL for the last-mentioned report.

Major Environmental Disaster in Canada

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The recent dam failure details are described here: Tailings Ponds are the Biggest Environmental Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of. The lead in to the story:

The scale is hard to imagine: gray sludge, several feet deep, gushing with the force of a fire hose through streams and forest—coating everything in its path with ashy gunk. What happened on Monday might have been one of North America’s worst environmental disasters in decades, yet the news barely made it past the Canadian border.

Last Monday, a dam holding waste from the Mount Polley gold and copper mine in the remote Cariboo region of British Columbia broke, spilling 2.6 billion gallons of potentially toxic liquid and 1.3 billion gallons of definitely toxic sludge out into pristine lakes and streams. That’s about 6,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water and waste containing things like arsenic, mercury, and sulphur. Those substances are now mixed into the water that 300 people rely on for tap, hundreds from First Nations tribes rely on for hunting and fishing, and many others rely on for the tourism business.

This article describes some of the consequences: Millions of Fraser River salmon head for waters of B.C. mine disaster

Marion McFadden – unknown recovery star

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This is the second story recently in the Washington Post about a woman official at HUD who had lead responsibility for recovery at the Dept. of HUD.  See: Marion McFadden nominated for award in rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy

I find it unusual that she has been featured twice in the Post, because federal officials engaged in recovery rarely get such favorable national publicity. Furthermore, she is not well known in the disaster community.

I am hard pressed to name the “stars” in the recovery field. Can you name someone prominent nationally in the realm of disaster recovery?

Update: So far I have only heard from one person who knows her and  commented very favorably on her competence.