In keeping with the department-wide morale problems at DHS are the morale problems with FEMA’s contracting officers. The is one of the concerns of this new GAO report: Disaster Contracting: FEMA Needs to Cohesively Manage Its Workforce and Fully Address Post-Katrina Reforms. 59 pp. GAO-15-783: Published: Sep 29, 2015.
This is a record nobody wants – DHS continues to be at the bottom for federal agency employment. See: Homeland Security ranks as worst federal agency for employees
Another account of the report from Breitbart.
See this article in the Wash. Post about some of the differences in private sector response to the conflict emergency as contrasted with a natural disaster: Earthquake? Silicon Valley Will Help. Refugee Crisis? Not so much.
On a personal note. I would like to mention a personal and positive example of help. I received an email from a researcher at a Berlin University, asking for some help with experts regarding supply chains for food. Not having that expertise, I contacted 5 friends who do. All answered me immediately and offered to be of help to the German researchers. Small sample, but I think the research community in the field of emergency management consists of terrific people!
Note: The Diva just added a page to this blog on Refugees.
On the topic of poor planning for the Hajj Pilgrimage: Hajj pilgrimage: more than 700 dead in crush near Mecca; Stampede in Mina valley, the site of a vast tent city of pilgrims, leaves more than 800 others injured.
On the science of stampedes: What can science tell us about human ‘stampedes’?
The Diva did not there are experts in crowd safety and risk analysis. Both space constraints and human behavior are key factors in stampedes. An expert says “It is all about math, management, and psychology.” Actually that sounds quite complex.
Update on 10/3. From the Guardian, this personal account of a person at the Hajj Pilgrimage: In Mecca I saw little of Islam’s compassion, but a lot of Saudi Arabia’s neglect
Also from the Guardian on 10/4: Hajj crush: how crowd disasters happen, and how they can be avoided. Mass panic? Stampedes? Nonsense, say the experts trying to stop another disaster like last week’s in Mecca: they’re failures of management, and they aren’t inevitable. So why aren’t they a thing of the past?
How did Chile manage to survive its recent earthquake virtually unscathed?
Chile has one of the most effective disaster relief infrastructures in the world – led by a general who lost his wife in the 2010 quake in Haiti. How? It’s all down to rigorous building codes, evacuation simulations and, above all, preparation
A few weeks back, I noted the recent article in the New Yorker magazine about the anticipated Big One (earthquake) in the Pacific Northwest.
Here is an article about the likely effects in Canada:Vancouver after the big one: 7.3-magnitude earthquake would kill nearly 10,000 and injure 128,000, experts say.
Thanks to Eric Holdeman for the citation.
43% of U.S. homes are at high risk of natural disaster
Many American homeowners might still be surprised at the risk their home faces of getting hit by a natural disaster in the near future. A report released on Thursday by real estate research firm RealtyTrac found that 43% of U.S. homes and condos — that’s a total of 35.8 million homes — are at a high risk or very high risk of at least one type of natural disaster. The report examined 2,318 counties nationwide and assigned each a score of natural disaster risk score from 0 to 300 based on their risk of wildfire, hurricane, flood, tornado and earthquake; the higher the score the higher the risk of natural disaster.
Another article on this topic from USA Today; I believe they refer to the same data source.
I knew there was a National Organization (NVOAD.org) and I knew there were state and substate regional organizations called VOADS, but the local government version is new to me. See this article about a COAD in Scottsbluff, NE.
I am intrigued about their idea of involving the “voluntary, faith-based, civic, fraternal, business, non-profit, and school-based organizations” via one mechanism. In my experience, dealing with each one of those groups is challenging!
I would like to hear from readers on this matter.
Recovery Diva 