New rail safety rules for Canada, U.S. reveal disparity in oversight
Rail Safety Rules in U.S. and Canada – big difference
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Author Archives: recoverydiva
CRS Report on Disaster Declarations
See: Stafford Act Declarations 1953-2014: Trends,
Analyses, and Implications for Congress (37 pp).
The Diva thinks that this report could be a useful resource for those teaching courses in EM.
Two New Papers on Resilience
- Bounce-Forward: Urban Resilience in an Era of Climate Change – 2015 A strategy paper from Island Press and Kresge Foundation (42 pp.)
- Social Capital and Resilience. Short ( 7 p. paper) from Prof. Dan Aldrich.
Personal Earthquake Preparedness – from NYTimes Author
How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes. From the author of The Really Big One, noted about one week ago on this blog.
See Eric Holdeman’s blog for details on the author and the buzz generated by the first article.
New GAO Report on Sandy Recovery
Hurricane Sandy: An Investment Strategy Could Help the Federal Government Enhance National Resilience for Future Disasters
GAO-15-515: Published: Jul 30, 2015. Both an abstract and the full report (93 pp) are available at this site.
This is a very important report for those concerned with mitigation and recovery processes. The GAO spent more than 1 1/2 years on this performance audit.
NOLA: 10 Years After Hurricane Katrina
10 years after the storm: has New Orleans learned the lessons of Hurricane Katrina?
A decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a reporter goes in search of the people who were at the heart of its recovery, to understand what the city has gone through – and where it might be heading.
Federal Disaster Response and Recovery Programs- a summary
New report from CRS titled Federal Disaster Assistance Response and Recovery Programs: Brief Summaries. An 18 page overview of the key federal programs available.
Update: some folks from the Natural Hazards Mitigation Association and the American Planning Association have noted some deficiencies in this report.
From Jim Schwab at the APA: “*** I would like to note, for those who have not used it previously, that as part of our Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project for FEMA, APA constructed its own online compilation of disaster assistance programs at: https://www.planning.org/research/postdisaster/programs.htm
Reaching Out to Houses of Worship
Conference Outcome: CO Hazards Center
The Diva just returned from attending this conference, where she gave a keynote address. Details about the conference agenda are here. I expect there will be some summaries and perhaps some details about presentations delivered in the coming weeks.
The Diva has the text of her talk, as well as a slide set from her presentation, but they need to be revised and posted somewhere. And a video cast may be available of the talk. Details will come at a later date.
“The West Is So Dry Even a Rainforest Is On Fire”
From the WashPost, see: The West is so dry even a rainforest is on fire. An excerpt:
That a wildfire has been able to burn so extensively and for so long in a rain forest is a testament to the severity of the drought that has wracked the American West from California to Alaska. Olympic National Park — which occupies much of the Olympic Peninsula just west of Seattle — just endured its driest spring in over 100 years and a winter snow pack that was a mere 14 percent of average, according to the Park Service. The glaciers that sit on the upper slopes of the park’s mountains and feed its many streams have been receding for decades — Bill Baccus, a park scientist, told the Seattle Times that the ice sheets have shrunk by 35 percent in the past 30 years.
Recovery Diva 