Hot off the press (actually, your printer) is the report from the Multi-National Resilience Policy Group titled Strategies for Supporting Community Resilience ; 350 pp.
Thanks again to Prof. Eric Stern for providing me with the information and direct link.
See this page for long and short versions of the State Budget Report.
From the WSJ this article: Nepal Earthquake’s Economic Toll Expected to Be Massive. Foreign aid could have outsize impact on poor South Asian nation. [Note: If you have trouble getting the whole text, try using Google.] An excerpt:
“It’s not only money that you need for reconstruction, but also human knowledge and a functioning government ….” “Nepal belongs to a category of countries where it is unclear whether the ability to execute reconstruction will be sufficient.”
Google and Facebook Help Nepal Earthquake Survivors and Contacts Connect.
As the extent of the damage from the earthquake in Nepal became clear, technology companies started devising ways to help users in affected areas connect with friends and loved ones around the world, and vice versa.
Google’s Person Finder was tracking about 6,100 records as of 2:30 p.m. Monday, Eastern time. Here is how it works: Anyone can enter a person’s name, biographical information and photograph into Google’s database. You can specify whether you are that person, are seeking information about that person or have reason to believe that person is either alive or missing. Google does not review or verify any of the data.
Blog reader John Coleman in NZ wrote:
“I am currently working on emergency plans for the health system of the West Coast of the South Island. My personal thinking was that the entire population could be cut odd from all land access for many months and it is heartening to see tht his study suggests that there may be one road which could remain open. It follows the Buller Gorge and is the really long way around. URL for more info.
In addition we have recently had a series of presentations from the researchers at GNS and several universities. * * * The full package is about 14MB, so those who want the full details of the video presentations please contact John directly at the location noted below.
We also have video recordings of the talks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfj8MIAxec4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbPowv4yqzU&feature=youtu.be
In 2013, Dr Robinson developed a scenario for a South Island Civil Defence exercise based on a major earthquake on the South Island fault and we have found the casualty estimates informative.
While all of this focusses on the South Island fault, the way things are looking in Christchurch, that big fault sould rupture before we have fully recovered from out local ones. I note that the temporary container mall in Christchurch could now be around a lot longer. We do have a fondness for temporary things.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/67962367/restart-mall-in-christchurch-may-stay-another-10-years
The shaking intensity may be similar, but the duration could be several times longer. No-one has tried to predict the effects of that yet.
For more information about John’s organization, go to this web site: http://www.cdhb.health.nz
Thanks to the author, Prof. Eric Stern, for this link to his recent e-book: Designing Crisis Management Exercises for Strategic Leaders. It is 121 pages long.
The Congressional Research Service recently released this report of FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Program: CRS-FEMA-PA. The download is 64 pages.
This report provides a great deal of descriptive detail about the program, including the changes needed to comply with the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act. It is longer than most CRS reports. It should be a useful resource for those responsible for disaster response and recovery after a Presidential disaster declaration.
Smartphones could become crowdsourced earthquake detectors
Scientists have found that just a few seconds of warning before an earthquake hits can make a big difference. People have time to get to a safer location, surgeries can be stopped and other protections can be implemented. While early warning systems exist, many areas prone to earthquakes don’t have them because the technology is still very expensive.
A group of researchers that has been working on the West Coast’s $145 million ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system, which uses both GPS and seismometers, has come up with a solution that uses technology many of us already have in our pocket to deliver early earthquake warnings to areas that can’t afford expensive systems.
Thanks to Franklin McDonald for the citation.
Some recent takes on the aftermath of the BP Oil spill:
From the Economist magazine, their account of what has been learned in the past five years.
From the Huffington Post: Deepwater Disaster: Five Years On
Five years after the BP blowout that killed 11 workers and dumped millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration has proposed exposing Atlantic and Arctic waters to the risk of a similar disaster. Under a proposal by the Obama administration, oil and gas activity could begin in those waters as early as 2017. That would take us in exactly the wrong direction, exposing these waters to the risk of a catastrophic spill, expanding an inherently hazardous industrial operation at sea and locking the next generation into mountains more of the dangerous carbon pollution that’s driving climate change. It’s time to turn this ship around — before it’s too late.
And from Bloomberg: The BP oil spill cleanup isn’t a disaster.
A more dispassionate account of the spill’s legacy would emphasize several contrasting but not contradictory realities. Independent investigations and court rulings have blamed the intertwined negligence of BP and its contractors, Transocean and Halliburton, for the debacle, which killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig. A federal judge found that the spill released 3.19 million barrels of crude. The corporate actors—chiefly BP, the majority owner of Macondo—deserved condemnation and got it. Yet as bad as the environmental and economic damage
Recovery Diva 