The National Academy of Sciences has pulled together many of its recent titles dealing with disasters. See the recommended titles here.

Note: One can download all of part of their books at no cost.

New storm surge maps from NOAA. And some specific tips for emergency managers re storm surge.

Thanks to Pierre Picard for the link.

I ran across this article in a source I am not familiar with called Motherboard. Clearly the title is catchy:The More Environmental Disasters a State Suffers, the More Repressive Its Laws. The two authors, from the Univ. of MD, have created an interesting index of states and their characteristics.  Below are a few excepts from an interview with the authors of the full study:

* * * Ecological factors contribute to people growing tighter—the idea being that, when you have a lot of threat, tightness is a reaction to that,” he said. “The data is all correlation. We can’t prove it at this time, but theoretically we think it’s causal.”

In fact, environmental vulnerabilities are the ones that most closely correlate with a tight society, not factors such as external threats. In fact, even long histories of being discriminatory are less correlated with this idea of a “tight” state than natural disasters. I suggested that, maybe, a history of slavery or traditional values could have had something to do with longstanding inequality in the South. And yes, there was a connection between the number of families that owned slaves at the end of the Civil War with tightness today, but it wasn’t as strong as the environmental factors: “Floods and natural disasters seem to be the strongest,” he said.

Again—really, this isn’t something that can be proven. There are any number of reasons why antiquated laws have persisted in the certain areas of the country, and there are a lot of reasons why some have been slower to embrace equality for all of its citizens. But now we know that being put in a bad situation, environmentally-speaking, might have something to do with it.
___________________________________

The original source of the content was is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: See: Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states by Jesse R. Harrington and Michele J. Gelfand. The full text is 6 pages; it is available as a free download, but you have to fish around to find it.

The article is quite dense and not an easy read. Nevertheless, the topic is quite fascinating and I would like to get readers’ reactions.

First Katrina, Now Sandy: Three Mistakes We Keep Making After Natural Disasters

On the weekend, I like to post news of a lighter vein.

From the Denver Post, an article about using an electric bike to assist with disaster response. See the details here.

“Improving Emergency Planning for Vulnerable Populations”
June 5, 2014

This webinar was a part of NACCHO’s 2014 Summer Preparedness Webinar Series.

This webinar will explore how local health departments from St Paul- Ramsey County, MN, and Oakland County, MI, utilize closed Points of Dispensing (PODs) to improve emergency planning for vulnerable populations including people with disabilities. These PODs allow for effective dispensation of medical countermeasures to populations who may not be able to easily access public PODs.

Participants will also have the opportunity to hear about new resources and tools being developed by NACCHO’s Health and Disability team, including: (1) A Health and Disability Toolkit; (2)a guide to including people with disabilities in public health practice; and (3)a directory of community-based organizations that serve people with disabilities.

NACCHO will also briefly present on findings from their current assessment of local health department activities that are inclusive of people with disabilities.