The URL for the graphic is here.

Just when you think you have a handle on the many types of natural threats and hazards along comes a new one.  This one is called a Polar Vortex.  Extremely low temperatures are expected over much of the U.S. According to CNN, the temps will be the coldest we have seen for 20 years.

Good news about scientific advances that allow for better warnings for weather and seismic events. See this news article re CA efforts.  The article also mentions the importance of smart phones for disseminating warnings and information.

In a related article, see: Surveillance network built to spot secret nuclear tests yields surprise scientific boon

As a huge snowstorm heads for the northeastern U.S. and into eastern Canada, it is worth reviewing these safety preparations offered by the State of Massachusetts.

Update: How to Spend the Night in Your Car. Allstate Ins. makes some good suggestions about items to keep in the car for safety.

Ice storm damage to Toronto’s electricity system

The use of gift cards handed out on on first-come/first-served basis does not appear to the best (even adequate) way to assist residents who experienced a lengthy power outage.  See this posting from HuffPost/Canada.

And less than a year ago, the city of Alberta used gift cards to compensate victims after major flooding, and that did not go well either.

The Toronto event did not get even a local declaration of emergency, which raises questions about how to do a better job of dealing with major power outages.

How would we deal with this in the U.S.?

On January 2, here is an article about the costs of the cleanup for the city of Toronto.

Related articles

• Hundreds line up for free gift cards after ice storm (cp24.com)
• Dozens turned away as gift cards handed out after ice storm (cp24.com)

Guest Blogger, John Plodinec of CARRI, provided this fable on resilience:

“CARRI’s view of community resilience encompasses resistance, response and recovery.  As Claire Rubin and others have said, we simply don’t know enough about recovery and until we do, that lack of knowledge will hinder our attempts to become more resilient.  But to better understand what I think we need to know, let me tell a story.

A group of foresters are walking through the dense undergrowth when they reach a clearing where a mighty oak has been uprooted by the wind.  Some of them stop to study why that oak fell – the wind speed, the root system, perhaps the soil and so on.  Some of them go on to the next clearing where a pine has been struck by lightning, and died and fallen.  Again, some of them stop to study why the pine fell. Others go on to another clearing and begin to study how an elm attacked by disease has fallen.  While each studies their downed tree in minute detail, all of them bemoan the fact that there are really too few downed trees of the same type that have fallen for the same reason to be able to obtain a general knowledge of why oaks or pines or elms fall due to wind, or lightning or disease.

But they are standing in the midst of a forest in which the trees are each bending to the wind and the other elements and then straightening when the wind or the rain dies down.  And the foresters are really most interested in what keeps the trees standing straight and tall, not what makes them fall.  So it should be with community recovery and resilience.  Resilience does not arise from demonstrated weakness but rather from the exertion of strength.  Thus, we need to know and understand the strengths of each community, how those strengths are exerted, and how we can nurture those strengths so that they become even stronger.  We must look to those still standing to understand resilience, not those who have been beaten down by the storm.

If we are to become more resilient, we need to better understand what strengths are needed to recover from crises and how to nurture them.  Clearly we don’t know enough yet – the challenge to researchers is to illuminate these still dark corners of our communities.”

From Portland, Oregon, here is a nice example of a useful emergency preparedness calendar for the new year.  Even better, there is an English and a Spanish version.

I think these resolutions, which come from Eric Holdeman, popular blogger at emergency management.com, are worth considering for 2014.

Happy New Year!