We have had lights, cameras, but no action on long term recovery.

As we approach month 5 since Hurricane Sandy devastated large areas of coastal communities in N.Y. and N.J., there is surprising little news about FEMA’s strategy for facilitating recovery or the new role and functions of the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.The news media have not been providing coverage to this topic.  And the two agencies named have been very quiet. If any of our readers have information, I would be glad to hear from them.

In my view, recovery has long been the neglected phase of emergency management, and most of the limited knowledge about long-term recovery in the U.S. that exists resides with the research and academic communities.  To my knowledge those communities have not been asked for advice and assistance by either FEMA or HUD.  Again, if you have information to the contrary please let me know.

Back in early November, 2012, I wrote a posting titled: Recovery Planning for NY and NJ, Some Ideas.  I think most of those suggestions are still valid and should be considered.  But time is wasting…….

__________________________________________

REMINDER:  The Diva needs your financial support for this blog.  Please consider donating via Pay Pal ( upper right-hand corner of the homepage) or by check (address is on the About page.)

The Diva is back! Thanks to those of you who expressed your willingness to help me keep the blog going.  Since this is a very small operation, it is easiest for me if you use the SUPPORT US button in the upper right hand corner to voluntarily offer support via the Pay Pal option. (I do not have the ability to maintain a subscriber system.)  Pay Pal will take various credit cards or you are welcome to mail a check to the address on the About page.  And you will get an email receipt for your donation.  Please contribute so I can recruit a helper and improve the range and content of this blog. Thanks.

SUPPLY CHAIN:  Last week the Diva attended the two-day exercise on Local Supply Chain Capacity in a Crisis, held in Arlington County, VA.  It was an excellent event and a verbatim transcript is being prepared.  When it is available, I will do a posting about it.

HURRICANE SANDY: Interesting article about long-term considerations from the scientific community’s perspective.

In the current issue of Emergency Management magazine (Jan./Feb.2012) there are several interesting articles on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Both the hard copy and online versions are available at no cost.  See especially the editorial titled Lessons From Sandy. on page 10.

RESILIENCE: Interesting op-ed article in the NYTimes on Feb. 5th titled Forget sustainability; It’s About Resilience.

This is my 600th posting for this blog, which I have maintained for almost 4 years.  At this point I am at an impasse. I had some early start-up funding, but for more than 3 years I have maintained this blog by myself and at my own expense. To continue bringing you cutting edge information on critical disaster and recovery activities, I need some staff in order to more efficiently and effectively gather and present content, and also financial support to make needed enhancements.

I would like to be able to do summary analyses of past blogs and synthesize the information by topic. And I would like to build a companion knowledge base of recent information about various aspects of recovery. I need some staff and some help from an information technology guru. Plus, I would like to add more information about business recovery.

Over the past few months  I met several subscribers of the blog, who expressed their thanks for the breadth and depth of material that can be found on the blog, while others  appreciated all of the recent coverage about Hurricane Sandy.  But, in order to continue bringing you this material, the Diva needs your support..

I can think of three options for support:

1. have some sponsors or grant donors (do you know of any potential sponsors or donors?);
2. make the blog a subscription service, with a modest annual fee; and/or
3. rely on voluntary donations.

I ‘d like to hear back from readers to determine your interest, recommendations, and willingness to help.

Note: for those who asked, I will be able to work through an existing 501.C.3 organization.

Offline Email: <claire…at…disasterbookstore.com>

Paying Sandy’s Big Bill;Wash Post editorial, Jan 16, 2013.  Some excerpts:

… Americans should be shocked that lawmakers still haven’t reformed the slapdash way Congress deals with disasters. The claim that those future big storms have on federal funds is potentially massive — $10 to $25 billion in a normal year and $80 to $170 billion in a bad one …. Though costs are hard to predict, Congress should at least budget disaster-assistance money upfront to the greatest extent possible and through the normal appropriations process, where the spending trade-offs are clearer and lawmakers don’t have to legislate under the duress of emergency.

Increasingly, too, Congress has been investing in infrastructure upgrades as part of disaster relief, under the compelling logic that spending some money to prepare now will head off much higher costs later. Lawmakers have considered doing the same in the Sandy recovery effort. That worthy goal, though, deserves the rational structure of a long-term plan that assesses how much the country can afford to protect and determines where to invest, instead of being tacked here and there to disaster-relief bills. Among other things, a coherent strategy would discourage Americans from building in vulnerable areas the government is unlikely to protect.

I have been a fan of the Hazards Observer (H.O.), the bi-monthly publication of the Hazards Center at the University of CO/Boulder,  for many years.  And I am proud to note the previous issue (Nov./Dec. 2012) included my invited comment on “What Keeps Me Up at Night.”

The current issue (Jan. 2013) has an unusually fine collection of articles and comments regarding mitigation, recovery, and Hurricane Sandy. I highly recommend it. In particular the articles by Gavin Smith and Joe Scanlon are well worth reading.

The H.O. is available at no cost for the electronic version, and for a modest cost if you want the hardcopy version. Details are in the issues noted above.

The “new normal” in New York City includes consideration of mitigation measures for new construction and retrofitting existing ones, when possible. See The Generator Is the Machine of the Moment, NYTimes, Jan. 12. Some excerpts:

Now, more than two months after the storm caused millions of dollars in damage, novel and costly waterproofing techniques are being employed, including the addition of backup generators and floodgates, and the relocation of mechanical equipment. The  owners of buildings that predate the flooding are also looking at these measures, although retroactive installation is so complex and costly that some may decide not to do anything.

“This is the new normal,” said Adam Gordon, the president of Adam Gordon Holdings, which is building a condominium at 560 West 24th Street in Chelsea. “With two hurricanes in two years, this is the new base level for the way people should think about building in New York.”

Thanks to Bill Cumming for calling this article to my attention.

The economics of likely changes and questions about emergency management for future events have been discussed in several recent articles:

• 9 Facts That Prove Joe Stiglitz Is Right About Climate Change Hurting The Economy; HuffPost, Jan. 8

Economist Joseph Stiglitz recently announced that he believes climate change is the most important issue facing the U.S. economy today. Certainly, climate change is serious global issue, but how exactly will it affect the U.S. economy? What follows are some statistics on climate change’s impact on the U.S. economy, gathered primarily from non-governmental organizations that deal with climate-change issues.

• Who Should Pay the Costs of Climate Disasters; 01/08/2013

Who should pay the costs of climate disasters?  In light of the current debate in the United States about federal assistance to Hurricane Sandy victims and the recent debate at the recent Doha Climate Conference about international assistance for climate change victims, that has become an increasingly pressing question for
humankind.

The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rapidly increasing. Since the 1980s the number of billion-dollar natural disasters in the United States has tripled from two to six.  In 2011 there were 14 separate $1 billion-plus weather events and losses topped $60 billion.  This year Hurricane Sandy alone will exceed that total.

• Tom Friedman, NYTimes, Jan. 8. The Market and Mother Nature.
• National Climate Assessment Report, (updated to 2023 edition) and the U.S. Global Change Research Project.
• NOAA chart showing record-breaking heat in 2012.