Posting from Guest Blogger, AJ Early
As the start of hurricane season approaches, here is some advice for personal preparedness measures. See: What to do Before, During, and After a Hurricane.
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News Release from the University of Colorado Denver:
Today we launched a new guide and website on hazard mitigation planning “Planning for Hazards: Land Use Solutions for Colorado.” The guide and site were funded by the CDBG-DR program and developed by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Clarion Associates, and a team of subject matter experts and land-use planners concerned with disaster risk reduction and community resilience. The University of Colorado Denver was part of the advisory team and will be maintaining the site and guide moving forward.
I think these are great resources – besides a general overview of hazard mitigation planning and the hazards that most impact the Mountain West, they include profiles of various land-use tools to reduce losses and avoid hazards, sample code language for many of those tools, interviews with communities of different sizes and capacities, and more. Though the guide and site are focused on Colorado, the content and tools are much more broadly relevant.
From the Washington Post, this article about a new type of earthquake risk. See: 7 million Americans at risk of man-made earthquakes, USGS says
From Govtech this article about AI; see; One Concern: Applying Artificial Intelligence to Emergency Management.
One Concern CEO and Co-Founder Ahmad Wani explains how cities can save lives during disasters by applying analytical disaster assessments and calculated damage estimates.
Note: the Diva is not in a position to either recommend the technology or the company, but just wants to share the news article with those who can do their own assessment.
Drinking Water: EPA Needs to Collect Information and Consistently Conduct Activities to Protect Underground Sources of Drinking Water.
GAO-16-281, February 26
Eric Holdeman has an Infographic on the Flint Water Crisis at this location.
Climate guru James Hansen warns of much worse than expected sea level rise
Former NASA researcher and father of climate change awareness says melting of ice sheets could cause ‘several meters’ rise in a century, swamping coastal cities
Emerging threats: 2015 made history with record heat, weather extremes: WMO
Future Weather: hotter, wetter, dryer
The year 2015 made history, with shattered temperature records, intense heatwaves, exceptional rainfall, devastating drought, and unusual tropical cyclone activity, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That record-breaking trend has continued in 2016. The global average surface temperature in 2015 broke all previous records by a wide margin, at about 0.76° Celsius above the 1961-1990 average because of a powerful El Niño and human-caused global warming. With 93 percent of excess heat stored in the oceans, ocean heat content down to 2,000 meters also hit a new record.
The year 2015 made history, with shattered temperature records, intense heatwaves, exceptional rainfall, devastating drought, and unusual tropical cyclone activity, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That record-breaking trend has continued in 2016.
The WMO Statement on the Status of the Climate in 2015 gave details of the record land and sea surface temperatures, unabated ocean warming and sea level rise, shrinking sea ice extent, and extreme weather events around the world.
It was released to coincide with World Meteorological Day on 23 March, which has the theme “Hotter, drier, wetter. Face the Future.”
“The future is happening now,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
“The alarming rate of change we are now witnessing in our climate as a result of greenhouse gas emissions is unprecedented in modern records,” said Taalas.
For the past few years one of the hottest topics for blog postings is the FEMA Reservist Program, because many readers are or were reservists. (The Diva was one once upon a time.)
Now, here is a copy of the recent Reservist Workforce Satisfaction Survey Results. It is 26 pages, dated March 2016. See page 22 for details about satisfaction.
Note: be sure to print it off in high quality and color format, since it is hard to read in black and white.
In the past few years, the GAO also has done assessments of the Reservist Program; do a key word search on their site to locate them.
Any comments?
Recovery Diva 