Defense Technology Applied to Disasters

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Technology confronts disasters.  From the lead in:

In 2010, soon after Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, a team from MIT Lincoln Laboratory collected and analyzed information to help the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), the lead military agency responding to the crisis, effectively dispatch vital resources, including food, water, tents, and medical supplies, to the victims of this disaster. The laboratory’s capabilities in advanced imaging also aided relief operations: A laser-radar imaging system, the Airborne Ladar Imaging Research Testbed (ALIRT), produced high-resolution, three-dimensional renderings of terrain and infrastructure that were used to generate maps indicating road trafficability, helicopter landing zones, and the changes in populations at camps for displaced persons.

Stack Housing After a Disaster in Urban Area

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New York City Tests Post-Disaster Housing That Stacks Up. Some excerpts:

For the past eight years, long before Hurricane Sandy did more than $70 billion in damage to the region, the city has been diligently developing what it calls urban post-disaster housing, with financing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Though still in the prototype phase, the hope is that it could someday shelter residents for months, or even years, as they await reconstruction of their homes.

Think of it as a Lego version of the FEMA trailer, designed for a city of rowhouses and apartment towers, where people are in abundance and space is not.

Inspector General of DHS Highly Critical of FEMA’s Spending

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From Homeland Security Today this account of a recent report from the Inspector General of DHS. $1 Billion in Questionable DHS FY 2014 Disaster-Related Funding Found by IG. Some excerpts follow:

In FY 2014, the Inspector General told Congress it issued 61 audits of grants, programs and operations funded from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund.

The grant audit reports issued by the IG in FY 2014 included $971.7 million in potential monetary benefits, representing 28 percent of the $3.44 billion of grant funds the IG audited last fiscal year.

Despite the findings of all these IG audits, it “continues to find problems with grant management, ineligible and unsupported costs and noncompliance with federal contracting requirements,” the IG stressed.

A more “significant issue for FY 2014 grant audits,” the IG stated, was the “unused funding that could be put to better use.”

These revelations precede the numerous audit reports issued by the Inspector General documenting many millions in FEMA Public Assistance Grant Funds awarded for Hurricane Katrina damages. The IG stated the millions were improper, improperly used … and “should be recovered by FEMA.” Despite FEMA’s decade of progress after Hurricane Katrina, millions in public assistance grants were misspent, IG concluded.

Additionally, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ impartial investigative branch, also concluded in a new 93-page audit report that there is no comprehensive, strategic approach to identifying, prioritizing and implementing investments for disaster resilience, which increases the risk that the federal government and nonfederal partners will experience lower returns on investments or lost opportunities to strengthen key critical infrastructure and lifelines.”

Here is the direct link to the Inspector General’s 39 page report.