New CRS report may be helpful to people in SC and elsewhere dealing with flood recovery. See: Emergency Relief for Disaster Damaged Roads and Transit Systems (14 pages).
Thanks to Bill Cumming for the citation.
Thanks to Chad Berginnis, Exec. Dir. of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, for this citation to a good explanation of the flood designation: What the 1,000 Year Flood Actually Means.
The Diva is trying to determine if there are enough interesting/unique characteristics of the SC flooding to warrant a case study. If you have any comments on that point, please send them.
Two bits of information from the many newsclips available today:
With so much water, officials said it could take weeks or even months to assess every road and bridge that’s been closed around the state. Several interstates around Columbia were closed, and so was a 75-mile stretch of Interstate 95 that is a key route connecting Miami to Washington, D.C. and New York.
“This is different than a hurricane because it is water, it is slow moving and it is sitting. We can’t just move the water out,” Gov. Nikki Haley said at a news conference.
South Carolina floods: climate change intensified conditions, scientists say. Once-in-a-thousand year’ storm along coastline a consequence of the extreme supply of moisture streaming in from hurricane Joaquin. [It seems too early to know the details of the flooding in SC, but this account is from the Guardian.]
I have read a lot of news clips and a couple of observations were of interest to me. One is that the Governor reminded people to be patient — the water is due to rain and riverine flooding and will not recede quickly. The second point was from a risk management firm that estimated the damages would be at least $1B.
From the Homeland Security Digital Library blog: HHS Launches System to Improve Disaster Preparedness
From the NYT: Hurricane Joaquin Forecast: Why U.S. Weather Model Has Fallen Behind.With the storm projected to move out to sea, it’s another triumph for European modeling.
As those of us on the Eastern Seaboard who were watching the path of Joaquin closely, it was clear that there were many models being used by forecasters. It is a good thing that an array of options were possible.
Thanks to Bill Cumming for this citations.
Some familiar, some less familiar natural disasters could prove costly.
Note to folks in the U.S.: you too may have these risks!
I have covered this topic before, but just this week in a conversation about how to quickly create shelter for large numbers of refugees the topic came up again. See this WashPost article: Is shipping-container building ‘the best thing since the brick?’
Here is a link to the earlier posting ( Nov. 2012) about the use of shipping containers for emergency shelters.
Update: one more article from the Guardian on October 9: Living in Steel Box Shipping Containers.
It does seem like a possible solution for sheltering large numbers of migrants temporarily.
In keeping with the department-wide morale problems at DHS are the morale problems with FEMA’s contracting officers. The is one of the concerns of this new GAO report: Disaster Contracting: FEMA Needs to Cohesively Manage Its Workforce and Fully Address Post-Katrina Reforms. 59 pp. GAO-15-783: Published: Sep 29, 2015.
Recovery Diva 