Over 1.6 million Medicare Fee-For-Service beneficiaries rely upon electricity-dependent medical and assistive equipment, such as ventilators and wheel chairs, in our communities. Severe weather and disasters that cause power outages can be life threatening for these individuals.

How can we empower community and electricity-dependent Medicare beneficiary health resilience?

Every hospital, first responder, electric company, and community member can use the map to find the monthly total of Medicare beneficiaries with electricity-dependent equipment claims at the U.S. state, territory, county, and zip code level and turn on “real-time” NOAA severe weather tracking services to identify areas and populations that may be impacted and at risk for power outages.

http://www.phe.gov/empowermap/Pages/default.aspx

Can This Capsule Help You Survive A Tsunami? Aerospace engineers have built a reinforced pod that they believe will protect inhabitants from the biggest storms in the world.

Thanks to Franklin McDonald for the citation.

After a thunderstorm arrived on July 4th, when the National Mall was crowded with visitors, local officials initiated their sheltering plan. See: Initiating ‘Safe Haven’: 200,000 July 4 revelers get shelter from the storm.

It wasn’t a drill. It was happening, and now: Open the doors, suspend the bag checks, turn off the magnetometers, let everyone inside.

The plan had been developed to shelter masses gathered on the Mall in the case of an emergency weather situation, but the evacuation ahead of Saturday’s Independence Day celebration also signaled what might happen in the face of a terror threat: “Operation Safe Haven.

From the NY Times, on July 4, 2015: The long decline in Trust in Government and Why That Can be Patriotic. An excerpt:

It’s easy to look at Washington and conclude that nothing ever gets done. Trust in government has steadily deteriorated over the past several decades and continues to do so. Questioning the aims and efforts of government is a foundation of American citizenship. It’s how the nation was born. The colonists didn’t trust King George III, and they carefully laid out their reasons for breaking away from his rule in the Declaration of Independence.

But some of the recent decline may have less to do with how the government has disappointed people and more to do with an increasing knowledge of how the government works.

****Trust in all kinds of institutions, from banks to courts, has declined since the 1950s. Justin Wolfers, an economist and Upshot contributor, described it as a function of what we know now that we didn’t know before: There is increasing transparency across all types of institutions today relative to the 1940s and 1950s, he said in an interview in 2011. That very transparency might be the root of declining trust, he concludes.

“FEMA Promising Practice: Overnight Shelter Experiences”
July 9, 2015

The archive of this Webinar, including handouts, transcripts and recordings, is available at http://adapresentations.org/webinar.php?id=23.

This 90-minute webinar hosted by the ADA National Network/FEMA Webinar Series will highlight the Overnight Shelter Exercise with the Disability Community. Reasons for the exercises is typically the lack of appropriate and accessible services in shelters as one in five people encountered during any disaster will have a disability or about 56.7 million people, approximately 19 percent of the population. Many first responders lack familiarity and working knowledge they require to successfully integrate all members of the community in all aspects of the work they do. Participants will learn how to plan an overnight exercise with the disability community, hear about the challenges encountered in the process and learn how to overcome them.

From Scientific American: FEMA Does Not Know if 750,000 Homes Are Flood-Prone

The U.S. flood insurance program has inaccurate elevation data about many high-risk homes that enjoy discounted premiums

The nation’s flood insurance program doesn’t know the elevation of 750,000 high-risk homes with discounted policies, according to the National Research Council.

The omission could complicate efforts to phase out subsidized insurance rates in the National Flood Insurance Program, said researchers who contributed to a technical report that suggests the program needs to modernize the way it collects data and sets rates.

Drones to deliver medicine, supplies to Wise Remote Area Medical clinic: During this summer’s Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones, will deliver pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies for the first time in the United States. RAM, an annual free medical clinic that serves more than 1,500 people, NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Flirtey Inc., an Australian startup company specializing in delivery using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), are teaming up to deliver medicine at the event on July 17. Details are here.

Here is a second example of suggested use of drones in disasters.