Disasters Have Same Human Impact as Tuberculosis. Deaths, economic losses and other negative impacts from disasters have caused losses equivalent to 42 million “life-years” annually since 1980, according to the UN

(1) This is not a new report, but I missed it when it was issued in 2014.  See Measuring Success in Recovery. It is not exactly the definitive guidance on the topic, that remains to be funded and accomplished. But it does supply some good ideas and some useful references to work done. It’s a 6-page brief in the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery Briefing papers of the American Planning Association. Do check out the APA’s website for more on recovery.

Thanks to Ian McLean for the citation.

(2) Benchmarking Disaster Recovery; Using Collector for ArcGIS.

Thanks to Laura Olson for this citation.

As many of you know first-hand, there have been many articles, studies, and law suits since H. Sandy about disaster relief payments. Here is a new report by the GAO: Disaster Relief: Agencies Need to Improve Policies and Procedures for Estimating Improper Payments

From an editorial in the Boston Globe: FEMA should recognize that Mass. needs help this winter. Here is the essence of the problem:

FEMA tends to provide relief for major, individual disasters, not the cumulative effects of smaller consecutive ones. That means that if FEMA decides to take a doctrinaire view of its mandate, it might provide relief only for some activities related to Juno — which was historic in its own right — but not for any other storm. Horowitz estimates that could leave Boston with only $6 million in federal aid, which would barely put a dent in the $35 million the Hub has already spent on storm cleanup this winter. But the federal government needs to recognize a disaster that unfolds in slow motion is still a disaster, and the conditions on the ground — including the Commonwealth’s need to borrow equipment from neighboring states — make it clear that this winter has overwhelmed the state’s ability to handle the cleanup by itself.

Superstorm Sandy Victims Say FEMA’s Role Is Fatally Conflicted.  Some excerpts:

The National Flood Insurance Program has a public element, which helps people get money after a disaster to rebuild their homes. The private part comes when FEMA contracts with regular insurance companies.

This week, FEMA began settlement talks with homeowners devastated by Sandy, and there’s a lot to resolve.

Homeowners say engineers hired by insurance companies falsified damage estimates and that the homeowners aren’t being repaid for the actual damage that Sandy caused. Some are questioning whether FEMA can be a watchdog for both disaster victims and taxpayers who subsidize the federal flood program.

The problem arises when FEMA tries to protect the interests of its policy holders while it also makes sure they don’t get paid too much, says Ben Rajotte, a lawyer for the Disaster Relief Clinic at Touro Law

Personally, I do not know how anyone working at DHS can be cheerful and productive, considering the way Congress is treating the department. The internal problems probably are more manageable than the external ones! Let’s be supportive of FEMA and the other folks doing their best.

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DHS tackles endless morale problems with seemingly endless studies

There’s really no excuse for the department expending finite resources on multiple studies, some at the same time, to tell the department pretty much what everyone has concluded: that there are four to five things that need to be done for morale,” said Chris Cummiskey, who left DHS in November after serving as its third-highest-ranking official. “You don’t need $2 million worth of studies to figure that out.”

Cummiskey added that DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson“understands this and is focused on delivering meaningful results for DHS employees.”