I recently got this announcement: A draft programme for the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held from 14 to 18 March 2015 in Sendai City, Miyagi, Japan is now available.
Final reckoning looms for BP in Deepwater Horizon case
Five years after the Gulf of Mexico disaster, oil company faces a fine of up to $13.7bn as Judge Carl Barbier begins assessment. This Tuesday, close to five years after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig claimed 11 lives and poured millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a judge in New Orleans will begin his final reckoning for one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.
Judge Carl Barbier has presided over the complex case brought by the US government against the well’s operators and this week will start assessing the final fine BP, the oil company held most responsible for the disaster, will pay.
The aftermath of the disaster has been an ugly affair. The environmental devastation is still being assessed. Scammers have targeted BP, leading the company to set up a “snitch line” for people to inform on those making potentially bogus claims. Barbier has criticised BP for going back on the terms of previous agreements to compensate victims of the spill. The company has taken out ads characterising itself as a victim of a “trial lawyer bonanza”.
Barbier is probably the only actor in the Deepwater disaster to have emerged with his reputation enhanced. Ed Sherman, a law professor at New Orleans’ Tulane University and expert in complex litigation, said the case was probably “the most complex of modern times”, involving multiples parties and maritime law, common law and statutory law. “He’s done a remarkable job,” said Sherman.
Another in my series of articles worth pondering. From Paul Krugman, in the NYTimes: Hating Good Government
Back in early December, 2014, I posted an article about how Washington, DC has lost significance and clout. See: How Washington Made Itself Irrelevant.
Now I see this article in the NYTimes titled Don’t Look to States for New Ideas.
So, do not look to the feds for innovation and/or funding and do not look to state government either. Then where will the new ideas, programs, and initiatives come from? And who is going to fund new things in 2015 and beyond?
This is not an easy read, but some of the points are interesting. The author says that the article “provides a framework for the economics of resilience…” though the title is Challenges of Dealing with Uncertainty. I am out of my league to do a content review, but I welcome comments and analysis from readers.
Update: Be sure to read the comments section, where readers have contributed to the assessment of this article.
From Fellow Blogger, Eric Holdeman, this posting about trying to keep up with the literature about resilience:
Specially he cites an organization called the National Infrastructure Advisory Council and their report titled: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience National Research and Development Plan; Final Report and Recommendations
Update: Managing Chaos; the Disaster Planner’s Handbook in Eight Parts (2013), by Mitch Stripling, City of NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene. (21 pp). This is one of the most readable and practical documents on the topic that I have ever read. I recommend it highly. [The update provides the direct URL to the document and supporting references.]
[I think I got the citation from my fellow blogger Eric Holdeman, who wrote this posting last March.]
Finally, some good news coming from NYC re housing reconstruction and assistance. See: City beats de Blasio’s Hurricane Sandy reconstruction goals, starts rebuilding 1,002 homes. In addition to beating the mayor’s construction goal by two, the city has send out 2,104 checks to reimburse storm victims. The payments stand at $36.5 million so far.
Newly released report from the Office of the Inspector General at DHS is critical of expenditures for FL hurricane relief. See FEMA Insurance Reviews of Applicants Receiving Public Assistance Grant Funds for 2004 and 2005 Florida Hurricanes Were Not Adequate. Some excerpts:
The quality of FEMA’s insurance reviews in Florida was not adequate to maximize insurance available under applicants’ policies and to ensure that duplication of benefits did not occur. FEMA’s Florida Recovery Office knew about these deficiencies in its insurance review process but did not correct them. As a result, FEMA may have funded up to $177 million that insurance should have covered.
Furthermore, FEMA’s insurance specialists routinely waived the requirement to obtain and maintain insurance for future disasters, even though they did not have the authority to take such action. FEMA’s Florida Recovery Office did not detect and correct this deficiency. As a result, FEMA potentially stands to lose up to a billion dollars in future Florida disasters because many Florida communities may not have adequate insurance coverage for future disasters such as those that occurred in 2004 and 2005.
FEMA launches Interim Office of the Flood Insurance Advocate, It’s an
Interim Office to specialize in helping clients/policyholders with NFIP issues.
Clearly this was done to deal with a flood of complaints recently, especially from people in N.J.
Recovery Diva 