Recovery from Typhoon Haiyan

Posted on by
Reply

Aeriel footage shows how Tacloban has recovered six months on from the natural disaster. Some details:

Six months on from Typhoon Haiyan, The Telegraph’s Lewis Whyld, who covered its immediate aftermath with an unmanned drone, returns to see how the worst affected city is recovering
Nearly six months after Typhoon Haiyan swept through the central Philippines killing more than 6,300 people, one of the worst hit cities is struggling to find its feet.

Political rivalries, a lack of resources and the devastating impact the disaster had on Tacloban’s people and economy mean reconstruction has proved slow.On the eve of Haiyan’s six-month anniversary The Telegraph’s Lewis Whyld, who covered its immediate aftermath with an unmanned drone, returned to see how the worst affected city was recovering.

Sadly, when recovery lacks direction and resources, the result is a “snap back” by people desperate to put their lives back together.  As noted in the final paragraph of the article:

There are signs up and everybody knows the rule that you can’t build near the sea but it is blindingly obviously that they are doing that. The first thing I saw was that everyone is rebuilding exactly where they were living previously. At the moment it is really up in the air for a lot of families.”

______________________________________

Thanks to Laura Olson for the citation.

 

Slow Going for Small Business Recovery in Staten Island

Posted on by
Reply

From the Staten Island newspaper, this article about the slow progress in helping small businesses post H. Sandy.See: Few small businesses helped with federal Hurricane Sandy relief funds, administration tells City Council.

It’s not just homeowners hit by Sandy who are waiting for help: Relief has also been slow to trickle to small businesses, city officials and business owners testified to City Council members Wednesday.

Just 10 businesses citywide have received only $2.76 million as part of the Hurricane Sandy Business Loan and Grant program, out of some $42 million available for the program in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development block grants, Small Business Services Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer said.

“In looking at the program, there are process improvements we can make so that number — which was seven a couple of weeks ago and is now 10 — is dramatically higher, as quickly as possible,” Ms. Torres-Springer told members of the Small Business and Resilience and Recovery Committees.

The dismal statistics echoed testimony at previous hearings on housing recovery — when officials admitted that the number of homes under construction or with checks in the mail was also in the single digits. Ms. Torres-Springer blamed strict rules around the HUD funding, designed to be a last resort for business owners, for the slow disbursement, and pointed out the city had much more quickly handed out grants and loans funded by other sources.

News from Christchurch, NZ on Recovery Process

Posted on by
Reply

Christchurch, NZ is a major city in a first-world nation. And NZ has mandated earthquake insurance. We in the U.S. have a lot to learn from the recovery from two major earthquakes, which devastated the city’s central business district just a few years ago. Here are two current articles about their recovery experience:

For details on a novel way to gain reconstruction workers and benefit the unemployed see: New Zealand offers unemployed cash to move to quake ravaged city. Some details from the article:

Unemployed New Zealanders are being offered cash by the government to move to the earthquake-damaged city of Christchurch and join in the rebuilding effort. The government announced Tuesday it would pay welfare recipients 3,000 New Zealand dollars to move to the city if they found any kind of full-time work there.

Christchurch has been slowly rebuilding after a 2011 quake killed 185 people and destroyed much of the city’s downtown. * * *  Minister Paula Bennett said the city’s reconstruction is creating thousands of jobs but some unemployed people don’t have the resources to move to Christchurch. She said the money will help pay for moving expenses, accommodation, tools and other equipment. “There is demand not only in construction, but in hospitality, retail and many other industries too,” she said in a statement.

Thanks to Pierre Picard for the URL.

 

Just Out – White House National Climate Assessment

Posted on by
4

This morning CNN featured this article: White House sets out looming climate risks for U.S., calls for ‘urgent action’.  The article links to this National Climate Assessment website.  I am still working through the details but there does not seem to be one report; there are various component parts. Somewhere I read the full report is 1,100 pages, so clearly something had to be done to make it readable. The 12 page Summary is here; you have to download the pdf file and then open it.

Here is another info source; I got this one from the NY Times.

Cybersecurity and Public Policy – new report from NAS

Posted on by
Reply

The National Academies Press released a prepublication copy of the report, At the Nexus of Cybersecurity and Public Policy: Some Basic Concepts and Issues, which details the basics of current information technology systems and associated cybersecurity concerns. Written for a general audience, the full report is 102 pages. You can download the summary, individual chapters, or the findings at no cost.

My source for this is the HSDL – see their posting with more details here.

A brief excerpt from the summary gives you an idea of the magnitude of the challenge:

The report emphasizes two central ideas. The cybersecurity problem will never be solved once and for all. Solutions to the problem, limited in scope and longevity though they may be, are at least as much nontechnical as technical in nature.

Post-Sandy Recovery in NY and NJ Criticized

Posted on by
2

I cannot verify the claims of this article, because it would take a great deal of on-site investigation that I am unable to do.  I have in fact talked to government officials, such as congressional committee, GAO, and CRS staffers about the need for a full scale evaluation of the large federal investment in H.Sandy recovery.

The other important aspect of this story is the interaction with and handoff to states by the federal government in the long-term recovery period.  This too needs to be studied and case example documented.

See this article: 18 months after Sandy, FEMA aid ends without states stepping up.  Some excerpts:

A year and a half after Hurricane Sandy hit the New York metropolitan area, destroying tens of thousands of homes, Barbara Vahey is stuck between a rock and a hard place. More specifically, she’s stuck in a funding gap between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the bureaucratic black hole of local housing recovery programs.

Vahey isn’t alone. She’s one of 1,300 New York and New Jersey families who until May 1 had been relying on FEMA rental assistance to get them through the last 18 months as they rebuilt their houses or found alternative living arrangements.

In theory, those 18 months should have been enough — FEMA’s programs are designed to hold people over until state- and city-level programs kick in. But housing advocates say that New York’s and New Jersey’s programs have been poorly managed and mired in red tape, leaving people like Vahey without enough money to rebuild their own houses or find a new one.

 

Cyber Threat – perceived and acted upon

Posted on by
Reply

It it interesting to note that some threats, even unusual ones, may get wide attention and result in protective actions.  The case in point is the recent cyber threat called Heartbleed. See: 61 percent of people who knew about Heartbleed actually did something about it. Some excerpts follow:

In a survey published Wednesday, the research group found that around 60 percent of American adults — and 64 percent of those online — were aware of the problem. Even more surprising, 39 percent of Internet users surveyed were not only aware of the issue but also took the extra steps of protecting their online accounts by either changing their passwords or canceling accounts.

While that may not seem like a particularly high number, just stop and think about how difficult it is to get 39 percent of Americans to do anything. And, according to researchers, the fact that the vast majority of people who’d actually heard about the flaw went ahead and took steps to protect themselves is pretty significant.

A Push for Mitigation

Posted on by
2

This article from titled Mitigation can save lives and reduce the cost of natural disasters was written by a Republican Congressman from PA, which is what makes it interesting to me.  Some excerpts:

As the chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I am working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to explore ways Congress can help encourage mitigation practices that will save lives and taxpayer money from disasters.

Here in Congress, several members have offered approaches to facilitate mitigation and encourage the building of stronger and more disaster-resistant communities. These proposals include incentives for state and local governments to improve their building codes, which can reduce building damage and protect people from harm during a catastrophe. Other bills provide tax incentives to individual homebuilders or homeowners if they choose strong building materials and construction methods.

Another proposal would allow individuals to set aside up to $5,000 annually in tax-free accounts for disaster mitigation expenses.

While all of these measures need to be evaluated closely and evaluated for their impacts on taxpayers, they do share a common characteristic: they are incentives and not mandates.

________________________________________________________________

NOTE: Just this morning I had an exchange of emails with several of the key members of the Natural Iazards Mitigation Association. In this case the topic was safe rooms and who should pay for them.

Your comments are invited, as always.

 

Assessments and Remedial Actions After So. Korean Ferry Disaster

Posted on by
Reply

As we have seen so many times over the decades, a major disaster frequently results in major assessments of emergency management systems and sometimes results in major changes in laws, policies, regulations, organizations and behavior. [See Emergency Management; the American Experience, 1900-2010]

So it goes in So. Korea, with this article about the post-mortem analyses. Cleary this huge and truly tragic disaster is a “game changer” for So. Korea.  See: After ferry disaster, a Katrina-like reckoning in South Korea. Some excerpts from this WashPost article:

South Korea has a history of disasters, from building collapses to airplane crashes. But the slow sinking of a passenger ferry this month has become its Katrina moment, a failed test of capability in a country obsessed with progress and success.

After decades of development, South Korea has approached Western living standards. And yet the capsizing of the Sewol — with 476 people on board — had the markings of a Third World calamity.