ProPublica has listed a selection of articles that it considers good reporting; see The Best Reporting on Hurricanes and Their Aftermaths

I had been wondering if Antoinette Tuff, the heroine in GA, had received training how to deal with an intruder at her school.

This article says she did. But you still have to give the lady a lot of credit for being smart and brave!

The full title of this thoughtful, 22 page report from the Center for American Press is A Disaster in the making;Addressing the Vulnerability of Low-Income Communities to Extreme Weather. A salient quote from the report is:

One of the primary reasons that low-income people are disproportionately affected by extreme weather is due to the quality of their housing. Shoddy construction and the age of affordable housing — in  generally in less than desirable neighborhoods that lack quality services and are supported by suboptimal infrastructure – puts low income people at greater risk from the effects of extreme weather.

The chapters address: underlying effects of poverty; the impact of poor-quality housing, environmental factors, economic stability, improve resiliency and recovery in low-income communities.

The report also covers some of the housing problems uncovered by Superstorm Sandy.

Here is another article, this one from the National Journal.

In the wake of the Sandy Task Force report, it is interesting to see the federal regulators of the financial industry urging better emergency preparedness efforts. Article titled  U.S. regulators urge firms to improve business continuity and disaster recovery plans. The lead paragraphs follow:

Futures and securities firms should review their industry-wide and internal business continuity and disaster recovery plans to improve responsiveness to significant disruptions and reduce recovery time, their regulators said Friday in a staff advisory.

 

U.S. regulators have been particularly concerned over how financial firms plan for disasters since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and through the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets during the administration of George W. Bush urged the industry to strengthen its defenses. The concerns have included flooding following Hurricane Katrina and the threat of an influenza pandemic, and are growing.

The specifically identify 7 areas of operations that the owners/managers should address.

Recent article by Homeland Security Newswire weighs pros and cons of stronger national leadership for resilience. See Sandy shows need for more effective preparedness, resiliency standards. Some excerpts follow:

The rebuilding efforts following the devastation wreaked by Superstorm Sandy have triggered a discussion over preparedness and resiliency in America’s commercial and residential buildings.Some experts callfor a presidential appointment of a building resilience “’czar”’ with authority to coordinate and seek synergies between public and private sector initiatives.

The rebuilding efforts following the devastation wreaked by Superstorm Sandy have triggered a discussion over preparedness and resiliency in America’s commercial and residential buildings. Communities in areas affected by Sandy have been developing ways better to withstand the next hurricane. Communities, each with its own set of standards for building resiliency, are reaching out to state and federal agencies for information, funding, and insight. DHS offers details on building-vulnerability assessment tools. FEMA offers details on federal resilient-building initiatives. Disastersafety.org and postsandyinitiative.org offers plenty of advice from insurers and architects for those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Engineering News-Record reports that while there are several outlets to turn to for information on building sustainability and resiliency, progress on building resiliency and federal coordination on the topic have been minimal. “The U. S. has been somewhat paralyzed in the development of an effective building-resiliency response by the extreme politicizing of the topic of climate change,” says Ben Sandzer-Bell, chief resilience officer for Climate Adaptation Solutions. “The level of political toxicity prevents effective engagement by a large segment of the American body politic, industry, academia, NGOs and media.”

Sandzer-Bell’s solution is for a presidential appointment of a building resilience “czar” with authority to coordinate and seek synergies between public and private sector initiatives.

Robert Wible, a building regulatory reform consultant, agrees. “We cannot afford to keep reinventing wheels, spending precious public- and private-sector funds and staff time on duplicative and, at times, conflicting actions,” Wible told ENR. “We need someone and someplace to connect the dots.”

Currently, there is no central body to facilitate discussions and set a unified mission between private and public sector initiatives on building resiliency. Not everyone supports the idea of a presidential appointee to supervise or take the role of a resiliency czar. “I am not in favor of making large government even larger,” says Dennis Wessel, senior vice president at Karpinski Engineering and an ASHRAE director.

The report, Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy, is now public.

So far, I have seen a list of 122 news articles about the report.  And a few press releases. I am most interested in the reactions of the organizations that will be working through the issues and promising made in the report, such as the Association of State Floodplain Managers and the American Planning Association. I welcome additional links from readers. Here are 2 so far:

• See ASFPM press release here.
• Statement from property insurance organization.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers has a nice webpage containing many resources re Hurricane Sandy.

We all are awaiting the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy report, from Sec. Shaun Donovan of HUD.  It is supposed to be released tomorrow.

A significant new report was just issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists; it is titled Overwhelming Risk; Rethinking Flood Insurance in a World of Rising Seas. Both the full report (30 pp.) and an executive summary are available for download on that site.

This document is worth keeping as a basic primer on coastal flooding, floodplain management, and flood insurance.  The authors are quite blunt about the risk, as you will see from these excerpts from a Congressional Quarterly article, titled Scientists Call for Higher Federal Flood Insurance Rates:

A group of scientists joined the ranks this week of those opposing congressional efforts to continue subsidizing coverage under the federally run flood insurance program. In a 30-page report (PDF), the Union of Concerned Scientists laid out data on the global rise of sea levels and the increasing frequency of catastrophic storms.

Americans are unlikely to prepare for the kind of flooding that lies ahead, the organization warned, if the Federal Emergency Management Agency does not start charging higher rates for flood insurance.

“We urgently need to reform our insurance system so that it can help us manage these risks effectively, even as we invest in measures to slow global warming and sea level rise and prepare for their impacts,” the report said. “Reforming our insurance system to reflect this growing exposure can help communicate the true risks to coastal communities so they are motivated to take protective steps.”

Congress enacted just such an overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program last summer, signing off on language that required FEMA to raise premium rates to reflect each property’s actual risk of flooding and to remap areas that are at higher risk than before. In recent months, though, lawmakers from coastal states have been trying to delay those rate increases by adding amendments to various bills on the move this session and introducing stand-alone