Infrastructure improvements
See this article from Homeland Security Newswire titled NJ Faces Costly Water Instrastructure Upgrades.
Before Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey, state officials knew they had much work ahead of them to update the state’s water infrastructure. The damage Sandy inflicted only highlighted the inadequacies of New Jersey’s outdated wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water infrastructure. Upgrading the system will be costly, but not doing so will be costlier.
From the Denver Post an article titled: Colorado wildfire task force tackles building in burn zones.
The current fires in the Colorado Springs area are now said to be the worst on recovery for the state of CO. After last year’s devastating and nearly “worst fire” in the state’s history, the governor set up a task force to look and the issue of wildfires and make recommendations. They issued recommendations and this article in yesterday’s Denver Post discusses them. The issues are sensible and even acknowledge that those who want to live in wildfire prone areas should shoulder more of the financial responsibility for their choice and not depend on everyone else to subsidize their decision.
Thanks to Jude Colle for pointing out this article.
Today the NY Times has an editorial titled Prying Private Eyes, which makes the point that there are too many private contractors in the intelligence field. Their opening paragraph:
Whatever one thinks about Edward Snowden and his revelations about government snooping, the case has been a useful reminder of the extent to which the government has outsourced intelligence work to the private sector and the risks in doing so.
The Diva has both worked for government and been a contractor, so she takes a keen interest in this topic. Although the focus in on those with security clearances, I think the new interest and criticism of contractors is going to affect a wide range of specialists. The NYT Time editorial makes the point that a contractor costs 1.6 times as much as a government employee.
Your comments are invited.
NOAA has collected data that shows The 8 years with the most $1 billion weather disasters.
I get a bit weary of the whining from politicians in states like TX and OK, who are anti-government and in particular hostile to the federal government. Yet,when a disaster occurs in their state, the politicians go for every federal dollar they can identify.
Recently, the State of TX was turned down for a declaration regarding the fertilizer plant in the community of West. That was a truly tragic event, but several protective public actions, such as zoning, government inspections, and the existence of the Local Emergency Planning Council might have helped avoid the tragic explosion.
The official explanation for the turndown is as follows:
Texas’ request for Stafford Act Major Disaster Declaration was denied because there was no evidence presented that the State of Texas lacked the fiscal resources to address the remaining $17 million in estimated uninsured public infrastructure restoration costs arising from the tragic explosion in West,” according to a statement from FEMA officials.
One more explanation of the turndown process, June 23 in the NY Times.
The exact title is A Stronger, More Resilient New York; this is a 222 page report and no exec. summary seems to be available. On June 11, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced “A Stronger, More Resilient New York”, a comprehensive plan that contains actionable recommendations both for rebuilding the communities impacted by Sandy and increasing the resilience of infrastructure and buildings citywide.
Due to the size of this report, several options are available for those who wish to print the report, including both single pages and two-page spreads. Single pages print best on Letter-sized paper, while two-page spreads print best on Ledger-sized paper.
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From the Architectural Record a short article commenting on the two recent reports from NYC.
My friend and colleague Kim Stephens has an interesting posting on her blog (idisaster) today that may be of interest to readers of this bloog. See: #CrisisMapping for Recovery: Crisis Clean Up–A Collaboration Tool
The direct URL for the service described is here.
As noted in this Homeland Security News Wire article, recent disasters are posing new challenges to emergency management planners. US Cities Preparing for Disaster.The most original part of this article is a discussion of the Chief Resilience Officer for a city. It provides some of the background for the concept, which was developed in Israel.
See the article titled Levees, removable walls part of $20 billion plan to protect NYC from storms, climate change.
And this article from the NY Daily News: Bloomberg rolls out $20 billion plan to protect city from natural disasters
Issue of new Flood Maps and Their Effect on Rebuilding, from ProPublica.
From the NYTimes on June 13, an article about the need for a major overhaul of local building codes.
Recovery Diva 