I know this is a bit off message, but I recently ran across a fascinating report on the likely future issues for higher education that I highly recommend. The report is 77 pages, but easy to read; the title is The Avalanche is Coming. issued in March 2013, by the Institute for Public Policy Research.
After the two major sets of tornadoes that were so devastating in OK in late May, this is a good time to review some facts and myths about tornadoes. See this summary sheet on Tornado Facts and Myths from FLASH – the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes.
Also, here is a related story on the relationship between construction practices and damage after a tornado. Some excerpts from that article:
Damage costs are rising because of increased population density, even in mostly rural states such as Oklahoma, which has seen substantial urban sprawl in the last decade, said Greg Carbin, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Another important reason that has received less attention, is that most homes in tornado alley are not built to withstand even a modest tornado.
The result is that residents of tornado alley, insurance companies and the U.S. government are footing a mounting bill from damage that could be limited with better construction, according to several engineers, meteorologists and consumer advocates interviewed by Reuters.
“We have to stop this cycle of a storm coming along destroying things and we build them back the same,” said Leslie Chapman-Henderson, chief executive of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, a consumer group. “That is the official definition of insanity.”
Oklahoma should follow the example of Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and adopt a tougher building code to reduce damage in future, said Prevatt, Assistant Professor of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida.
I have been doing some research lately on the Moore, OK tornadoes and am having a surprisingly hard time finding useful websites for basic information about that disaster. I wish it were easier to do basic information gathering for case studies and to document not only response but especially recovery in a useful and consistent way so that cases could be compared and contrasted. Sadly, that is not the situation presently in the U.S. And from a few conversations with Canadian colleagues, they too are having a hard time getting information about recovery. Both countries would benefit from a knowledge base about local recovery. But that is the topic for another conversation.
The main purpose of today’s posting is to give credit to the city of Joplin for its extraordinary website — www.joplinmo.org. Local leaders are to be commented for a website that is a model of practical and essential information about a city recovering from a disaster. For example, see the page titled Fact Sheet.
If more cities that were recovering from a disaster shared the kind of data and information that Joplin has, researchers, practitioners, and others could readily do the studies we so desperately need to document the recovery process. I think such a website should be a requirement as a condition of receiving a federal declaration!
PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING: Update on June 12: Please note that this posting is not meant to criticize Moore for not having a fact-filled website in a matter of weeks after the disaster.My suggestion is one that would be addressed by the public officials assisting Moore and the other impacted areas; it is not something additional that citizens have to do.
The state, which has sponsored the site StrongOK, has done a pretty good job with its website in the short term. Since the State has asked for and received a Presidential Disaster Declaration, it has signed a contract that requires it to make public its expenditures of federal money and also to take mitigative actions regarding future tornadoes and other hazards. Consequently, all of the political officials should be aware of these requirements and comply with them.
I am of the opinion that all cities that have had a major disaster might consider creating a substantive website when they get into the recovery phase, because I think it would help those wanting to assist, and those documenting the event. And it might cut down on phone calls and other requests for information.
An opinion piece in the Wash. Post, June 2, titled The Gulf of Mexico Cannot Wait, makes it clear that receiving money is not enough to move forward on a complicated and delicate project to deal with the harm done by the BP Oil spill to the Gulf of Mexico. Bureaucratic squabbling and lack of vision for dealing with the environmental and ecological issues has prevented progress.
Here are the direct links to two items mentioned in the article:
From the Chronicle of Education, an article is titled After Catastrophe, though it really is about resilience.
A collection of quotes and excerpts from a variety of educators dealing with resilience.
Mitigating fires in the wildland-urban interface
More than forty-six million residential structures in about 70,000 communities in the United States are located in the so-called wildland-urban interface (WUI). On average, WUI fires destroy 3,000 buildings annually. They accounted for six of the ten most costly fires in the United States over the last 100 years. Five of these fires occurred in California, where the incidence of wildfires currently is up 47 percent this year over last.
From CBS news an article titled Hurricane Season Starts, FL and NY most at risk. Some excerpts:
Batten down the hatches: In the wake of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s prediction that 2013 will be an “active or extremely active” hurricane season, a new report finds that more than 4.2 million American homes are at risk of storm-surge damage – with Florida and New York leading the pack. That includes about 1 million U.S. homes in “high risk” areas.
The report, from CoreLogic, looked at the risk to single-family homes from storm surges – water being pushed onto land, usually due to the impact of a major storm. NOAA predicts that there is a 70 percent chance there will be 13-20 “named storms” in the Atlantic in the 2013 season, which officially kicks off Saturday.
That includes seven to 11 storms that could become hurricanes and three to six that could become major hurricanes, with winds of 111 miles per hour or higher. The prediction meets or exceeds the seasonal average of 12 named storms and three major hurricanes per year.
Florida homeowners face the greatest risk from a storm surge. Nearly 1.5 million homes in the state are at risk for damage from a surge, including more than 618,000 that are at extreme or very high risk. Louisiana has the second most at-risk homes, with 411,000, followed by Texas (369,000), New Jersey (351,000) and Virginia (329,000). Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand.
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Update on June 3: FEMA Director Craig Fugate gave this advice to residents of FL:
Craig Fugate has one overriding message for all Florida residents, now that the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is underway: “The price of living in paradise is to get prepared and quit using excuses.”
“Complacency is just a dumb excuse people use to say I’m not worried, I’m not going to get ready,” the chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.
The American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter presented a report, Getting Back to Business: Addressing the Needs of Rockaway Businesses Affected by Superstorm Sandy, to the Rockaway Development and Revitalization Corporation (RDRC), culminating a seven-month effort to address business recovery and resilience on the Rockaway peninsula after Superstorm Sandy.
Despite best efforts, approximately half of the Rockaway’s 1,100 businesses are still closed. To address this, the chapter brought together dozens of planning experts to volunteer their services to develop medium and long-term strategies for RDRC, the peninsula’s largest community development corporation.
Read the full press release about the report at the APA New York Metro Chapter website or read the entire report: “Getting Back to Business: Addressing the Needs of Rockaway Businesses Affected by Superstorm Sandy”
Joplin as a model recovery example and one of the useful features of their efforts is the exemplary website the city has produced; see: www.joplinmo.org
I ran across it while trying to determine how Joplin is doing two years after its devastating tornado disaster event. See this Fact Sheet for basic info re Joplin the damage, impacts, and outcomes of recovery.
I wish every city engaged in disaster recovery did this. We would finally have the basis for some serious case studies, and cross case comparisons needed to build a significant recovery knowledge base.
NYC – Columbia University:
Since a lot of readers have indicated interest in these courses, I want to let you know that 3 new ones are available now. Go to this site for a catalog of courses available. Most are related to health emergencies.
And remember that FEMA offers a large no. of free courses and training opportunities; see this listing.
Recovery Diva 