Some Tornado Science and History

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Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley

NBC has done a nice job explaining some of the science behind the OK city tornado outbreaks.  And they provide an interesting chart that compares the current events with the deadly tornadoes of 1999, which is the frame of reference for many people in OK. The article is titled Curse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley’s past and future

Related article

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I never get the kind of info I want from the news accounts. Since OK is centrally located in Tornado Alley, I would like to know things like:

  • what type of building/construction codes were in place in OK City?
  • what percentage of the population had a storm cellar or a safe room in their house?
  • how much tornado preparedness information and/or training was provided locally?

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It is worth citing the quote from the Christian Science Monitor that I mentioned in May 2011, right after the devastating Joplin, MO tornadoes:

Yet the stunning death tolls from tornadoes this spring raise new questions about government subsidies for storm shelters, the psychology of warning response, the possibility of limited tornado evacuations, and the argument that tornado warning and response should be considered a national security issue.

Hurricane Preparedness Journal Articles – free access from Taylor and Francis

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In an effort to boost preparedness for hurricanes in the approaching season, the publishing firm of Taylor and Francis has selected about  30 articles that are pertinent to hurricanes.  Many more articles are available here.

They have grant readers free access to selected journal articles about hurricanes that they have published in the past few years.  One article (cited on page 2) may be of special  interest among our readers: The Long Road Home: Race, Class and Recovery After H. Katrina.

Post Script on the last posting — some comments from pollster John Zogby

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In my quest to get more details about the recent poll on American disaster preparedness, I wrote to Mr. John Zogby the noted pollster who co-authored the article with SUNYIT.  (More details about that poll will be available in the future.)

He offered the following observations about the findings:

I have been polling since 1984 and have a perspective on these things. When I first started: Americans still littered and smoked, and they did not recycle. We have changed a lot. Here are some of things I have shared with clients and audiences along the way:

  1. Fear is not the motivator we hope it will be. People just don’t want to live their lives looking over their shoulders. The message has to be more pro-active, protecting our children, providing a safer world and community
  2. They will always trust the personal, familial, and local more than bigger agencies.
  3. When Margaret Mead testified before the Senate about whether or not Americans would conserve on energy in the 1970s she noted that if the cause is right, the leadership is there, and everyone is assured that everyone else is participating, they will do it.
  4. Today, most children come home from Kindergarten their first day of school with a message about saving the earth by not littering and about recycling. This is the long-haul strategy, too.

So, I guess we need the take the long view and keep trucking!!!

Americans Neither Worried Nor Prepared re Disasters – poll results

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Well, win some lose some.  Just when I was feeling encouraged by previous post which features a report that talks about future threats/hazards/disasters, all of which require renewing and increasing efforts to deal with them, along comes a poll with some very discouraging news about the status of popular awareness and intelligence about threats and hazards and current preparedness efforts.

This news comes from a recent SUNYIT-Zogby Analytics Poll with the results reported on in Forbes. See: Americans Neither Worried Nor Prepared In Case of a Disaster.   As someone who has spent decades trying to enlighten our citizenry and public officials, this report is terrible news.  Here are some excerpts:

Only one in four Americans or less are concerned that an emergency situation like a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or health pandemic will affect their community, according to a new SUNYIT/Zogby Analytics Poll.

The poll of 1,000 adults nationwide was conducted online by Zogby Analytics on May 8-9 and has a margin of sampling error of +/-3.2 percentage points. A wide range of national security topics was covered.When asked of the likelihood if a series of emergency situations were to occur in their community, the following percentages said the emergency was “likely” or “very likely”: 26% a general emergency, 24% an industrial accident, 23% a natural disaster, 20% a mass shooting, 19% a terrorist attack, and 15% a health pandemic.

If such an emergency situation were to occur, the most likely locations cited were a shopping mall (46%), an airport or train station (43%), a stadium or arena (42%), on a bus/plane or train (38%), an outdoor sporting or community event (35%), a school (30%), a roadway (28% ) or office building (28%), a bridge (27%), a hospital (25%), or at home (22%).

While 55% of respondents said that they were “confident in (their) knowledge of proper safety procedures”, only 36% said that they presently “have an emergency plan in place” in case of a major emergency.In case of a neighborhood emergency, Americans expressed more confidence in their family’s preparedness (53%) over local government (44%), their airport (41%), local school (39%), or employer (31%). In case of a national emergency, Americans are most trusting in local law enforcement in case of a shooting (58%), the FBI in case of a terrorist attack (53%), the Centers for Disease Control in case of a pandemic (49%), and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in case of a natural disaster (45%).

The results suggest to me that not only are people complacent or apathetic, they also are not making the correct assumptions about who and what organizations/institutions they could rely on. Has anyone been reading the research, books, or informed articles the emergency management community has produced????

New Strategic Foresight Initiatives Report from FEMA

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The latest report from the Strategic Foresight Initiatives program at FEMA is titled Toward More Resilient Futures: Putting Foresight into Practice.  It was issued May 2013; 46 pp.

I read it over quickly, and I liked some of it and did not like other parts.  The part I liked least was Section 3, Bold Leaders in Action, which I did not find inspiring. I was expecting a discussion of resilience and some mention of the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences titled Disaster Resilience; A National Imperative, because DHS was one of the funding sources. Oh, well.

For more information about the activities and reports of FEMA’s Strategic Foresight Initiative go to this website.

NYC’s CDBG Recovery Plan Approved by HUD

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This approval follows those mentioned earlier, for the State of the NY and NJ.  As of May 10, the NY city plan was reported as approved. More details are available on this website of the city government.

Some excerpts of the new article:

Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced HUD’s approval of New York City’s disaster recovery plan to help homeowners and businesses following Hurricane Sandy.  Funded through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program, New York City’s action plan calls for a combined $1.77 billion investment in a variety of housing, infrastructure and business recovery activities.

The federal government has been on the ground since Sandy struck and will continue to provide substantial resources and technical assistance until the entire region is rebuilt safer, better and stronger. To date, FEMA has provided over $1.2 billion in individual and public assistance in New York City and the Small Business Administration has provided over $1.4 billion in disaster recovery loans to businesses throughout New York State.

Donovan, who also chairs President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, said today’s approval will allow the City to begin the long-term process of rebuilding damaged housing, restoring infrastructure, and stimulating business activity and job growth.“This plan is truly a neighborhood-based approach to disaster recovery,” said Donovan. “We’ve worked closely with Mayor Bloomberg, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and the New York Congressional Delegation throughout this process to help families get back in their homes, jumpstart local economies and make communities more resilient.”

Leadership – some new resources

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In recent weeks, two topics have been keeping me up at night:

(1) The sheer volume of guidance, reports, documents, directives and the like that are coming from FEMA and other federal agencies responsible for emergency management.

As  noted in an earlier posting, there is an inverse relationship between the volume of materials to be read and understood and incorporated into planning in practice and the resources (personnel and money) available at the state and local levels of government. I assume also that the Red Cross and many non-governmental organizations also are feeling the effects of sequester-driven and other budget reductions.

(2) Leadership, primarily lack of.  The very agencies who issue the documents noted above are not willing or not able to show the flag and lead the way. Just today, the Wash. Post noted huge cutbacks in the number of meteorologist on staff at the National Weather Service and their ability to perform vital functions n times of weather emergencies are seriously impaired.

Somehow the requirements have to be streamlined and rationalized so that the reduced workforce and resource base can get the most essential tasks and functions done, and at the same time the reports and non-essential paperwork requirements get reduced.

As promised, here is some new material on the topic of leadership:

Two weeks ago the Diva was in London Ontario, participating in an invitational conference on Leaderships held at the University of Western Ontario. The small group of participants was comprised on Canadian and American professionals in the various elements of emergency management. You can see some of the past work of the organization, and in the near future I expect they will post a proceedings of the conference. [(I will feature that fact and provide a URL when it is available.)

One of the documents shared at the conference was the report titled: Leadership on Trial: a Manifesto for Leadership Development (2010). For a preview of the report and ordering info, go to this site. 

Costly New NFIP Rules Discourage Rebuilding After Superstorm Sandy

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Rebuilding After Sandy But With Costly New Rules. NYTimes, May 8. The discussion of subsidized insurance and issues with older homes is useful to understand some of the rebuilding delays occurring currently.

Here are some excerpts:

It’s been more than six months since Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, yet many people whose homes were ravaged by the storm still do not know how to put all the pieces back together.By now, most know how much insurance money they have to work with, though plenty of people are still struggling to get more. But a new federal law that happened to coincide with the arrival of the storm will cause flood insurance premiums to skyrocket and require stricter, and thus more expensive, rebuilding standards

So in the most devastated communities, families are being forced to make difficult financial calculations: can they afford the new flood insurance premiums, which, at worst, can reach as high as $30,000 a year? Do they have the money to rebuild their homes to the government’s new specifications? Does it even pay to stay?

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Two readers called this article to my attention. And Ian McLean from New Zealand pointed out that his country has a similar problem with earthquake insurance in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes.