Sean Scott, the author of the Red Books, wrote to tell me about the products he has developed. One is The Red Guide to Recovery – Resource Handbook for Disaster Survivors, which was recently adopted by the State of California and supported by the California Fire Chief’s Association, the California Emergency Management Agency, and the American Red Cross.
A Personal Property Memory Jogger is available as a free download. This would be useful for victims of recent fires.
I just got back after attending this conference. More than 450 people from 21 countries participated. Great fun to see old friends and colleagues and meet many new ones. And several attendees said they enjoyed reading this blog, including a person based in Japan. It was great to meet some readers personally.
The Diva was moderator of a session called “What Keeps me Up at Night.” More details at a later date on the outcome of the session which was very popular and quite informative, in my view.
Check out the many resources on the website maintained by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado/Boulder.
Former Senator Gary Hart on “The West Is Burning,” 07/06/2012 . Text of article follows:
A genuinely conservative point of view would be that the West, indeed much of America, is warming, that the fires in the Rocky Mountains could well become an annual event, and that those who choose, as I do, to live in the mountains now must calculate the risk they assume by living in timbered areas. Somehow, this cautious view, a characteristic of conservatism, is the new “liberal” for those who distrust overwhelming scientific evidence.
The neo-conservative or ideologically anti-scientific mindset is the topic for much consideration. It has to do with denying the facts when the facts don’t support your preconceived opinions. There is a history of this, including the Roman Catholic Church’s threatened excommunication of Galileo.
But for us true Western conservatives, the fires are here and they require soul-searching. Quite a number of people in my area are now storing family memorabilia in units in the city, anticipating an evacuation order that may provide only minutes to round up children and pets. It’s a new lifestyle. This is the hottest summer in my memory in Colorado. There is now a persistent drought. Crops are drying up. Streams are dry. The air is smoky. And the winters bring less snow and cold. Something is going on.
Even the cautious Economist newspaper now has a special section documenting the warming of the entire Arctic. The good news is that ships will now be able to use the Northwest passage. The bad news is that it opens up the entire region for multi-national oil and gas development which, of course, will produce more carbon fuel to accelerate the global warming. For money conservatives this is a welcome thing. For nature conservatives, like me, it is pure disaster, disaster of epic proportions.
How do you prevent catastrophe when no single individual or nation is responsible? When behavior, in this case carbon consumption, is universal, how do you alter behavior on a mass scale? The single, simple answer, of course, is tax the carbon. Place an escalating price on its use until masses of people quit using it. But the money conservatives have made taxes and the governments who enact them demons.
The great historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book called The March of Folly. Folly she defined as blind pursuit of a destructive policy with knowledge that a better alternative exists. That’s us, folks. There is a special place in hell, wrote the immortal Dante, for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. How much worse place in hell must there be for those who perversely destroy Nature herself in the interest of money?
No one is responsible. We are all responsible. The black bears of the Rockies, actually a rich dark reddish-brown, are roaming the foothills with their cubs overturning trash barrels to stay alive. Meanwhile, their polar cousins are adrift on melting blocks of ice. I don’t want to live to see the last one die.
While most of the U.S. is suffering from excessive heat and more than 50% of the country is experiencing drought, it is a good time to strengthen our resolve to take actions to mitigate likely future hazards and threats.
From the OECD a report on Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes. The list of 20 cities, most of them major port cities throughout the world, is quite sobering. Both the abstract and the full report (63 pages) are available at the URL noted above.
As report in CNN today, the Japanese Parliament Report on Fukishima Disaster. The HuffPost made a big deal of the “man made-character of the Disaster.
For those who want to read the entire 88 page summary report, the link is here.[July 5, 2012]
Late in the day, the NY Times weighed in with its assessment.
The parliament of Japan
A compelling article on the need for a strong public sector; based on an interview with author of new book on climate change. Climate Disasters’ Toll Worsened by Sustained Attacks on Public Sector, Science and Regulation.
What’s missing from today’s discussions is not just the words “climate change,” but the words “public sector.”
Once again, the need for public sector involvement and leadership is highlighted. Sadly in this era of extreme cost-cutting, it is hard to heed the call.
On July 7th a Wash.Post article titled Washington’s Hell Week Puts Climate Change Back on the Agenda.
From the AP via the New Haven Register, an article titled Scientists: Climate change looks like today’s disasters. A short excerpt:
Is it just freakish weather or something more? Climate scientists suggest that if you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, take a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks.
It includes horrendous wildfires, oppressive heat waves, devastating droughts, flooding from giant deluges and a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.
These are the kinds of extremes experts have predicted will come with climate change, although it’s far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will scientists say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.
The article goes on to point out some fascinating details about the derecho affecting the eastern states presently. and more details are in the articles below.
A great deal of federal money, not to mention state and local funding, has gone into the National Capital Region since 9/11. In the four days since the powerful surprise thunderstorm last Friday night, local citizens and reporters are wondering why recovery is so slow. Among the major concerns are the capabilities of local electric utilities and why the 911 system failed.
In the Washington Post, on July 3, an article questioned the preparedness of the local power companies. And it raised questions about utility regulation and appropriate requirements for putting more power lines underground. And a Washington Post editorial on July 3 asks more hard questions.
On July 4, the Washington Post published an article saying that regulators in both MD and the District of Columbia accepted some of the blame for not effectively doing their job of overseeing the utility companies. I find that candor refreshing! Regardless of who is to blame, a lot of people are working hard to correct the situation. Even the local CERT chapters are helping out.
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From the Seattle Times, July 2, an article titled Colorado’s emergency-response teams burned by anti-tax attitudes. Some excerpts follow:
Because of conservative and libertarian sentiments and a no-tax pledge passed statewide 20 years ago, Colorado police and disaster-response teams are stretched thin as a virulent wildfire ravages land near Colorado Springs.
As Colorado Springs battles a rash of robberies after a wildfire that still licks at its boundaries, it does so with fewer police and firefighters and a limited tax base that may hamper its rebound.
The place where the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes and forced more than 34,000 residents to evacuate turned off one-third of its streetlights two years ago, halted park maintenance and cut services to close a $28 million budget gap after sales-tax revenue plummeted and voters rejected a property-tax increase.
The city, the state’s second-largest, with a population of 416,000, auctioned both its police helicopters and shrank its public-safety ranks through attrition by about 8 percent; it has 50 fewer police officers and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago. More than 180 National Guard troops have been mobilized to secure the city after the state’s most destructive fire. At least 32 evacuated homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees’ cars were broken into, said Police Chief Pete Carey.
“It has impacted the response,” said accountant Karin White, 54, who returned Thursday to a looted and vandalized home, with a treasured, century-old family heirloom smashed.
“They did above and beyond what they could do with the resources they had,” she said. “If there were more officers, there could have been more manpower in the evacuated areas.”
Since the start of the 18-month recession in December 2007, U.S. cities have faced shrinking revenue and diminishing state support, leading to budget cuts and reductions in services and workforces. Cities faced a fifth-straight year of revenue declines in 2011, according to the National League of Cities, which estimated that municipalities would have to fill budget gaps of as much as $83 billion from 2010-2012.
For a great summary of the issues and an excellent listing of research resources, see Phil Palin’s blog in Homeland Security Watch (June 30).
Two more articles on July 2nd deal with link between the massive fires and climate change. One in the LA Times, and another in the Washington Post.
Recovery Diva 