From the HSDL: A Guide to Building Private-Public Partnerships

COVID-19: Continued Attention Needed to Enhance Federal Preparedness, Response, Service Delivery, and Program Integrity

From Science: Reframing strategic, managed retreat for transformative climate adaptation

From TheConversation: As coastal flooding worsens, some cities are retreating from the water,

Cities all along the U.S. coasts have seen high-tide flooding days increase. In 2021, the U.S. coasts are projected to see an average of three to seven high-tide flooding days, rising to 25-75 days by midcentury, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns in its annual high-tide flooding outlook, released July 14, 2021.

From Grist: Flood me once, shame on me. Flood me twice, shame on FEMA?
A 20-year-old law would have made communities more resilient to climate change. FEMA didn’t enforce it.

Thanks to the folks at the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, CO. here is a recent book list they compiled for their conference now underway. It features books related to disasters and emergency management published in the past few years.

I know my readers are interested in new books and I thought this list would be useful to you.

Federal Government Survey Finds Employee Satisfaction in How Agencies Dealt with COVID-19. An excerpt:

Out of the 17 total large agencies, the Department of Homeland Security ranked last with an engagement score of 61.1. Of the department’s components, the United States Coast Guard is ranked 107 out of 411 of the total federal sub-departments with a score of 77.1 as the best federal workspace in DHS.

From the WashPost: The real damage: Why FEMA is denying disaster aid to Black families that have lived for generations in the Deep South. An excerpt:

More than a third of Black-owned land in the South is passed down informally, rather than through deeds and wills, according to land use experts. It’s a custom that dates to the Jim Crow era, when Black people were excluded from the Southern legal system. When land is handed down like this, it becomes heirs’ property, a form of ownership in which families hold property collectively, without clear title.

People believed this protected their land, but the Department of Agriculture has found that heirs’ property is “the leading cause of Black involuntary land loss.” Without formal deeds, families are cut off from federal loans and grants, including from FEMA, which requires that disaster survivors prove they own their property before they can get help rebuilding.

From Scientific American: Miami Building Collapse Could Profoundly Change Engineering. To pin down causes of the structure’s failure, investigators will probably gather its original design drawings, test its remains and run simulations of how well it could withstand forces.

New York’s patchwork recovery masks vast inequities laid bare by Covid
Economic recovery examined by The Guardian.