Here’s a rather random post, on a day when Tsunamis and Earthquakes are in the news.
The USGS has published an online handbook “intended to be a resource for people affected by landslides to acquire further knowledge about the conditions that are unique to their neighborhoods and communities.” And, maybe, a resource for those of us who know nothing about landslides and their effects.
(I need a tag for this item called “not-sure-how-I-feel-about-this”)
In case you don’t get enough storm stories from the Weather Channel’s “When Weather Changed History” series, the National Archives has produced a boxed set of DVDs, available at your local Sam’s Club or Costco:
Washington, DC…The National Archives announces the release of Natural Disasters, the first collection in a new series of boxed DVD sets entitled Our Planet Earth. Produced in partnership with Topics Entertainment, Our Planet Earth will focus on the preservation and conservation of our natural resources and the protection of our environment. The series will feature motion pictures created by the Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Selected by film archivists from the National Archives vast motion picture holdings, Natural Disasters chronicles some of the world’s most devastating earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, and volcanoes—random acts of nature that have altered the world’s economy, threatened and disrupted millions of earth’s inhabitants, cost thousands of human lives, and at times changed the course of history. Also recounted are the heroic efforts of relief workers to return cities to normal and the attempts of local governments to better prepare for future events.
Included among the gripping documentaries are:
- Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989), an examination of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake that destroyed the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Cypress Street Viaduct and disrupted the World Series.
- Day of the Killer Tornadoes (1978), the story of 147 deadly tornadoes that swept across Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and other states in a 24-hour period.
- A Hurricane Called Betsy (1966), which recounts Hurricane Betsy’s 3,000-mile trip from the Caribbean through the Bahamas, Miami, the Florida Keys, and along the Gulf Coast to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
- Eruption of Mt. St. Helens (1980–81), featuring reenactments, personal recollections, and narration of the historic eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
- The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936), a classic film about the Dust Bowl that includes a climactic dust storm sequence in which day suddenly becomes night and the landscape changes from moment to moment.
Seeing the tag line, “24 Intense Films” gave me pause – I don’t think it’ll be on the Christmas list for our 7-year old budding meteorologist, much as he would probably enjoy them….
American Heritage magazine features an interesting article, “Heavy Rescue”, describing the history of search and rescue, and looking into the future.
The article covers both the improvements in technology and management of crises such as building collapse over time. This description of search and rescue operations in London during WW2 caught my attention, for instance:
Out of such chaos came timeless lessons in crisis management. Quickly discovering that a major collapse would turn out any number of local and regional units who sometimes began arguing over the next steps, British authorities invented the role of the “new incident officer,” typically an air-raid warden with good judgment who knew the neighborhood. After filing an initial report, he would set up a portable desk complete with blank forms. The desk flew a blue flag and also mounted a blue battery-powered lamp for night work. The incident officer wore a blue cloth cover on his hard hat. To all other emergency personnel arriving, the blue meant “check here before doing anything,” thus prioritizing critical tasks and preventing one team’s work from endangering another’s. One of the most important jobs—neglected by amateurs —was to fan out through the neighborhood to gather information on how many people might be trapped below. Without such information, rescue parties were sure to waste their efforts. Similar systemization can still be seen today at some emergency sites, where the incident commander works from a portable desk unfolded from the rear of his vehicle … often sporting a green or blue lamp.
The author, James R. Chiles, is also the author of Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology. The review from Publisher’s Weekly: “In a book that is much more than a litany of disaster and tips on survival, Chiles also offers fascinating, detailed analyses of “system fractures” chains of events yielding catastrophes.” If you are a U of R student or faculty member, take advantage of our distance education delivery service and have the book sent to you.
This item came to my attention a while ago (it was first published in July 2009), but I finally got a minute to actually look at it.
In the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes, coordination and collaboration challenges created obstacles during the government’s response and recovery efforts. Because of the many stakeholders involved in recovery, including all levels of government, it is critical to build collaborative relationships. Building on GAO’s September 2008 report which provided several key recovery practices from past catastrophic disasters, this report presents examples of how federal, state, and local governments have effectively collaborated in the past. GAO reviewed five catastrophic disasters—the Loma Prieta earthquake (California, 1989), Hurricane Andrew (Florida, 1992), the Northridge earthquake (California, 1994), the Kobe earthquake (Japan, 1995), and the Grand Forks/Red River flood (North Dakota and Minnesota, 1997)—to identify recovery lessons. GAO interviewed officials involved in the recovery from these disasters and experts on disaster recovery. GAO also reviewed relevant legislation, policies, and the disaster recovery literature.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) to create a mechanism focused on sharing information and lessons learned regarding disaster recovery, including good collaborative practices. The Department of Homeland Security concurred with our recommendation.
The idea of looking for ‘lessons learned’ across a different types of disasters struck me as interesting. We tend to see research done on the after-effects of hurricanes, for example, but why shouldn’t there be lessons for emergency planners in all types of disaster recoveries?