They have gathered together books, reports and articles on topics as diverse as Human Behavior, Federal Aid, Media, Coast Guard, Victims, Property Losses, Resilience… the list goes on and on. Books and articles are citation links only (unless you happen to be an NETC LRC patron), but many of the reports are linked directly through the LRC catalog.

If you’re a University of Richmond Library patron, feel free to contact me about getting access to any of the books and articles you find through this page.

[Image courtesy of NOAA's Environmental Visualization Program.]

There are three places I would look immediately for these reports. The first is on the open web. Many of the individual Corps of Engineers districts have their own websites, with linked documents. This is relatively easy if the information you are seeking is geographically-specific, such as New Orleans or Portland, OR. Searching USA.gov has also been made easier by recent improvements.

For University of Richmond users, our subscription to the Homeland Security Digital Library (accessible either on-campus or by using VPN) allows us to search a number of these documents easily. I did an Advanced Search, using the words “Army Corps of Engineers” in the Publisher field, and found many interesting items.

Finally, for reports ABOUT the Corps of Engineers, it always pays to look at my favorite government research agency, the Congressional Research Service. Open CRS doesn’t allow for many tweaks to a search, so choose your search terms carefully.

*I believe it was this one: “Federal Reports Show Levee Safety Issues in Northwest”. NPR very helpfully links to the full list of USACE reports referenced in the story.

The National Hurricane Study Program has been in existence for over 20 years and develops information for States and Counties to assist them in managing their resources to minimize the adverse effects resulting from hurricanes.

It’s an annoyingly “1.0″ website, with the only interactivity or action coming from a list of linked acronyms (no-one does them better – or worse – than the government) and a rotating Corps of Engineers castle. But the information linked under those acronyms is – where available – rich and useful. (There’s a huge number of ‘empty’ links for individual counties and areas, and the main website admits “it is far from complete”.) Everything from Post-Storm Assessments,  behavioral data on hurricane evacuation studies, a limited number of hurricane evacuation studies (some very dated), and maps with “SLOSH” data (expectations for Sea, Lake and Overland Surge from Hurricanes) and evacuation routes and surge maps are available for certain locals.

Data from individual areas can also be found by using the “Other Links – State/County/City” link. This is where the website could really be useful. For Virginia, for example, the following information is available:

Florida’s State Emergency Response Team (SERT) has long been a leader in providing emergency and preparedness information to the public in innovate ways. They have a YouTube channel, extensive public readiness information on their main web page and a daily “Situation Report” page that gives information about the state’s Emergency Operations center readiness, as well as meteorological predictions (including space weather). But by far the most interesting and current use of their web tech-savvy is the Geospatial Assessment Tool for Operations and Response.

This interactive site, based on Google Earth images, gives users the ability to layer multiple types of information, including RECON Reports, weather forecasts, area contingency plans, tidal reports and more, and view them together. Satellite, street and nautical chart mapping are all options as well. The RECON reports include pictures where available. Here’s an example, from a “Priority” (Yellow) report from Escambia Perdido, near Pensecola. Fascinating and depressing, all at the same time.

Here’s an amazing find, thanks to those good folks at the US Fire Administration Library. 290 titles are included so far, with topics ranging from technical reports on investigations of specific fires, to public education, to training manuals for firefighters and educational material for administrators. Technical overviews, such as “Fire in the United States: 1986-1995“, transcripts from Congressional hearings and special reports and analysis are also included, making this resource indispensable for researchers. Like anything from Google, it’s easy to search, either within individual titles or the entire collection; someone has also very helpfully organized the titles into a few specific subjects, such as arson, fire prevention, etc.

With U of R alumni (and former “Leader-in-Residence” at the Jepson School) Leland Melvin serving as a mission specialist on this shuttle flight, I couldn’t help but mention NASA’s great online database of hurricane and typhoon images and information. With everything from current storm outlooks to educator resources to 3-D views of historic storms, it’s a fantastic resource.

(far left) Spider Leland Melvin

DISASTER RECOVERY
Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for Effective Collaboration after Catastrophic Events

Highlights of GAO-09-811, a report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

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?

The National Library of Medicine maintains a collection of more than 30 environmental health websites under the auspices of the Environmental Health and Toxicology SIS (Specialized Information Services). Topics covered range from the specific (Health effects from the collapse of the World Trade Center) to the general (Tornadoes).  The links contained within each page vary, but most begin with a set of ‘Overview’ links, all from US Government sites, and then may go on to include links to glossaries, data and research sites, and law and policy. Almost all include links to specialized research from the National Library of Medicine’s databases, such as Pubmed, Toxline, Hazardous Substances Data Bank, ChemID Plus, Household Products Database, Tox Town and Medline Plus.

New hurricane guides available
“The Hampton Roads Emergency Management Committee and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and VDEM have redesigned the Virginia Hurricane Guide. As part of the Ready Virginia public information campaign, the guide contains essential hurricane season information, such as evacuation routes, traffic reversal plans along Interstate 64, bridge/tunnel/ferry closure plans in the Hampton Roads area and family preparedness.

New sections of the guide explain staying in place versus evacuation, the importance of storm surge, and how public shelters are designed to help evacuees. The revised evacuation route section clarifies that I-64 is only one of many evacuation routes, and the guide gives detailed instruction about how to make a family emergency plan, get an emergency supply kit and stay informed during emergencies.

For the 2009 hurricane season, 250,000 copies of the guide were printed; most will be distributed by state and local agencies, private businesses and nonprofit organizations. Any organization interested in distributing the guides should contact the VDEM Public Affairs Office at (866) 782-3470. An interactive, Web-based version is also available at www.ReadyVirginia.gov. A federal homeland security grant paid for the printing costs.”

This follows last month’s H1N1 Summit, hosted at the National Institutes of Health. I can’t seem to find an archived copy of the webcast, which was streamed live, but this blog post by J. Solomon (“In case of emergency, read blog…”) gives a great overview and links to video from several key speakers.