It is not often that a FEMA person can be this candid about a country’s response capabilities; in fact, about the only way to do it is to be retired! Long-time employee and long-time critic of FEMA, Leo Bosner, wrote this account recently: Can Japan Respond Better to its Next Large Disaster? [Published in japanfocus.org; no date.] In this 10 page article, he lists 10 problem areas and also offers some suggestions to the Japanese government. From his introduction:
Having worked for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for nearly thirty years, the subject of my fellowship was Japan’s response to a large-scale disaster, and whether it could be improved. Under it, I interviewed individuals who were involved in or were familiar with the response to the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster in eastern Japan and lectured on local-level disaster response planning. * * * I focused on the overall response to the earthquake/ tsunami.
First and foremost, it was clear to me that the Government of Japan simply does not have a comprehensive, realistic plan for responding to large disasters. Rather, the Japan Government’s disaster response plan seems to consist of numerous government agency plans that are unrelated to each other. In many cases these plans failed to address or even acknowledge problems that were occurring in the field. In part, this is because the government lacks trained, experienced disaster response professionals. As a result, the government’s response to the March 11 disaster was poorly managed and coordinated, and many people suffered needlessly. * * *
Note that Bosner also has some harsh words for his former employer and comments on the state of FEMA at the time of Hurricane Katrina. See Bosner’s reply in the Comments section.
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Catstrophic Insurance Study
The Benefits of a Multi-State Catastrophic Risk Pool. HS Wire, March 13. The Diva admits right up front that she is not an insurance expert, but this study seemed to be worth mentioning. Some excerpts follow:
The study’s findings are particularly relevant in the wake of Sandy, which pelted coastal and inland regions with high winds, driving rains, heavy snow and flooding along the Eastern Seaboard. Kinetic Analysis projects that that storm’s direct impacts could run as high as $25 billion, excluding the New York City underground infrastructure.
Sandy has renewed calls for a federal catastrophe plan that creates risk pools across larger geographic areas — along with objections that doing so will force low-risk areas to subsidize high-risk states.
The study found, however, that the opposite to be true. As geographic diversity increased, funding levels for sustainable catastrophic risk pools decreased relative to premiums, actually resulting in savings for both low and high risk areas.
“If subsidies are created in this setting, it is due to incorrect risk pricing rather than the risk itself,” said FSU’s Dumm. “Our analysis found that each state derives benefits from geographic diversification regardless of risk ranking. In fact, failure to diversify catastrophic wind risk may impose its own set of costs in the form of lost diversification benefits that exist precisely where they are needed, for less frequent and more severe catastrophic events.”
Related articles
Deterrents to Personal Preparedness – attitude …..
The article is titled Why you Are in Denial About Disasters. But the bottom half of the article is worth reading for insights into matters of attitude and motivation.
Which brings me to my favorite picture of the week: talk about bad attitude! This is “Grumpy Cat,” and I appreciate his willingness to illustrate the article.
FEMA Receives Prestigious Making a Difference Award; Thursday, 14 March 2013. Award given at Esri Federal GIS Conference for Superstorm Sandy Response. [FEMA is the user of the ESRI technology.] According the article in Surveyer,
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) efforts to assist after the destruction of Superstorm Sandy—including its first-of-its-kind mapping platform, the GeoPlatform—were recognized by Esri at its annual Federal GIS Conference held in Washington, DC, February 25–27. The company honored FEMA with its prestigious Making a Difference Award, which recognizes organizations doing exemplary work using geospatial technology. * * *
A few of the powerful applications included the following:
• Check Your Home—People could click on the online map to see how many homes, neighborhoods, and communities were impacted. The application provided easy access to imagery FEMA collected immediately after the storm.
• Modeling Task Force Map—This map predicted flood areas that would incur damage. Desktop experts ran sophisticated models and published them to the web with updates happening almost daily
• Advisory Base Flood Elevation (ABFE)—FEMA issued ABFE maps post-Sandy for the recovery work. As rebuilding efforts take place, the maps and related information help people stay current with new floodplain and insurance guidelines.
Related articles
- FEMA Receives Prestigious Making a Difference Award (prnewswire.com)
- FEMA Receives Prestigious Making a Difference Award (virtual-strategy.com)
The FEMA Workforce – a new blog is needed
Once again I see that some of my past, slightly out-of-date postings about FEMA workforce issues continue to get a lot of hits. In the past I have done postings on topics ranging from higher education degree candidates/job seekers, current or potential reservists, and current or future FEMA Corps recruits. I know these are all topics of great interest to many people, but (1) I do not have the sources or contacts to continue discussing these topics and (2) they do not have much to do with recovery, which is my main focus.
So, as I offered previously, I will be glad to give advice and technical to anyone who wants to start a blog on FEMA workforce issues. I have 3 years of experience working with Word Press, which is a wonderful and inexpensive way to support a blog.
Climate Change as a National Security Issue
Climate change as a national security issue, published in HS Wire, Feb. 22.
“The net conclusion is that weather is changing dramatically in specific regions, and the nature of the change is that we’re seeing more record high temperatures and many, many fewer low-temperature records.”
“The bottom line is that our national security depends on our ability to sustain and augment our scientific and technical capacity to monitor unfolding events and forewarn of important changes,” Baker said. “The imminent increase in extreme events will affect water availability, energy use, food distribution, and critical infrastructure — all elements of both domestic and international security.”Other potential effects, McElroy said, are tied to changes in an atmospheric circulation pattern called the Hadley circulation, in which warm tropical air rises, resulting in tropical rains. As the air moves to higher latitudes, it descends, causing the now-dry air to heat up. Regions where the hot, dry air returns to the surface are typically dominated by desert.
Full text of the 134 page report from Harvard University is here.
A related report that may be of interest: 2013 WorldWide Threat Assessment. (March 13, 2013)
Related articles
- Climate Change Linked To Extreme Weather And National Security (planetsave.com)
- Weather warning: Climate change a national security issue (scienceblog.com)
- CIA-funded Study: Global warming ‘may have contributed’ to the Arab Spring (junkscience.com)
- New Harvard Report on Climate Extremes and National Security (climateandsecurity.org)
- Tom Ridge: ‘Climate change is a national security threat’ (pennlive.com)
