From Brassville to... (working title)

The State of High Tide Flooding and Annual Outlook (NOAA) Each year, NOAA documents changes in high-tide flooding patterns from the previous year at 98 NOAA tide gauges along the U.S. coast, and provides a flooding outlook for these locations for the coming year, as well as projections for the next several decades. High-tide flooding, often referred to as “nuisance” or “sunny day” flooding, is increasingly common due to years of relative sea level increases. It occurs when tides reach anywhere from 1.75 to 2 feet above the daily average high tide and start spilling onto streets or bubbling up from storm drains. As sea level rise continues, damaging floods that decades ago happened only during a storm now happen more regularly, such as during a full-moon tide or with a change in prevailing winds or currents.

Evidence-Based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response: Assessment of and Recommendations for the Field (NAS) When communities face complex public health emergencies, state local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies must make difficult decisions regarding how to effectively respond. The public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system, with its multifaceted mission to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, is inherently complex and encompasses policies, organizations, and programs. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has invested billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of human capital to develop and enhance public health emergency preparedness and infrastructure to respond to a wide range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. Despite the investments in research and the growing body of empirical literature on a range of preparedness and response capabilities and functions, there has been no national-level, comprehensive review and grading of evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response practices comparable to those utilized in medicine and other public health fields.

Articles

All-Hazards:

Oil Spills: New Lessons from the Worst Oil Spill Disaster Ever (HS Newswire)
Partnerships Prove Vital During Community Coronavirus Response (EM /Gov Tech)
Dispatches from Navajo Nation and Its Battle with COVID-19 (Governing)
Maryland Uncovers Fraudulent Unemployment Claims Scheme (Pew: Stateline)
Data Reveals How Washington DC Region Is Weathering Economic Downturn(MWCOG)
A New Way Of Looking At Earthquake Plans (Dom Prep)
How Peer-To-Peer Texting Could Play A Role In Disaster And Pandemic Response(Nextgov) and Social Media Analytics to Help in Emergency(iHLS)
Hurricane Maria’s Impact On Puerto Rico’s Population Will Last For Decades, Study Shows (Phys.org)

Resilience:

New Data Show an ‘Extraordinary’ Rise in U.S. Coastal Flooding (NY Times)
Miami Broke an All-Time Record for High Tide Floods in 2019, NOAA Says (Bradenton Herald)
N.J. Campaign Urges Protection Against Increased Flood Risk (EM /Gov Tech)

Public Health / Biosurveillance:

Association Between State-Level Income Inequality and COVID-19 Cases and Mortality in the USA (J of General Internal Medicine)
Florida Breaks U.S. Coronavirus Record for Most New Cases in a Day (New York Times)
Reopened Schools in Europe and Asia Have Largely Avoided Coronavirus Outbreaks. They Have Lessons for the U.S.(Washington Post)
Scientists Call for Pandemic Investigations to Focus on Wildlife Trade(Nature)
California Closes Indoor Businesses Statewide As COVID-19 Cases Surge (NPR)
How to Fix the Covid-19 Dumpster Fire in the U.S.(STAT)
Hospital Officials, Experts Say New Federal Rules for Covid-19 Reporting Will Add Burdens During Pandemic(Washington Post)
BARDA, Sonica Health to Develop Wearable COVID-19 Infection Monitoring Patch. (Homeland Preparedness News)
Scientists Create a Speedy Finger-prick Test to Scan for Radiation Exposure in Mice(STAT News)
Sandia National Laboratories launches desktop data mining effort to aid COVID-19 research efforts (Homeland Prep News)
Mask Rules Expand Across U.S. as Clashes Over the Mandates Intensify (New York Times)
Covid-19 Data is a Public Good. The US Government Must Start Treating it Like One (MIT Technology Review)
Democratic Republic of the Congo Ebola Cases Rise, Surpass Previous Outbreak (World Health Organization)

Critical Infrastructure & Cyber:

Innovations & Interconnections:

Report: Governments Should Turn to AI Before Disaster Strikes (Pew: Rt. Fifty)
Stranded Assets: Lenders With the Best Climate Data Will Be in a Position to Discriminate (Bloomberg)
Why We’re So Bad at Preparing for Disasters (Nat. Review)

Disaster management 4/27/2020 articles/events/resources

Articles & resources 4/17/2020

Resources

Scams in the News – FTC Issue Warning About Coronavirus (COVID-19) Scams (GAO Notices) While the world is trying to take better care of themselves, cybercriminals are trying to seize the opportunity by creating COVID-19 scams. Here are a few tips that you should consider regarding COVID-19 scams:

· If you receive any robocalls regarding at home techniques, do not press any buttons! Simply hang up the call.

· Do not click on any links in emails that are advertising COVID-19 home test kits or vaccinations.

· Be cautious with any emails that claim to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or any expert saying they have information about the virus.

If you suspect that you have received a suspicious email at GAO, report it immediately by using the Report Phishing button in Outlook.

Community Resilience Indicator Analysis (CRIA) and Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT) (FEMA) The Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool is available to the public. FEMA released expanded capabilities to the Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool, including census tract data and additional infrastructure layers for all state, local, tribal and territorial jurisdictions across the nation. This update to the tool enables a more granular analysis of community resilience indicators and allows users to calculate the population of individuals with specific indicator characteristics in selected census tracts. Supporting documents and information on scheduled webinars can be found on the FEMA website.

Hospital Experiences Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a National Pulse Survey March 23-27, 2020 (DHS OIG) Hospitals reported that their most significant challenges centered on testing and caring for patients with COVID-19 and keeping staff safe. Hospitals said that severe shortages of testing supplies and extended waits for test results limited hospitals’ ability to monitor the health of patients and staff. They also reported that widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) put staff and patients at risk. This report is based on brief telephone interviews (“pulse surveys”) conducted March 23-27, 2020, with hospital administrators from 323 hospitals across 46 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico that were part of our random sample. Our rate of contact was 85 percent.

Emergency and Disaster Management Case Study: Standing Panel on Intergovernmental Systems, March 2020; National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA). The NAPA study articulates what has been learned from past experiences to inform the necessary transformation of roles and restructuring of responsibilities to support emergency management systems that can realize the objectives of effective and efficient prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to the broadest array of natural disasters possible. Also see FY19_ALL_STAFF-#1489088 in our EM CoP Resources folders.

IBM Watson Assistant for Citizens Answers COVID-19 Questions (Governing) To help agencies address situations, IBM has specifically designed a virtual assistant, Watson Assistant for Citizens, that is pre-loaded to understand and respond to common questions about COVID-19 directly leveraging CDC guidance. Additionally, agencies can customize unique intents leveraging other important information–via voice calls and digital text channels–to quickly help citizens get answers and stay informed.

FEMA Releases BRIC Policy for Comment (FEMA) The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is accepting comments on the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Policy. This policy describes a new program authorized by recent legislation that allows FEMA to set aside 6 percent of estimated disaster expenses for each major disaster to fund a mitigation grant program to assist States, territories, Tribes, and local governments. The new program would supersede the existing Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant program and would promote a national culture of preparedness through encouraging investments to protect communities and infrastructure and strengthening national mitigation capabilities to foster resilience. A copy of FEMA’s policy is in the EM CoP Resources folder, DM file # FY19_ALL_STAFF-#1504931

Articles

All-Hazards:

· Compliance Considerations for Companies and Individuals Donating Funds, Goods, or Services to Domestic Government Entities (Inside Political Law)

· Pa. Only Shares COVID-19 Information with Some Counties (Governing)

· Cities Are Flouting Flood Rules. The Cost: $1 Billion (NY Times)

· He Spent $500,000 to Buy Coronavirus Tests. Health Officials Say They’re Unreliable (Rt. Fifty)

Resilience:

· FEMA Publishes Stakeholder Feedback For New Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Program (IAEM)

· Firefighters Say Coronavirus Will Obstruct Emergency Service, Evacuations As Wildfire Season Closes In (CNBC)

· How Can Big Cities Adapt To Risks Of Floods? (Euronews)

Public Health / Biosurveillance:

· Black Americans Face Higher Rates of Coronavirus Infection (Rt. Fifty)

· Competing Hospitals Cooperate to Meet the Crisis (Pew Stateline)

· Exercise in 2018 Informing Washington’s Coronavirus Crisis-Care (EM/Gov Tech)

· Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier (NY Times)

Innovations & Interconnections and Deep Thoughts:

· How Do We Ration Health Care When We Really Have To Do It? (EDM Digest)

· New Mathematical Models May Help Us Predict The Spread Of Future Epidemics (BBC Science Focus)

· Small, Mid-Sized Cities Currently Cut Out of Direct Coronavirus Funding (Rt. Fifty)

Article: Outgrowing growth: why quality of life, not GDP, should be our measure of success

Outgrowing growth: why quality of life, not GDP, should be our measure of success https://flip.it/a-h3W2

My thinking about GDP [growthism] is as a method akin to single-entry calculations without regard to whether it improves lives or reflects spending in response to the negative life experiences (war, violence, morbidity)

Article: Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for ‘Disaster Capitalism’

Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for ‘Disaster Capitalism’ https://flip.it/8Iz6tD

Article: The economic crisis from the coronavirus could lead to ‘disaster socialism’ that briefly extends basic social benefits other countries already have

The economic crisis from the coronavirus could lead to ‘disaster socialism’ that briefly extends basic social benefits other countries already have https://flip.it/-o0WzV

Article: What Bernie Sanders’s movement does now

An article (below) from Vox.com on the Dem Socialist of America (DSA), their efforts to get Bernie Sanders elected, and what the Sanders’s movement and DSA does now.

https://flip.it/huN7V0

This gives me the opportunity to jot down a few points on what means to me, some of which i try to incorporate in my classes:

Public goods – education, health care,

Equity – we are only as strong as our weakest link – equalize needs by ability to pay

Justice and Accountability-

–A Society where the benefits are not privatized and risks and cost are not passed down to the people– and where the private sector is responsible for the burden to prove such a positive cost/benefit

–competitive markets, and a Public Option where there is concentrated control

#CorpNOT=People

Food for thought/ academic question. …a fuller definition of “disaster”

Given what we are seeing in the AUS brushfires, do we need to start considering threats of species extinction when we determine what is a “major disaster” or catastrophic events? Currently, when we talk about what is a disaster, we quantify it through human impacts: a) deaths b)injuries, c) evacuees, d) $ amt of property damage. If yes, then the question is how do we calculate impacts on species, and who might do that (ie – Nat Fish/Wildlife in the US)?

Saying the phrase “extinction event” is still theoretical to the general public, but may not be in 2-5 yrs. It may make sense to start to develop definitions for and ways to measure these consequences, then incorporate them into our Risk calculations.