Disasterology: June 2023
This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined).
There’s a little something for everyone!
The State of Emergency Management
Texas, Mexico, and at times part of Louisiana have been in a heatwave. There were deadly storms with tornadoes across the south. Both have contributed to power outages. Typhoon Mawar has devastated Guam and there has been an infuriating lack of coverage from the national media. Then of course there was the emergency on everyone’s minds – the implosion of the Titan. I’m going to just mind my own business on that one.
Internationally, the train crash in India and the blown-up Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine have topped the news. Also, Canada has continued to be on fire. The smoke blanketed parts of the United States including New York where it was darker than the filter they used in Blade Runner.
Dispatches from Southeast Louisiana
Every summer I take a group of my emergency management undergrads down to New Orleans to volunteer and learn about disasters. One of my strongly held beliefs is that if you can figure out how to do emergency management in New Orleans then you’ll be able to figure out how to do emergency management anywhere else in the country. This trip also allows me an opportunity to be nosey and monitor recovery progress from Katrina & the Levee Failure (18 years), the BP oil disaster (13 years), Hurricane Ida (2 years), the tornadoes (around a year), and just the general state of my favorite city and the southeastern Louisiana coastline.
We got to meet with an incredible number of folks in the city and beyond who are working on emergency management-related issues across mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. An endless thank you if you were one of the people who shared your time with us. My students kept a blog while we were there. Just a quick rundown each day of what we did. If you’re interested, you can find it here.
We had the opportunity to volunteer with several organizations including rebuilding with SBP, wetland restoration with Common Ground & the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. We also worked with a new group to me: Louisiana Just Recovery Network which was partnered with groups like CORE New Orleans along with representatives from groups across Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. It was an incredible experience pulling together like-minded groups from across the entire Gulf Coast to work on preparedness and response efforts to various disasters. I wrote in my book about the need for a national disaster movement and this was a moment where I could once again see such a thing being possible. We will not make emergency management better without working together.
It was also incredible for my students – all emergency management babies – to get to see the things we discuss in the classroom manifest in practice. To hear community group leaders share their frustrations with things like the disaster declaration process really made them understand why my lecturing about the damn Stafford Act for days on end really matters. When emergency managers said, “yeah, we’d do that but we don’t have the money” they saw that I’m not just making the capacity problem up. I was also excited by how many conversations I got to have with folks about how excited they were to see so many young people interested in emergency management – and getting an education in emergency management! And, an education that approaches emergency management critically. I can’t imagine how different our field will be as so many students with strong educational foundations come into our field with the understanding that change is urgently needed. Add some good ole experience to that and they’re going to be lightyears ahead of where all of us olds were when we first got started! Change is coming!
Meme Break
Bold of me to make this only having seen only 1 of 3 of these films.
A Follow-Up
Last month I shared some ~thoughts~ regarding a bill that had been introduced in the House of Representatives which would add additional training requirements for EMPG. About a week ago they finally posted the full bill. It still leaves open all the same questions I raised in my post last month. So, anyway, I said what I said.
This Month’s Disaster News
This is the article you should read if you don’t want to sleep at night.
Mitigation
The Plan to Save New York From the Next Sandy Will Ruin the Waterfront. It Doesn’t Have To in The New York Times
Climate-ready coast in final phase to help Mainers fight climate change from News Center Maine
Arizona Limits Construction Around Phoenix as Its Water Supply Dwindles in The New York Times
Preparedness
From the Ashes of the Old: A New Deal for Wildland Firefighters in Dissent Magazine
Response
New Tool Tracks Military Deployments to Climate Disasters in Scientific American
Massive Blaze Set Intentionally After Ohio Train Derailment Draws Scrutiny in Bloomberg
Enabling Fossil Fuel Addiction: It's About More Than Money from Drilled News
On the Smoke Crisis, New York City’s Mayor Chokes in The New York Times
‘The fire equivalent of an ice age’: Humanity enters a new era of fire in The Washington Post
Recovery
Petrochemical fires in southwest Louisiana highlight recovery needs three years after hurricane in The Advocate
The Explosive Legacy of the Pandemic Hand Sanitizer Boom in Wired
An Illinois hospital is the first health care facility to link its closing to a ransomware attack in NBC News
After months ‘left in the dark,’ undocumented flood victims to get $95 million in aid from state in the Los Angeles Times
Buffalo Leaders Weren’t Ready for Blizzard That Killed 31, Report Says in The New York Times
Davenport inspection records show complaints, structural issues at collapsed apartment building from Iowa Public Radio
The End Bits
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In case you signed up for this newsletter without knowing who I am (a bold choice!) you can read my book Disasterology: Dispatches From The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis to catch up! You can read a USA Today review here, order it here, or get it as an audiobook here. You can also find more from me on my blog, listen to this episode of Ologies, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram where I impulsively narrate my every thought.
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