Hazards

NATURAL HAZARDS

Cyclonic Storms (Hurricanes, Cyclones, Typhoons)

• Loaf-size mission launches to improve hurricane forecasting (CNN, May 7, 2023)
• NOAA to Improve Storm Surge Predictions Ahead of 2023 Hurricane Season (Government Executive, May 5, 2023)
• National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center Glossary of Terms (STATIC)
• Florida Reports Dozens of Flesh-Eating Bacteria Victims in the Wake of Hurricane Ian (Gizmodo, October 18, 2022): This story highlights secondary risks that arise in the conditions present after a major cyclone.
• Cone of confusion: Why some say iconic hurricane map misled Floridians (Washington Post, October 4, 2022)
• Warming oceans fuel earlier Atlantic hurricane seasons, study finds (Washington Post, August 16, 2022)
• The most devastating hurricanes could double by 2050 in nearly all regions of world, scientists say (CNN, April 27, 2022)
• The Most Powerful Hurricanes of All Time (April 20, 2022)
• The climate crisis is supercharging rainfall in hurricanes, scientists report (CNN, April 12, 2022)
• Change to the start date of hurricane season is still under consideration (Accuweather, April 5, 2022): “[I]nside the National Hurricane Center, discussions about whether to abandon June 1 as the official start of Atlantic hurricane season are still ongoing.”
• Recent increase in major Atlantic hurricanes may be ‘rebound’ after 1960-1980s lull (Carbon Brief, July 13, 2021): ” The research, published in Nature Communications, develops a new complete record of Atlantic hurricanes from 1851 to 2019, adding in hurricanes that were likely missed by pre-satellite observation methods. “
• Forecasters Raise Number of Expected Storms for Hurricane Season to 20 (Insurance Journal, July 12, 2021): ” This year is forecast to be the sixth straight above-average U.S. Atlantic hurricane season. The record 2020 season had 30 named storms. “
• First Named Storm of 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season is 10 Days Early (Maritime Executive, May 23, 2021): “In general, tropical storms thrive where the surface ocean is a balmy 80 F (26.7 C) or warmer. That’s why hurricanes are rare before June 1 and are most likely to occur August through October, when the ocean is at its warmest.”
• Saturday (May 15) is the brand new ‘unofficial’ start to hurricane season (CNN, May 15, 2021): The National Hurricane Center has decided that beginning this year (2021) officials there will issue their routine ‘tropical weather outlook’ forecasts starting on May 15, rather than June 1, which is when the season formally begins. That means the June 1 start date now just becomes a formality more than anything else.
• The Earliest East Pacific Tropical Storm on Record, Andres, Formed Sunday (Washington Post, May 10, 2021): While no impacts from the storm are expected over land, it’s the latest example of an early-forming storm probably connected to climate change.
• World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Hurricane Committee Retires Tropical Cyclone Names and Ends the Use of Greek Alphabet (WMO, March 17, 2021): Busy hurricane seasons like the 2020 season that saw more than 21 named storms required the use of Greek letters to name late season storms. The committee found that the use of these letters was confusing and drew attention away from the severity of the events themselves.
• GIS Layers / Systems
  • NOAA Active Precipitation Viewer
  • Active Hurricane Live Feed
  • Storm Surge
  • RIFT Forecast

Tectonic Hazards

• A Disaster the Size of Multiple Katrinas Is Building Off Washington’s Coast (Politico, May 7, 2023)
• A glance at the world’s deadliest quakes in past 25 years (CP24, February 7, 2023)
• The 7 Best Apps for Earthquake Alerts and Tracking on iPhone (Make Use Of, December 26, 2022)
• A guide to the world of mud volcanoes (Popular Science, December 24, 2022): “Mud volcanoes are little known in North America, but much more common in other parts of the world.”
• Enhancing Earthquake Detection from Orbit (EOS, December 2, 2022): “A new application of machine learning boosts scientists’ ability to use data from satellite navigation systems to detect and warn of earthquakes.”
• Smartphones Offer New Tool for Earthquake Researchers (Government Technology, November 29, 2022)
• Mexico earthquake triggers ‘desert tsunami’ in Death Valley (LA Times, September 22, 2022): Earthquakes up to thousands of miles away have caused significant wave activity in the Western United States’ Death Valley National Park. This article contains video footage of the wave activity.
• First Came A Quake In Mexico, Then Strange Blue Lights. People Feared The Apocalypse (NPR, September 8, 2022): This article describes a strange phenomenon called ‘earthquake lights’, which are believed to be cauesd by a release of energy caused by tectonic plate friction near the earth’s surface.
• Volcano’s giant eruption did something unprecedented, says NASA (Mashable, August 6, 2022): This article explains how the Hunga Tongo-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption introduced the equivalent of 58,000 swimming pools of water vapor into the atmosphere, thereby resulting in increased global warming effects.
• Iceland eruption may be the start of decades of volcanic activity (National Geographic, August 4, 2022)
• Collaboration helps geophysicists better understand severe earthquake-tsunami risks (Phys.Org, April 7, 2022): “Despite advancements over the recent decades, researchers are still largely unable to forecast when and where earthquakes might strike.”
• The Astounding Footage NASA Captured of Tonga’s Volcanic Eruption (Slash Gear, April 7, 2022)
• Researchers Find Evidence That Fracking Can Trigger an All-New Type of Earthquake (Science Alert, December 11, 2021): “Oil and gas extraction can trigger small, slow-moving, longer-lasting earthquake tremors, which scientists have documented in Canadian fracking fields for the first time.”
• A new California weather warning? What ‘Potentially Dangerous Situation’ means in the Valley (The Fresno Bee, October 17, 2021): “The National Weather Service has introduced a type of Red Flag Warning for conditions that can be particularly dangerous related mostly to wildfires in the San Joaquin Valley and foothills, according to the service’s top official.”
• Data from boreholes in plate boundaries could explain slow earthquakes (Science Daily, June 28, 2021): ” Slow earthquakes are long-period earthquakes that are not so dangerous alone, but are able to trigger more destructive earthquakes. Their origins lie in tectonic plate boundaries where one plate subsides below another. Though the causal mechanism is already known, there has been a lack of data to accurately model the life cycle of slow earthquakes. For the first time, researchers use deep-sea boreholes to gauge pressures far below the seafloor. They hope data from this and future observations can aid the understanding of earthquake evolution. “
• ‘Slow slip’ earthquakes’ hidden mechanics revealed (Science Daily, May 25, 2021)
• The Environmental Threat More Immediate Than Climate Change (GovExec, 5/7/2021): The uptick in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions poses substantial dangers for people and the economy, says an EPA scientist.
• Rare ‘Boomerang’ Earthquake Observed Along Atlantic Ocean Fault Line (Imperial College of London, August 10, 2020: “an international team of researchers have recorded a ‘boomerang’ earthquake, where the rupture initially spreads away from initial break but then turns and runs back the other way at higher speeds.”

Wildfires and Smoke Inhalation Hazards

• This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wildfire, Then Returned to Study How It Happened (Pro Publica, December 27, 2022)
• Another above-average wildfire season for 2022. How climate change is making fires harder to predict and fight. (USA Today, December 24, 2022)
• Black saliva, sore throat, shortness of breath: How dangerous is wildfire season for US farmworkers? (USA Today, October 10, 2022): “Farmworkers are specifically vulnerable to certain health risks during wildfires, which are being exacerbated by temperature-revving climate change. How bad is it? Researchers want to know.”
• Air quality plummets as smoke from roaring wildfires chokes US west (The Guardian, September 12, 2022): “California health officials urged people in affected areas to stay indoors where possible. Lake Tahoe, more than 50 miles away from the fire, is facing some of the worst effects, with smoke producing unhealthy to hazardous air quality in the region. For the second year in row, organizers of the Tour de Tahoe canceled the annual 72-mile bicycle ride scheduled for Sunday around Lake Tahoe because of heavy smoke.”
• California fires killing people before they can escape their homes, making seconds count (LA Times, September 7, 2022)
• The Terrifying Choices Created by Wildfires (New Yorker, September 6, 2022): “Many Californians are confronting a series of confounding decisions—among them, whether they should fight or flee.”
• Forest fires are burning twice the amount of tree cover they did just 20 years ago (Fast Company, August 17, 2022)
• Thousands of dead fish are washing up along a California river. It’s because of a massive wildfire and flash floods, the Karuk Tribe says (CNN, August 6, 2022): This article highlights a secondary risk from wildfires associated with food security and cultural preservation.
• Pollution from California’s 2020 wildfires likely offset decades of air quality gains (LA Times, June 17, 2022)
• 1 in 6 Americans Live in Areas with Significant Wildfire Risk (Washington Post, May 17, 2022)
• These are the places with the highest wildfire risk in the US (CNN, May 16, 2022)
• Wildfires are still catching us off-guard. Congress’ plan to fix that isn’t going anywhere. (Grist, May 11, 2022): “How the proposal to connect federal research agencies and improve wildfire research crashed and burned.”
• Unhealthy Air Could Become Routine in the Pacific Northwest (EOS, April 7, 2022): “A recent analysis suggested that fine particle pollution (PM2.5) in the region could grow by 50% in the next 30 years.”
• Confronting the Wildfire Crisis (US Forest Service Website): Describes the Forest Service strategy to address the increasing threat from wildfires where communities are pushing into the wildland/urban interface.
• Extreme Wildfires’ Smoke Poses New Threat to Ozone Layer, Research Finds (Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2022)
• Wildfires likely to increase by a third by 2050, warns UN (The Guardian, February 23, 2022)
• Wildfires used to ease in intensity at night. A study says it’s not the case anymore (CNN, February 16, 2022): “”Nighttime fires have become more intense and more frequent in recent decades, as hot, dry nights are more commonplace,” found the study led by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences’ (CIRES) Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder,”
• The Return of the Urban Firestorm What happened in Colorado was something much scarier than a wildfire (The Intelligencer, January 1, 2022)
• Are California’s Wildfires Really “Disasters”—or Just Something Natural? (Mother Jones, October 8, 2021): ““California forests are fire-adapted, which means they need fire to thrive,” says Crystal Kolden, an assistant professor of fire science at the University of California, Merced. “Precolonization, much of California’s forest would burn every five to 20 years.”
• Why the American west’s ‘wildfire season’ is a thing of the past – visualized (The Guardian, October 11, 2021)
• Smoke from massive wildfires in Australia led to algae bloom (ABC News, September 19, 2021): Iron-laden nutrients in algae were seen thousands of kilometers away.
• The Science of How Wildfires Got So Hellish (Mother Jones, August 23, 2021)
• United States of Wildfire (NPR, August 10, 2021): A beautiful wildfire graphic story that describes changes to wildfire risk in the United States over the past century.
• Wildfire Smoke Linked to Covid-19 Cases and Deaths in the West (Smithsonian Magazine, August 17, 2021): “New research shows that smoke from last year’s unprecedented wildfire season in the western United States may have contributed to more than 19,000 Covid-19 cases and 700 deaths.”
• Western wildfires are so intense they’re creating their own thunderclouds now (Grist, August 6, 2021): “Huge pyrocumulonimbus clouds have formed over fires in the West. Here’s why they could become more common on a warmer planet.”
• Wildfires Are So Dangerous Now that the National Guard Prepares for Them Like Hurricanes (Defense One, July 29, 2021): ” In short: treat it like a hurricane, and model their approach after state guards across the southeast and Gulf Coast, who are used to back-to-back disasters, Chief of the National Guard Bureau Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. “
• Wildfires are increasing health risks of already-polluted regions of the U.S., experts warn (PBS, July 27, 2021): ” Experts are now warning of the increasing threat of both wildfires and the dangerous particulate matter pollution from smoke and the challenges that exist in making sure those communities are prepared, especially as the state navigates another record-setting fire season. “
• Wildfires have erupted across the globe, scorching places that rarely burned before (CNN, July 22, 2021)
• EXPLAINER: As wildfire smoke spreads, who’s at risk? (AP, July 22, 2021): ” Smoke from wildfires in the western U.S. and Canada is blanketing much of the continent, including thousands of miles away on the East Coast. And experts say the phenomenon is becoming more common as human-caused global warming stokes bigger and more intense blazes.”
• Wildfires can actually create their own weather. Here’s how. (The Hill, July 21, 2021): ” The intense heat from wildfires makes the air hot and smokey, then smoke plumes mix with the cool air’s turbulence, causing it to grow in size. When these plumes reach the sky, it becomes a fire cloud.”
• Oregon wildfire causes miles-high ‘fire clouds’ as flames grow (The Guardian, July 16, 2021): This article describes some of the ways that wildfires are changing in the hotter and drier environments caused by climate change.
• Smoke from California Wildfires Could Contain Dangerous Levels of Toxic Metals (San Francisco Chronicle, July 20, 2021)
• Bootleg Fire, one of dozens raging in the West, creates ‘firenado’ near Oregon-California border (USA Today, July 13, 2021): ” He described the blaze as “like a firenado”: flames leaping dozens of feet into the air and jumping around, catching trees “and then just explosions, boom, boom, boom, boom.” “
• New analysis shows spikes of metal contaminants, including lead, in 2018 Camp Fire wildfire smoke (CA Air Resources Board, July 12, 2021): ” The document, published today, shows smoke produced from the Camp Fire exposed Californians to dangerous levels of particulate matter and contained concerning levels of toxic metal contaminants, including lead, which spiked for about 24 hours. “

• The Deadliest Fire In American History Happened In A Place You Wouldn’t Expect (laNPR, July 7, 2021): The 1871 Peshtigo Fire, which killed between 1,500 and 2,500 people, is the most deadly in American history. Occurring on the same day as the more famous Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo fire has been largely forgotten, even though it killed far more people.
• U.S. West faces little-known effect of raging wildfires: contaminated water (Reuters, July 1, 2021): This article discusses one of the many indirect effects of wildfire (in addition to others that include land slope destabilization, smoke inhalation hazards, and others).
• The Ripple Effect of California’s Wildfires (Jenny Novak, June 28, 2021): ” In this article I will discuss the ripple effect of California’s wildfires as background for an upcoming article on new ideas for measuring recovery and how we can broaden the definition of disaster survivors.”
• What is the WUI? (US Fire Administration)
• Evacuating under dire wildfire scenarios (Science Daily, May 24, 2021): “As climate change intensifies, wildfires in the West are behaving in ways that were unimaginable in the past — and the common disaster response approaches are woefully unprepared for this new reality.”
• Does cold wildfire smoke contribute to water repellent soils in burned areas? (Science Daily, May 25, 2021): New pilot study finds severe water repellency in sand samples after treatment with both hot and cold smoke.
• The West’s Infernos are Melting Our Sense of How Fire Works (Daniel Duane, Wired, September 30, 2020) Wildfire risk is changing in areas impacted by development and climate change, complicating prediction and management capabilities. Fires are become more destructive and increasingly deadly as a result of these trends.
• Is Your Home At Risk Of Wildfire In A Changing Climate? 6 Questions To Ask (Lauren Sommer, NPR, October 18,2020) – Homeowners can do a lot to improve the chances that a building will survive a wildfire. The key is knowing your risk and keeping up with annual maintenance. So, whether you’re moving or already living somewhere, how do you find out your wildfire risk?
• Why U.S. Wildfires Will Only Get Worse (Alice Hill and Madeline Babin, Council on Foreign Affairs, September 16, 2020) – Fires in California and Oregon have been more devastating than ever before, but climate change means the worst is yet to come. Here’s how officials can prepare.
• Colorado Fights the Worst Wildfires in its Recent History (The Guardian, October 30, 2020): Wildfire season across the American west is no 78 days longer than it was in the 1970s.
• Wildfire Smoke is Poisoning California’s Kids. Some Pay a Higher Price (NY Times, November 26, 2020): The Wildfire Hazard isn’t just limited to the wildland and wildland urban interface anymore. Smoke-inhalation hazards present a major public health hazard to urban areas far from the wildland as climate change increases the prevalence of wildfires.
• California Wildfires Killed 106 People Two Years Ago. Researchers Say the Smoke Killed 3,652 (KQED, December 11, 2020): The researchers also tracked how industries — including services, trade and manufacturing — were affected by the fires and how that disrupted the economies of counties, the state, nation and world. They put the financial cost for the 2018 fires at nearly $150 billion. That’s six times the official estimate, which counts only destroyed and damaged property.
• An Indigenous Practice May Be Key to Preventing Wildfires (National Geographic, December 17, 2020): For thousands of years, North American tribes carefully burned forests to manage the land. The future may lie in a return to that past.
• Record-Breaking Wildfires Made North American Air Worse in 2020 (Bloomberg, March 15, 2021): Coronavirus lockdowns cleared the air in every region of the world except North America.
• COMMUNITY WILDFIRE MITIGATION CASE STUDY: Berkeley, California – this website designed and maintained by the City of Berkeley addresses a very broad range of wildfire mitigation strategies that residents can follow to address household wildfire risk.
• Wildfire Monitoring and Risk Assessment Resources:
  • Wildfire-Associated Air Quality Assessments (see image below)
  • Geographic Area Coordination Center Web Portal
  • USDA and US Forest Service Wildfire Risk Assessment Tool
  • National Interagency Fire Center Fire Potential Outlook
  • Cal Fire: Track Active Wildfires
  • NOAA: Air Quality Monitor
  • History of California Wildfires
  • California Wildfire Perimeters
  • Structure by Structure Wildfire Vulnerability Ratings for the Western United States
  • Purple Air (Air Quality Monitoring with creative sensor comparison capabilities)
  • Wildfires and Climate Change Outlook
  • Defensible App Fire Risk Rankings
  • Terrafuse AI

Floods

• Is your house in a floodplain? First new maps in 13 years are ready for public view. (San Antonio Report, January 12, 2023): This article describes efforts communities are taking to provide flood mapping information that is more meaningful to residents than the FEMA DFIRM (which is, by design, intended to provide flood insurance rate information within areas of specific 1% and .2% risk).
• Association of State Floodplain Managers offers “NFIP101” online course (Static)
• What are atmospheric rivers? (NOAA, STATIC)
• Flooding Is Nearly a Daily Occurrence Throughout the U.S. (Pew Trust, December 15, 2022)
• Rising rivers don’t necessarily follow the lines on a map (High Country News, September 12, 2022)
• Climate Change Is Overwhelming US Flood Maps, FEMA Head Says (Bloomberg, September 4, 2022)
• Better Atmospheric River Forecasts Are Giving Emergency Planners More Time to Prepare for Flooding (Scientific American, September 1, 2022)
• Is Coal Mining Increasing East Kentucky’s Flood Risk? (Wired, August 13, 2022): “Mountaintop removal destroyed Appalachia’s land. Then came the floodwaters.”
• Sea level rise is causing record-breaking coastal flooding. It’s only expected to get worse – even on days without rain. (CBS News, August 4, 2022)
• Floods are getting more common. Do you know your risk? (NPR, August 3, 2022)
• Scientists discover uncertainties in flood risk estimates (National Science Foundation, July 5, 2022): “Flood frequency analysis is a technique used to estimate flood risk, providing statistics such as “100-year flood” and “500-year flood” forecasts that are critical to infrastructure design, dam safety analysis and flood mapping in flood-prone areas. But the method used to calculate these flood frequencies is due for an update, according to a new study by scientists at the Desert Research Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Colorado State University.”
• New flood maps clarify the risk homeowners face (UGA Today, July 1, 2022): “Now, new research from the University of Georgia outlines a simplified, cost-effective method for developing flood maps that reflects the uncertainty in flood predictions. “
• Lismore residents whose homes were covered in oil from Boral asphalt depot after floods left with daunting clean up (ABC Australia, June 12, 2022): This article highlights the HazMat issues that often accompany floods, and which subsequently impact recovery.
• A New Approach to Anticipating Flood Damage (Resilience Accelerator, March 17, 2022)
• US flood risk is about to explode — but not for the reasons you think (Grist, February 4, 2022)
• Research Shows More People Living in Floodplains (NASA Earth Observatory): “The proportion of the world’s population exposed to floods grew by 20 to 24 percent—ten times greater than what previous models had predicted.”
• Brace for flooding. A moon ‘wobble’ is coming, NASA warns (USA Today, July 13, 2021): ” Thanks to a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit and rising sea levels, every coast in the United States will face rapidly increasing high tides that will start “a decade of dramatic increases in flood numbers” in the 2030s. “
• Flood Monitoring and Risk Assessment Resources:
  • UNU World Flood Mapping Tool
  • FEMA NFIP Flood Map Service Center
  • NOAA: Status of all active stream gauges
  • NOAA: Status of current precipitation
  • First Street Foundation “Flood Factor” Property by Property Flood Risk Assessment
  • Copernicus Global Flood Monitoring Service GIS Platform

Drought

• Rich people’s swimming pools are fueling water crises in cities, study says (Washington Post, April 11, 2023)
• UN warns ‘vampiric overconsumption’ is draining world’s water (Reuters, March 24, 2023)
• The Supreme Court wrestles with questions over the Navajo Nation’s water rights (NPR, March 20, 2023)
• Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood’s water supply amid drought (Washington Post, January 16, 2023)
• What is a flash drought? An earth scientist explains (World Economic Forum, November 23, 2022): “A flash drought is one that starts and intensifies quickly rather than building over years or decades like a conventional drought.”
• China is seeding clouds to replenish its shrinking Yangtze River (CNN, August 17, 2022)
• Property owners and officials find ways around century-old laws as the West runs out of water (CNN, July 10, 2022): “For years, debate has raged in California about the best way to fix the water rights system for life in the modern era. Many of the senior water rights held in the state were set before 1914 when the permit system was established and when mining was big business.”
• Can Dryland Farming Help Growers Endure Increasing Heatwaves and Drought? (Modern Farmer, June 13, 2022): “Indigenous practitioners around the world have farmed with only rainwater for millennia. But it’s unclear whether conventional agriculture, which relies heavily on irrigation, will learn any of their lessons.”
• Are the drought’s effects on Gooseberry Falls a sign of bigger problems for North Shore waterways? (Start Tribute, July 22, 2021): ” Low river levels and warm water also hurt migratory fish populations, especially for the coho and chinook salmon and brook and rainbow trout that use streams that feed into Lake Superior as nursery areas.” 
• US megadrought could trigger arsenic ‘death cloud’ and unleash catastrophe on West Coast (The US Sun, July 19, 2021): ” Kevin Perry, chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, warned that as the soil dries out, arsenic could be picked up by the wind.”
• Dusty snow is making the western drought worse (National Geographic, July 14, 2021): Dust causes snow to melt earlier in the season, robbing rivers of water when droughts occur later in the year.
• U.N. warns drought may be ‘the next pandemic’ (Reuters, June 17, 2021): “Drought has hit more than 1.5 billion people since 1998 and the numbers are set to “grow dramatically,” says UN special representative.”
• ‘Megadrought’ persists in western U.S., as another extremely dry year develops (National Geographic, May 7, 2021): The long-running dry stretch rivals anything in the last 1200 years, a sign of climate-change induced “aridification.”

Severe Winter Storms

• ‘Help us!!’: Crews work to get supplies to stranded residents after severe snowstorms (ABC, March 3, 2023)
• How Stretching Air Helps Nor’easters Bury Towns Under Mountains Of Snow (Forbes, January 29, 2022)

Extreme Heat / Extreme Cold

• Will global warming make temperature less deadly? (Washington Post, February 16, 2023): “But cold is far more deadly. For every death linked to heat, nine are tied to cold.”
• Maps show where extreme heat shattered 7,000 records this summer (Washington Post, September 13, 2022)

• Heat killed the most people in the UK this summer since records began in 2004 (CNN, October 7, 2022)
• Disaster experts say heat warning systems are falling short (NPR, September 6, 2022)
• An ‘extreme heat belt’ will impact over 100 million Americans in the next 30 years, study finds (CNN, August 16, 2022)
• As temperatures rise, industries fight heat safeguards for workers (Washington Post, August 9, 2022): “While places like California and Washington have adopted workplace rules to address heat exposure, many other states’ attempts to mandate these protections have been blocked or weakened following opposition from industry groups representing agriculture, construction and other business interests.”
• “Corn Sweat” is Making the Air In the Midwest Oppressively Muggy (Washington Post, August 2, 2022): “Corn contributes substantial moisture to the atmosphere during the heart of summer each year — some call it “corn sweat.”
• The Rising Costs of Extreme Heat (Route Fifty, August 1, 2022): “This summer’s sweltering temperatures have led to illnesses and deaths across the country, but what often is less noticed is the devastating impact extreme heat is having on state and local economies, leading policymakers to write new laws and allocate thousands of dollars to heat-related issues.”
• Biden unveils extreme heat plan – but doesn’t declare climate emergency (The Guardian, July 20, 2022)
• How to keep your dog and other pets cool in the heat (CNN, July 19, 2022)
• UK heatwave: When is it too hot to work? Can offices and schools close? (Yahoo Life, July 12, 2022)
• Most US cities underprepared for rising heat, study finds (The Hill, July 11, 2022)
• Cal Adapt Extreme Heat Days and Warm Nights Tool: https://cal-adapt.org/tools/extreme-heat/
• How to protect your home and keep energy costs down during heat waves (ABC, July 5, 2022)
• Death risk soars with exposure to extreme heat and air pollution the same day: study (The Hill, June 29, 2022): “A study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found that on days where extreme heat and air pollution converge, the risk of death increases by 21 percent.”
• Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat (NBC, June 20, 2022): “Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined.”
• Heatwave Henry is the wave of the future (The Times, June 16, 2022): This article explains the movement to begin giving major extreme temperature events names similar to the way that cyclonic storms are named.
• Staying cool during hot weather: As heat wave impacts millions, here’s how to stay safe (USA Today, June 14, 2022)
• How Can We Make Heat Waves Less Deadly? (Columbia Climate School, June 14, 2022): “[H]eat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States. It is estimated that between 600 and 1,300 Americans die every year as a result of extreme heat — much higher than deaths from hurricanes, which have killed an average of 118 Americans since 2000. Yet hurricanes tend to receive a lot more attention.”
• Here’s What It’s Like Living in One of the World’s Hottest Cities (Vice, June 14, 2022): “Jacobabad, a city of 300,000, is ground zero of a warming planet. Scientists say it could be unlivable in a few decades.”
• Satellites zoom in on cities’ hottest neighborhoods, some 10+ degrees hotter, to help combat the urban heat island effect (The Conversation, June 14, 2022): “Within these “micro-urban heat islands,” communities can experience heat wave conditions well before officials declare a heat emergency.”
• Ranking heat waves like hurricanes is being proposed in California (CNN, February 27, 2022): “Heat waves are the deadliest weather disaster in the US. They account for nearly 150 fatalities per year, more than hurricanes and tornadoes combined.”
• Extreme heat in cities a growing problem as climate warms, study finds (NBC, October 20, 2021): “The study, which assessed more than 13,000 cities from 1983 to 2016, found that global extreme heat exposure increased nearly 200 percent over that time period, a result of population growth, climate change and the fact that city infrastructure absorbs more heat. Nearly a quarter of the world’s population is in areas where extreme heat exposure is rising, the study says.”
• Heat Waves in Seville Will Be Named and Ranked like Hurricanes (Scientific American, October 19, 2021): “The Spanish city is the first to undertake such a scheme in an effort to better warn residents of the health threats from heat.”
• Heat waves are far deadlier than we think. How California neglects this climate threat (LA Times, October 18, 2021)
• It’s so hot in Dubai the government is paying scientists to make it rain (Washington Post, July 21, 2021): ” Scientists created rainstorms by launching drones, which then zapped clouds with electricity, the Independent reports. Jolting droplets in the clouds can cause them to clump together, researchers found. “
• Climate change is fueling mass-casualty heat waves. Here’s why experts say we don’t view them as crises (CNN, July 12, 2021): ” “When there’s a wildfire or hurricane, it’s easy for people to see the devastation in front of their eyes,” said Aaron Bernstein, the interim director for the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our brains are highly tuned to pictures of destruction, because we don’t want that to happen to us. With heat waves, there usually isn’t a visible swath of destruction.”
• Heat Wave Hit Northwest Businesses From Christmas Trees and Doughnuts to Fish (Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2021): This article explains some of the economic impacts of extreme heat.
• Are ‘heat days’ the new snow days? (Popular Science, July 3, 2021): “As temperatures heat up, we need to rethink how can we best support students and outdoor workers.”
• What is a heat dome? Pacific Northwest swelters in record temperatures (National Geographic, June 29, 2021)
• Severe heat and drought are the hallmarks of a changing west (Washington Post, June 19, 2021): “Farmers, regulators and politicians facing the consequences of historic water shortages.”
• Earth has been trapping heat at an alarming new rate, study finds (The Verge, June 18, 2021): “The amount of heat trapped by Earth’s land, ocean, and atmosphere doubled over the course of just 14 years, a new study shows.”
• It’s already getting too hot and humid in some places for humans to survive (The Verge, May 8, 2021): “Extreme conditions are happening more often than scientists previously thought.”
• The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance (Science Advances, May 8, 2021): Explores the concept of the “web-bulb temperature (TW) as an indicator of conditions where human life is not viable).
• HEAT RISK ANALYSIS SYSTEMS AND RESOURCES
  • National Integrated Heat Health Information System
  • Heat and Health Tracker
  • Extreme Heat Vulnerability Mapping Tool
  • LIHEAP Heat Information Dashboard
  • Risk Factor Property-Based Heat Maps

Tornadoes

• How common are tornadoes in California? Here’s when and where they usually hit (Sacramento Bee, November 9, 2022)
• NC State team studies unique tornado threat (WRAL, April 29, 2022): “Quasi-linear convective systems (QLCS), also known as “squall lines,” bring a unique tornado threat. Tornadoes from these systems tend to be weaker and briefer than those formed in supercells, making them more difficult to detect on Doppler radar. These tornadoes often occur at night and during the fall and winter, when people generally are not expecting severe weather.”
• This Year’s Active Tornado Season Fuels New Storm-Related Research (Forbes, April 9, 2022): The technology for tornado monitoring and alerting systems continues to improve, thanks to investments in research and technology by both the private and public sectors.”
• NOAA NSSL “Vortex” Program: “The VORTEX project began in 1994, with the objective of explaining how tornadoes form. The two-year field project resulted in ground-breaking data collection and led to several follow-up studies in the late 1990’s. The VORTEX2 field project debuted in 2009 and continued through Spring 2010, with scientists hoping to understand how, when, and why certain supercells produce tornadoes.”
• Scientists are seeing a dangerous shift in early-spring tornadoes (CNN, March 31, 2022): “It’s the second year in a row the country has endured a record number of tornadoes in March, solidifying a trend toward more severe weather earlier in the year and raising questions among scientists, who’ve historically seen such weather peak from April to early June.”
• A warming world could add more fuel to tornadoes, scientists say (Washington Post, December 12, 2021)
• Here’s why the US has more tornadoes than any other country (Fox Carolina, March 7, 2021)
• Tornadoes in the Southeast are getting worse — and they’re often the deadliest (CNN, March 4, 2021)
• Evaluating Tornado Risk (Gen Re, April 28, 2021)

Mass Movements

• California’s system to defend against mudslides is being put to the ultimate test (NPR, January 15, 2023)
• Landslide risk remains long after an earthquake, according to satellite imagery study (PHYS.org, November 30, 2022)
• New model developed to predict landslides along wildfire burn scars (National Science Foundation, August 16, 2022)
• Can early landslide detection systems help save lives? (LiveMint, October 24, 2021): “India has the highest landslide deaths in the world. Researchers across the country are now developing solutions to provide early and accurate warnings.”
• Mass Movement Monitoring and Risk Assessment Resources:
  • Emergency Assessment of Post Fire Debris Flow Hazards

Sinkholes / Subsidence / Expansion

• Texas residents wait and watch as a sinkhole in their town grows (NPR, April 11, 2023)
• ‘Sounded Like an Earthquake’: La Habra Sinkhole Opens Up Again (NBC, March 16, 2023)
• A hairline crack became a 3-foot chasm. That’s when he knew they had to leave (CNN, January 13, 2023)
• Coastal cities in parts of Asia are sinking fastest, study finds (Washington Post, September 22, 2022): “Cities along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia are sinking even faster than similar cities elsewhere due to rapid urbanization, scientists say.”
• Huge Sinkhole in Chile is Large Enough to Fit the Entire Space Needle (Weather Channel, August 9, 2022)
• Indonesia’s giant capital city is sinking. Can the government’s plan save it? (National Geographic, July 29, 2022)
• Their homes are sinking fast. Can their community survive? (National Geographic, July 2022)
• The world’s coastal cities are sinking, but not for the reason you think (Quartz, April 19, 2022)
• What’s the Deal With All of Those City-Center Sinkholes? (Architectural Digest, July 19, 2021): ” Sinkholes tend to form for two reasons: Sections of a street can collapse because of water main breaks (or old pipes giving way) and changes to natural water-drainage patterns.” 

Tsunami

• Scientist who predicted devastating Boxing Day tsunami claims it will happen again ‘soon’ (Express, December 26, 2022)
• A tsunami caught experts by surprise. Now, they’re starting to understand why (NBC News, February 14, 2022)
• The Truth About the Biggest Tsunami Ever Recorded (The Grunge, July 20, 2021)
• Explosive research sheds light on volcanic tsunami (NIWA, July 7, 2021): ” Compressed air, gas and steam are being used in water tanks to simulate the waves generated when underwater volcanoes blow their top. A network of sensors and video cameras have been capturing the action in slow motion at a range of pressures and tank depths.”

Volcanoes

• The Tonga eruption explained, from tsunami warnings to sonic booms (National Geographic, January 15, 2022): “The volcanic plume generated record amounts of lightning before producing a blast heard thousands of miles away. Here’s what geologists say drove the event—and what may happen next.”
• Tonga eruption likely the world’s largest in 30 years – scientist (Science, January 15, 2022)
• Volcanic Explosivity Index (Oregon State University, 2021)

Epidemic / Pandemic (Including plant/animal disease)

• Deadly Bacteria in Eyedrops May Spread from Person to Person (Scientific American, April 14, 2023): “Infections of a new strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that have led to blindness and death highlight the worsening antibiotic resistance crisis”
• CDC warns of “alarming” rise of potentially deadly fungal threat in hospitals (CBS News, March 21, 2023)
• The Covid mask wars have left us unprepared for the next pandemic (Vox, March 10, 2023)
• America shut down in response to covid. Would we ever do it again? (Washington Post, March 10, 2023)
• Dangerous gain-of-function research continues to go on in US because of poor oversight, says damning congressional watchdog report prompted by DailyMail.com revelation (Daily Mail, January 20, 2023)
• The American founders didn’t believe your sacred freedom means you can do whatever you want – not even when it comes to vaccines and your own body (The Conversation, October 21, 2022)
• The Preventable Tragedy of Polio in New York (The New Yorker, August 22, 2022): “Polio is one of the few diseases that can be eradicated—but faltering vaccination rates could undo years of hard-won global progress.“
• While global health threats evolved, the CDC didn’t (Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2022): “Infectious disease control may be in CDC’s DNA, but the agency’s capabilities have not evolved to keep up with the faster speed and higher stakes of germs in the modern world.”
• Opinion: New virus found in China is another hard-to-predict threat (CNN, August 17, 2022)
• How Polio Crept Back Into the U.S. (ProPublica, July 26, 2022): “U.S. public health agencies generally don’t test wastewater for signs of polio. That may have given the virus time to circulate silently before it paralyzed a New York man.”
• N.Y. state detects polio case, first in the U.S. since 2013 (STAT, July 21, 2022)
• How Congress is Trying – and Not Trying – to Prepare for the Next Pandemic (GovExec, March 23, 2022)
• Salmonella outbreak linked to onions: Throw away onions if you don’t know where they’re from, CDC says (USA Today, October 20, 2021)
• CDC Launches New Disease Forecasting Center (Government Executive, August 18, 2021): “The organization, funded by the American Rescue Plan, will focus on predicting outbreaks and sharing information about them.”
• How will the pandemic end? The science of past outbreaks offers clues. (National Geographic, August 6, 2021)
• What we know about the mystery bird death crisis on the East Coast (National Geographic, July 15, 2021)
• The world’s first known plague victim was a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer in Europe (CNN, June 30, 2021): “A joint German-Latvian research team detected the oldest known strain of the bacteria that causes the plague–Yersinia pestis — in the remains of a hunter-gatherer who lived in present-day Latvia 5,000 years ago.”
• We’re Not Ready for Another Pandemic (Defense One, June 27, 2021): “Ominous pathogens seem to arrive every few years: SARS in 2003, swine flu in 2009, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016, COVID-19 in 2019. The World Health Organization calls these viral threats “Disease X,” both to encourage policy makers to think broadly about what the next pandemic might be, and because it could be anything. At this rate, 2025 is not looking good.”
• ‘This May Not Be The Big One’: Army Scientists Warn of Deadlier Pandemics to Come (Defense One, June 21, 2021): “The likelihood this generation will see another pandemic during its lifetime “is high,” Modjarrad said. “We have seen the acceleration of these pathogens and the epidemics that they precipitate. And it may not be a coronavirus, this may not be the big one. There may be something that’s more transmissible and more deadly ahead of us.””
• The name game for coronavirus variants just got a little easier (STAT, May 31, 2021): The World Health Organization (WHO) announced a new naming system it devised for so-called variants of interest and variants of concern, the forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with important mutations. Each variant will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigma from the emergence of new variants. 
• FEMA 2020 Hurricane Pandemic Plan: Hurricane planning must be altered in the face of an ongoing global pandemic. This document provides operational guidance for states and communities in light of the 2020 Hurricane Season, and subsequent seasons should the current crisis continue. Released May 2020 
• Pandemic / Epidemic Risk Assessment Resources
  • US/CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker
  • Johns Hopkins University COVID Map
• Emerging Pandemic / Epidemic Threats
  • EV-D68
    • A Virus That Can Cause Polio-Like Paralysis in Children Has Returned (Gizmodo, September 14, 2022): Enteroviruses are common, and are the cause of most instances of the common cold. Some strains of the virus are more virulent, including EV-71 which has caused outbreaks throughout Asia in the recent past and the strain that causes Polio.
    • A respiratory virus is landing children in the hospital, CDC warns. What’s EV-D68 (The Charlotte Observer, September 15, 2022)
  • Polio
    • Polio is the next front in the disinformation wars (Politico, September 20, 2022): “It’s so easy to think “vaccine-derived” means that people contract polio from the vaccine itself. That’s not the case.”
    • Why the U.S. is now part of polio’s ‘world outbreak’ (Deseret News, September 14, 2022): “The United States has officially joined the list of about 30 countries worldwide where polio is circulating.”
    • New York declares ‘state of emergency’ as polio continues to spread (Politico, September 9, 2022)
  • Monkeypox
    • Concern about monkeypox spread shifts to college campuses (Axios, September 15, 2022)
    • Why Monkeypox Wasn’t Another COVID-19 (FiveThirtyEight, September 14, 2022): “What stops most diseases from becoming pandemics is as much about luck as it is about human intervention.”
    • First US death due to monkeypox confirmed in Los Angeles County (CNN, September 13, 2022)

Sand/Dust Storms

• Spring is peak season for haboobs, dust storms in West Texas. Here’s why they happen and what to know (Houston Chronicle, April 11, 2023)
• NASA is mapping duststorms from space with this new high-tech device (CNN, February 20, 2023)
• A Decade of Haboobs Cloud Landscapes in Thick Walls of Dust in a New Timelapse (Colossal, April 8, 2022): Time lapse and other photographic imagery from sandstorms.
• Call for Regional and Inter-Regional Cooperation to Reduce the Risk and Negative Impacts of Sand and Dust Storms (UNESCAP, July 7 2021)
• Beijing Skies Turn Yellow as Sand, Dust Engulf Chinese Capital (Reuters, April 15, 2021): The skies above Beijing turned yellow and air pollution soared to severe levels as a giant cloud of sand and dust particles rolled into the city, propelled by strong winds from the north of China.
• Beijing Chokes on Yellow Dust During Biggest Sandstorm in Almost a Decade (CNN, 3/15/2021). This article describes conditions in Beijing where already high pollution levels combined with sandstorm weather originating in Mongolia that led to 2.5 PMI ratings of over 650 (noting that anything over 25 is considered unhealthy).
• Six Killed, Over 80 Missing in Mongolia Heavy Dust Storm (CGTN, 3/15/2021): This article describes conditions in Mongolia during and following a major sandstorm event.

La Nina

• Australians are bracing for more pain from rain this summer as third La Niña confirmed (CNN, September 13, 2022)
• The Return of La Niña Spells Bad News for Drought Conditions in the American Southwest (Smithsonian, October 20, 2021)
• La Niña is likely back for another unpredictable winter (Popular Science, October 15, 2021): “La Niña occurs when super strong trade winds push warm water closer to Asia, bringing an upswing of cold water from deep below the ocean to the surface off the western side of the Americas, according to NOAA. Chilly waters push the jet stream northward, making for a warmer winter in the South and a cooler than normal one in the North.”

Salinization / Salt Water Intrusion

• Sea Level Rise, Aquaculture are Making Bangladesh’s Water Undrinkable (Maritime Executive, January 2, 2022): “The shortage is here already. And all over coastal Bangladesh, it has spawned a new business: selling potable water.”

Sea Level Rise

Asteroids, Meteorites, and Space Weather

• Astronomers still have their eyes on that asteroid NASA whacked (NPR, March 4, 2023)
• Are we ready for the Mother of All Disasters — a collision-course asteroid? (The Hill, June 30, 2022)
• Giant Sunspot Has Doubled in Size in 24 Hours and It’s Pointed at Earth (Newsweek, June 20, 2022): “These tangled magnetic fields can sometimes suddenly reorganize themselves. When that happens, a sudden explosion of light and radiation is propelled away from the sun in the form of a solar flare.”
• NASA Is Practicing Asteroid Deflection. You Know, Just in Case (The Atlantic, November 26, 2021): “The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short, marks humanity’s first-ever attempt to change the orbit of an asteroid. In some ways, it’s kind of rude? A bunch of “star stuff,” as Carl Sagan called us, has become sentient and smart enough to interfere with orbital mechanics and change, on a small scale, the nature of its solar system. It’s a weirdly godlike power move—you know, shifting heaven and earth for our own purposes. But here we are, throwing a spacecraft the size of a vending machine at an asteroid as big as Egypt’s Great Pyramid.”
• NASA launches mission to crash into a near-Earth asteroid to try to change its motion in space (CNN, November 24, 2021)
• Whose job is it to prevent Armageddon? (Politico, November 20, 2021): “Calls grow for a global planetary defense strategy as thousands of near-Earth asteroids are discovered each year.”
• NASA Asteroid Simulation Ends in Unavoidable Disaster for Earth (Independent, May 3, 2021): “There is currently no technology on Earth that could stop a massive asteroid from wiping out Europe, according to a simulations carried out by leading space agencies.”

Monsoon

• Unlocking the secrets of the North American monsoon (National Geographic, August 22, 2022): “The U.S. Southwest relies on the increasingly erratic seasonal phenomenon to help fight wildfires and drought. Now researchers are getting better at predicting it.”

Lightning

• How to survive a lightning strike — or, better yet, avoid one (CNN, August 21, 2022)
• Dry lightning has sparked California’s most destructive fires. Scientists say it could happen more often. (CNN, August 8, 2022): Although lightning is most often a secondary hazard of severe storms or volcanic eruptions, for instance, it can occur on its own and cause its own secondary hazards (in addition to causing property damage, injuries, or deaths in its own right.)

TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARDS

Dams

• National Inventory of Dams: The hazard associated with dam failures in the United States increases as infrastructure maintenance is deferred. This website, maintained by USGS, provides information on all public and private dams in the United States.

Structure Fires

• USFA Running Tally of House Fire Fatalities, United States
• USFA General Fire Statistics, United States

Structural Failure

• One Of The Deadliest U.S. Accidental Structural Collapses Happened 40 Years Ago Today (NPR, July 17, 2021): ” They were among the 114 people who were killed at the Hyatt Regency that night when two elevated walkways broke free from their support rods and collapsed onto the crowd below, injuring more than 200 and leaving a crumpled heap of rubble for rescuers to dig through. “

Infrastructure

• Animal-Related Power Failures (CyberSquirrel, STATIC): This now-defunct tracking of animal-related power outages shows the relative risk to the world’s power infrastructure from animals as compared to all other forms of disruption (other than major disaster events).
• A damaged file may have caused the outage in an FAA system, leading to travel chaos (NPR, January 11, 2023)
• A Hot, Deadly Summer Is Coming With Frequent Blackouts (Bloomberg, May 22, 2022)
• Tonga’s volcano blast cut it off from the rest of the world. Here’s what it will take to get it reconnected (MIT Technology Review, January 18, 2022): “The world is anxiously awaiting news from the island—but on top of the physical destruction, the eruption has disconnected it from the internet.”
• Wintery Conditions Leave Thousands of Motorists Trapped on Highway For a Day (Route Fifty, January 4, 2022): “Drivers—including one U.S. senator—found themselves trapped in their cars in Virginia, some for more than 24 hours. But no deaths or injuries have been reported.”
• How extreme heat is straining California’s electrical grid (Washington Post, June 18, 2021): “Officials and experts said California’s grid is better equipped than last year to handle a hot-weather surge in demand. But the system could still face electricity shortfalls if the region gets scorched again this summer.”
• U.S. Pipeline Shutdown Exposes Cyber Threat to Energy Sector (The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2021)
• No restart yet for pipeline shut by cyberattack; gasoline prices climb (Politico, May 9, 2021)
• Beavers chewed through a cable and knocked out internet service to hundreds in a Canadian town (CNN, 4/27/2021)
• Suez Canal is Blocked by Container Ship (Wall Street Journal, 3/24/2021): A container ship that was wedged against the walls of the Suez Canal disrupted global shipping, highlighting the extent to which global trade, energy, and other factors relied on this single infrastructure component.
• It “Might Take Weeks” To Free Ship Stuck In Suez Canal, Salvage Company Says (NPR, 03/25/2021)

Transportation Hazards

• What Led to Europe’s Deadliest Train Crash in a Decade (Bloomberg, March 3, 2023)
• Anger mounts as death toll from Mexico metro overpass collapse rises to 24 (The Guardian, May 4, 2021)

Hazardous Materials Incidents

• ‘Residents forced to evacuate after train carrying ethanol derails, catches fire in Minnesota (USA Today, March 30, 2023)
• Why train derailments involving hazardous chemicals keep happening (Vox, March 30, 2023)
• What is going on with Philadelphia’s drinking water? (VOX, March 27, 2023)
• What’s known about Philadelphia’s drinking water after chemical spill (Washington Post, March 27, 2023): “Residents are told it is safe to drink tap water after thousands of gallons of acrylic paint chemicals spilled into a Delaware River tributary”
• A spill outside Philadelphia adds to the growing list of chemical accidents this year (Grist, March 27, 2023)
• Worried residents near Ohio train derailment report dead fish and chickens as authorities say it’s safe to return (NBC, February 13, 2023): This article highlights the challenges associated with recovery from hazardous materials events, notably with regard to allowing residents to return to the impacted area.
• No known safe level’: Report reveals high radon levels across most of Nebraska (KETV, January 10, 2023)
• Unexploded WWII bomb revealed in Italy’s dried-up Po River (CNN, August 8, 2022): This article highlights the long-term life safety implications of war.
• ‘The smell is terrible’: toxic foam clouds float through streets of Bogotá suburb (The Guardian, April 28, 2022)
• Agriculture and Food Security: Casualties of the War in Ukraine (CSIS, March 17, 2022): This event transcript explains how agricultural land is negatively impacted by the hazardous materials released by munitions.
• Oil spill tars Peruvian seaside towns, leaves fishermen jobless (France 24, January 23, 2022): “”Right in the middle of high season they have gone and basically cut off our arms,” Espinoza told AFP uneasily, noting that he and his colleagues were unable to work in the middle of the southern hemisphere’s summer, when they traditionally sell the most fish.”
• Nurdles: the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of (The Guardian, November 29, 2021): “Billions of these tiny plastic pellets are floating in the ocean, causing as much damage as oil spills, yet they are still not classified as hazardous.”
• Japan is restarting aging nuclear reactors after 10 years offline (Free Think, October 14, 2021): “The nation hopes the controversial move will help it reach carbon neutrality.”
• Rotting Red Sea oil tanker could leave 8m people without water (The Guardian, October 11, 2021): This article illustrates the scope of impact that hazardous materials incidents pose to life safety and resilience.
• ‘Catastrophic day’: Massive chemical fire levels Rockton plant. Residents advised to take caution with debris and wear masks outside (Chicago Tribune, June 14, 2021): “A chemical fire large enough to be picked up by weather radar consumed an industrial lubricant manufacturing plant Monday morning near Rockford and forced the evacuation of homes and businesses in the area, officials said.”

Supply Chain Failures

• Strep is bad right now — and an antibiotic shortage is making it worse (NPR, April 10, 2023): Illustrates one way supply chain failures can exacerbate other hazards.
• Supply Chain Risk Management: When The Greatest Risk Is Outside The Areas Of Traditional Focus (Forbes, December 21, 2022)
• Chilli peppers, coffee, wine: how the climate crisis is causing food shortages (The Guardian, June 28, 2022)
• Here’s How the Federal Government is Responding to the Baby Formula Shortage (Government Executive, June 16, 2022): “Federal agencies have been working to increase the availability of infant formula amid the nationwide shortage, and now face another roadblock after the facility at the center of the crisis had to pause production again due to weather disruptions.” 
• Formula production at Abbott’s Michigan plant delayed after flooding from severe storms (CNN, June 16, 2022)
• When will supply chains be back to normal? And how did things get so bad? (Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2021)
• Supply chain issues could ‘last until the early parts of 2023,’ shipping analyst explains (Yahoo Finance, October 13, 2021)
• The global supply chain nightmare is about to get worse (CNN, October 13, 2021): “The supply chain nightmare is jacking up prices for consumers and slowing the global economic recovery. Unfortunately, Moody’s Analytics warns supply chain disruptions “will get worse before they get better.””
• A major chlorine shortage is set to spoil summertime fun in the swimming pool (CNBC, April 30, 2021): “A combination of factors has led to the scarcity, including an unprecedented surge in demand last year and a chemical plant fire, which destroyed some manufacturing capacity.”

Economic Stress / Collapse / Failure

• Sri Lanka only has enough fuel for about five more days, minister says (CNN, June 17, 2022): This article highlights the cascading impacts that occur when a country is unable to access credit.

Stampedes / Crushes

• After the Astroworld Disaster, a Reckoning for Music Festivals (Texas Monthly, November 8, 2021): “International crowd-safety experts say better planning could have prevented the eight deaths and dozens of injuries at last week’s Travis Scott concert.”
• Eight Dead, at least 25 Injured During Crowd Surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Music Festival (LA Times, November 6, 2021)

Smog / Haze

• A silent killer is choking India’s capital. For millions, there’s no choice but to breathe it in (CNN, November 24, 2021)

INTENTIONAL HAZARDS

Terrorism

• Counterterrorism in a Time of COVID: The global spread of COVID-19 is transforming politics, as are the wide-ranging responses from governments and communities worldwide. The implications will endure well after the pandemic is behind us. Both jihadi-linked terrorism and counterterrorism are likely to change as well. The pandemic, however, offers new opportunities for terrorists and poses distinct challenges for the governments that seek to combat them. Brookings Institution, August 20, 2020.
• DOS-Annex-of-Statistical-Information-2019: Terrorism risk changes year to year throughout the world on account of geopolitical trends. For this reason, risk assessments must use the most current data. This document contains the statistical data used to develop the 2019 US Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2019. Released June 10, 2020

Armed Assaults (Active Shooter, School Shootings, Mass Shootings, Workplace Violence)

• False calls about active school shooters are rising. Behind them is a strange pattern (NPR, October 7, 2022)
• Halfway through year, America has already seen at least 309 mass shootings (NPR, July 4, 2022): “Mass shootings happen in the U.S. with depressing regularity. The nation has seen at least 11 mass shootings since the start of July, with the latest on Monday at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Ill. At least six people were killed in the shooting; approximately two dozen others were taken to the hospital, according to preliminary reports.”
• Run, hide, fight: School shooter drills can be traumatic, but do they work? (Yahoo News, June 21, 2022)
• 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. So far, 2021 is worse (Washington Post, June 14, 2021): Through the first five months of 2021, gunfire killed more than 8,100 people in the United States, about 54 lives lost per day, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research organization. That’s 14 more deaths per day than the average toll during the same period of the previous six years.
• As Shootings Continue to Surge in 2021, Americans Set to Face a Summer Plagued by Gun Violence (Time, June 4, 2021): “In the year and a half since the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, gun violence has skyrocketed across the U.S., even with nationwide lockdown procedures, social distancing mandates and attempts to limit interactions between individuals.”
• Shootings never stopped during the pandemic: 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades (Washington Post, 3/23/2021): In 2020, gun violence killed nearly 20,000 Americans, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, more than any other year in at least two decades. An additional 24,000 people died by suicide with a gun.
• US Mass Shooting Archive

Crime

• Hostages strapped to getaway cars as robbers target banks in Brazil (CNN, September 1, 2021): “A gang of armed robbers in Brazil carried out a series of deadly bank heists using human shields strapped to their getaway cars on Monday. In a bid to distract law enforcement, the robbers positioned bombs all over the city. One man was seriously injured when the devices were detonated, losing both his feet, according to police. A squad of more than 380 police officers are now looking for more than a dozen suspects who remain at large. School classes were suspended in the city, which has a population of around 200,000, following the blasts.”

Fire as a Weapon

• DHS Fire as a Weapon Fact Sheet
• Fire as a Weapon in High Rise Structures (2017 Thesis by Adrian Bernard Sheppard)
• Fire as a Weapon Incidents Database (FWID)

Sabotage

• Former Engineer Accused of Derailing Train Near Hospital Ship Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charge (NBC, December 16, 2021): “Eduardo Moreno claimed that the vessel, which was docked at the Port of LA to treat coronavirus patients, was part of a conspiracy and possibly a “government takeover,” authorities say.”

Combined Hazards

• Global experts worry simultaneous crises could become the new norm (CNN, January 11, 2023)
• Monkeypox, Marburg and miserable heat: How the world should respond to intersecting crises (The Hill, August 19, 2022): “These crises, and those looming on the horizon, are exposing the fragility of advances in human health and development. Crises shock global systems and roll back gains, with the world’s most vulnerable people bearing the brunt.”
• Heat waves and high energy costs are hitting some communities hard (NBC, June 19, 2022): This article shows how the consequences of one hazard (economic stress resulting from an extended pandemic and supply chain issues related to the war in Ukraine) can have compounding impacts on subsequent hazards (a heat wave) for vulnerable populations, resulting in a much more severe event than would have likely occurred in the absence of those concurrent events.
• Level 5 atmospheric river to unleash flooding across drought-stricken California (CNN, October 21, 2021): This article explains how the impacts of heavy rainfall are exacerbated when the area exposed has experienced some other hazard such as drought or wildfire.
• A wildfire is pushing California toward the brink of blackouts (Bloomberg, July 10, 2021): This article highlights how wildfires cause several subsequent hazards and in many cases these translate into disasters – sometimes far away from where the actual wildfire has struck.
• Opinion: Compound risks and complex emergencies require new approaches to preparedness (PNAS, May 11, 2021): “Increasingly, we face compounding and interrelated environmental, socioeconomic, and political crises. Yet our approaches to these problems are often siloed, fragmented, and inadequate.”
• Tragic Combination: Millions Go Hungry Amid Brazil COVID Crisis (Al Jazeera, April 11, 2021): Study finds that more than 19 million Brazilians are facing a food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transboundary Hazards / Risk

• Suspected North Korea dam water release prompts S.Koreans to evacuate (Reuters, July 4, 2022): “North Korea appears to have released water from a dam near its border with South Korea, prompting vacationers in the neighbouring country to evacuate over rising water levels on the Imjin River, officials said on Tuesday.”

NEW and EMERGING HAZARDS

• Atmospheric Rivers
• Atmospheric rivers now have intensity rankings (Earth Sky, March 12, 2023): See scale at right
• Water Security
  • A California city’s water supply is expected to run out in two months (Washington Post, October 10, 2022): “Officials project drought-stricken Coalinga, Calif., will use up its allotted amount of water before the end of the year — possibly forcing the city to buy water at exorbitant prices.”
  • Map: Where ongoing water crises are happening in the US right now (ABC News, September 8, 2022)
  • This city has around 20 days of fresh water left. Officials are racing to find another source (CNN, September 3, 2022): “The Galinas River, which provides water for Las Vegas, New Mexico, is so contaminated with charred soil and vegetation that the current filtration system cannot clean it.”
  • ‘As drought deepens, a city looks to restore dry riverbed into flowing river (NBC News, December 10, 2021): “The river once flowed through the city of about 384,000, providing habitat for wildlife and recreational activities for residents, but the water was diverted decades ago to irrigate area farmlands. Now, a vocal group of residents is hoping the river will return to its former glory as the state decides whether to reallocate some water left unused 14 years ago.”
• Human / Animal Interactions
  • Animals and People Are Clashing More Frequently Thanks to Climate Change, New Study Says (Inside Climate News, February 28, 2023)
  • Tamil Nadu: Yellow crazy ants cause chaos in India villages (BBC, August 18, 2022): “These insects, they say, attack their livestock and affect crop yields, putting their livelihoods in danger.”
  • Tigers have nearly tripled in Nepal, but at what cost? (National Geographic, July 29, 2022): “The country now has 355 tigers, but critics say the conservation focus has put human neighbors at risk.”
  • Maps Show North America’s Growing Tick Invasion (Gizmodo, June 25, 2021): “Here are some terrifying images of the growing tick threat in North America, courtesy of NASA satellite data. The images accompany recent research showing that warmer climates over the past two decades have allowed Lyme disease-carrying deer ticks to survive and spread farther into Canada and parts of the Northern U.S.”
  • Plague of Ravenous, Destructive Mice Tormenting Australians (US News, May 27, 2021): “Vast tracts of land in Australia’s New South Wales state are being threatened by a mouse plague that the state government describes as “absolutely unprecedented.” Just how many millions of rodents have infested the agricultural plains across the state is guesswork.”
• Vapor Storms
  • Vapor Storms Are Threatening People and Property (Scientific American, November 2021): “More moisture in a warmer atmosphere is fueling intense hurricanes and flooding rains”
• Emerging Health Threats
  • Study connects climate hazards to 58% of infectious diseases (STAT News, August 8, 2022): “Researchers looked through the medical literature of established cases of illnesses and found that 218 out of the known 375 human infectious diseases, or 58%, seemed to be made worse by one of 10 types of extreme weather connected to climate change, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change.”
  • CDC warns deadly bacteria detected in U.S. for 1st time (Axios, July 28, 2022): “Why it matters: It’s the first time the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei has been detected in water and soil samples in the U.S., according to the CDC’s health alert. “This bacterium causes a rare and serious disease called melioidosis,” the CDC said.”
  • Study: More infectious diseases inevitable due to climate change (Axios, October 21, 2021)
  • Deadly Fungi Are the Newest Emerging Microbe Threat All Over the World (Scientific American, June 1, 2021): “These pathogens already kill 1.6 million people every year, and we have few defenses against them.”
• Glacial Floods (caused when a lake created by the damming action of a glacier is released upon glacial collapse)
  • Why Did a Glacier Break in Cold Winter? This article links the Chamoli Glacier Disaster in February, 2021 (India) to climate change. (Times of India, 2021)
  • Clear Impact of Climate Change in Himalayan Disaster: This article posted in Prevention Web and authored by The Third Pole highlights the link between emerging hazards and climate change, and proposes possible solutions in the case of glacial hazards. (February 8, 2021)
  • PERU: Lack of Prevention in Laguna Palcacocha Could Cause Disaster in Huaraz: This article explains how a Peruvian community of 50,000 people is trying to mitigate a potential catastrophic flood event should the glacier above the community collapse.
• Space Debris
  • SpaceX Debris Lands in New Zealand Sheep Farm (Weather Channel, August 4, 2022)
  • Debris From China’s Uncontrolled Rocket Crashed Near Populated Areas (Gizmodo, August 4, 2022): “Reports of fallen space junk are pouring in from parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, suggesting debris from China’s out-of-control rocket reached land—including areas perilously close to homes.”
  • Debris From Chinese Rocket Falls Into Sea After Uncontrolled Re-Entry (Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2022): “Remnants of the Long March 5 crashed to Earth over the Indian Ocean in an uncontrolled descent from orbit, the U.S. officials said. Footage circulating online showed the debris lighting up the sky over Malaysia. Photo: Li Gang/Associated Press”
  • Remnants of China’s Long March 5B rocket land in Indian Ocean near the Maldives (South China Morning Post, May 9, 2021)
• Species Loss
  • The wildlife poaching problem the world isn’t paying attention to (National Geographic, November 16, 2022)
• Mud Volcanoes
  • Mud Volcano Sends Massive Explosion Skyward in Caspian Sea (Maritime Executive, July 5, 2021): “Residents of Baku, Azerbaijan were treated to an astonishing sight on Sunday night when a mud volcano sent a geyser of fire skyward about 45 nm to the south”
• Poisonous Lakes
  • ‘The air is toxic’: how an idyllic California lake became a nightmare (The Guardian, July 24, 2021): “The shrinking Salton Sea was once a tourist destination. Now it’s home to dangerous algal blooms, endless dust and noxious air”
  • Utah’s Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for years. Now it faces a drought (The Guardian, July 6, 2021): ” More dry lakebed getting exposed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breathe. “
  • How a Disappearing Sea Became a Town’s Main Attraction (New York Times, August 9, 2018)
• Drone Swarms (Potential Terrorism Applications)
  • Israel’s Drone Swarm Over Gaza Should Worry Everyone (Defense One, July 7, 2021): ” Drone swarms create risks akin to traditional weapons of mass destruction. As drone swarms scale into super-swarms of 1,000 or even up to a million drones, no human could plausibly have meaningful control.”
• Drug Crises
  • CDC Drug Overdose Death Counts Website
• Invasive Species
  • Giant blobs of seaweed are hitting Florida. That’s when the real problem begins (NPR, May 5, 2023)
  • Hunters are swarming the Florida Everglades for the annual python challenge. The state says it’s vital to save the ecosystem (CNN, August 6, 2022)
• “Wobbly Moon”
  • ‘Wobbly’ moon probable cause of mass tree deaths in Australia, scientists say (The Guardian, September 14, 2022): “Analysis of satellite imaging shows correlation between fluctuation in mangrove canopy cover and lunar nodal cycle.”
• Zombies
  • CDC’s updated guidelines for living with the zombie apocalypse (Washington Post, August 16, 2022): The CDC and other preparedness-focused stakeholders often use ‘Zombies’ as a hazard to increase public attention on preparedness actions that have all-hazards effectiveness or applicability.
  • CDC Zombie Attack Preparedness Page

HAZARD and RISK MANAGEMENT

• More Americans are moving into harm’s way as climate disasters increase (CNN, December 8, 2022)
• More Than Half Of U.S. Buildings Are In Places Prone To Disaster, Study Finds (NPR, June 24, 2021): “Tens of millions of homes, businesses and other buildings are concentrated in areas with the most risk from hurricanes, floods, wildfires, tornadoes and earthquakes.” The report can be found HERE. Second article, from American geophysical Union, HERE.
• COVID-19 Impacting Weather Forecasts: Forecasting weather is a complex endeavor that relies on multiple data sources. The pandemic grounded many commercial flights, starving forecast models of valuable data acquired at high altitudes. Nature Magazine. July 23, 2020.
• Living in Harm’s Way: Why Most Flood Risk Is Not Disclosed: This investigative piece from NPR explains why many homeowners in the United States inaccurately assess their risk from flooding because of the way that Federal flood maps present exposure from 100-year and 500-year flood events (events of 1% and 0.2% annual likelihood). NPR. October 20, 2020.

Risk Assessment and Analysis

• America Is a Rich Death Trap (The Atlantic, September 9, 2022): “It’s not just the pandemic. For citizens of a wealthy country, Americans of every age, at every income level, are unusually likely to die, from guns, drugs, cars, and disease.”
• The Deadly Myth That Human Error Causes Most Car Crashes (The Atlantic, November 26, 2021): This article sheds light on the difficulty in assigning causation rather than correlation when assessing certain risks, including common ones like auto accidents.
• How does COVID-19 end in the US? Likely with a death rate Americans are willing to ‘accept’ (USA Today, June 6, 2021): This article highlights the question of risk acceptability, and at what levels societies are able to live with a non-zero level of risk.
• The Unseen COVID-19 Risk for Unvaccinated People (Washington Post, May 28, 2021): COVID population risk was (and still is) scary. Prior to wide vaccine availability, our age, our health status, and local transmission rates helped us to establish our individual risk – whether we were likely to catch COVID, and if so, whether or not we might die. With vaccines in circulation, the calculus changes, and we need to be aware of how (especially if we aren’t vaccinated). This new trend towards lower population risk for COVID doesn’t mean low risk for you if you aren’t vaccinated, because you are a growing percent of the shrinking population for which these absolute figures are relevant.
• FEMA announced the release of the new National Risk Index in November of 2020. The NRI is an online mapping application that classifies counties and census tracts according to their risk, resilience, vulnerability, and coping capacity for 18 natural hazards. The system normalizes hazards between all communities, and determines consequences by providing a dollar value for human life and health, and as such there are some concerns about the accuracy and utility of outcomes. That said, the system does provide a good starting basis for the planning process which would have to be built upon using local expertise and additional locally-derived data.
• International research team calls for ‘glocal’ approach to help mitigate flooding damage (Phys.Org, 12/24/2020)

Hazard Modeling

• NOAA Risk Mapping Tool
• National Risk Index
• US EPA Storm Water Management Model (SWMM)

Risk Perception

• Car crash deaths have surged during COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s why. (LA Times, December 8, 2021): This article explains how the perception (or misperception) or a prominent risk faced by an individual can cause them to discount other risks, even those that may have greater consequences or be more likely to cause negative impacts.

Risk Assessment Case Studies

• Haiti GeoPortal (Haiti-specific GIS Analytics Page providing insight on multi-hazard risk in Haiti)

Recurrent Acute Disasters

• A framework for research on recurrent acute disasters (Science, March 9, 2022): Recurrent acute disasters (RADs) are sequential disasters that affect a specific locale over time. 

Technology and Risk Assessment

• Community Science Project Helps Track Geohazard Risks in Uganda (EOS, July 22, 2022): “A community project in the Kigezi Highlands is helping to identify landslide and flooding hot spots and how the hazards are evolving.“

Using Excess Deaths to Assess the Total Life Impact of a Disaster

• Life expectancy in the U.S. has declined. What does that mean for your retirement? (Market Watch, January 10, 2023): This article explains some of the data surrounding average life expectancy in the US, namely how the pandemic might have impacted that.
• U.S. ‘excess deaths’ during pandemic surpassed 1 million, with covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll, CDC says (Washington Post, February 15, 2022)
• Peru revises pandemic death toll, now worst in the world per capita (Reuters, 5/31/2021): “Peru’s updated numbers are in line with so-called excess death figures, which researchers have used in Peru and other countries to measure possible undercounting during the pandemic.”