General Disaster Preparedness

• Year of deadly disasters should put better preparedness high on region’s 2024 to-do list (The National News, December 27, 2023)
• U.S. Residents Nervous About Disaster Preparedness (Government Technology, July 14, 2023): “In a survey of 1,000 adults, 86 percent said they were concerned about the increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters, but just 36 percent said they felt prepared to face a major weather event.”
• Disasters Strike Suddenly: Here’s What to Pack Before an Emergency (National Interest, October 3, 2021)
• Preparedness – How Much is Enough?: Thought piece on individual preparedness needs by Preparedness Labs
• FEMA Disaster Preparedness Toolkit: The Preparedness Toolkit is an online portal that provides the whole community with tools to aid in implementing all six areas of the National Preparedness System. Select one of the six NPS areas to begin exploring.
• National Center for Disaster Preparedness “5 Action Steps to Preparedness”
• International Federation of Red Cross / Red Crescent Societies “Disaster Preparedness” Portal

Emergency Operations Planning

• When Is a Disaster Plan Out of Date? (Government Technology, July 26, 2022)
• Emergency Managers: Ditch the Plan and Write a Playbook (Government Technology, 2022)
• Survivors tell NSW flood inquiry of failures in warnings, predictions and emergency response (ABC News, May 4, 2022): “The NSW Flood Inquiry will look at the preparation for, causes of, response to, and recovery from the 2022 flood events across the state.”

Emergency Operations Center

Government Capacity Development / Preparedness

• FEMA PrepToolkit (National Preparedness System) (STATIC)
• White House debuts a new climate-based workforce initiative (Government Executive, September 20, 2023): “President Joe Biden called for new executive action Wednesday to establish what the White House calls an American Climate Corps to help train and qualify people for clean energy jobs.” Although linked to the mitigation of the drivers of climate change, this announcement is notable in that FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was involved thereby signaling the administration’s willingness to link the management of climate change drivers to the management of disaster risk.
• With wildfires looming, Congress must act to prevent an exodus of firefighters (Government Executive, September 18, 2023)
• These are the states in America that are the least prepared for extreme weather (CNBC, July 28, 2023)
• Mayor wants a fleet manager, but Council members say hiring a disaster manager is more urgent (Buffalo News, January 10, 2023): This article describes a disagreement about what type of government capacity must be improved in order to protect the storm-hit city of Buffalo, New York, USA, from a similar future breakdown in response capabilities (That led to the large number of fatalities and societal disruption in the December 2022 storms.)
• Senate-Approved Infrastructure Bill Would Raise Wildland Firefighter Pay (Government Executive, August 12, 2021): “The bill would order the U.S. Agriculture and Interior departments—which together employ some 15,000 wildland firefighters—to start working with the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, on a new set of job classifications for firefighters. Lawmakers and advocates for federal firefighters say changing job classifications is the first step toward raising pay for all firefighters. The Senate bill also would have the Agriculture and Interior Departments turn at least 1,000 seasonal firefighting jobs into full-time positions. And it would allow agencies to raise pay by $20,000 per year, or 50% of a job’s base salary, for positions that are particularly hard to fill in a certain area.”
• Wildfires Ravaging California and 12 Other States Put Firefighters in High Demand (Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2021): ” Firefighting resources are being deployed at a level normally seen later in the year, as dozens of large, active wildfires have burned through more than 1.3 million acres across the West. Nearly 22,000 firefighters and other personnel are working to contain fast-spreading flames, and agencies and leaders are concerned firefighters could become exhausted well ahead of the hardest months of the season in late summer and early fall.”

Public and Individual Preparedness

• The best bug out bags in 2024, tried and tested (CNN, March 18, 2024)
• Cellphones fail. Should you have a landline phone for emergencies? (Washington Post, February 22, 2024)
• Would Your Documents Survive a Disaster? What to Protect and How (Nerdwallet, December 15, 2023): Document backup skirts the line between mitigation and preparedness, wherein many documents are required to affect early and long-term recovery – but having backups to documents also helps to limit the financial impacts of an event and thus are, by definition, risk reduction.
• FEMA fires group for nonsensical Alaska Native translations (Alaska News Source, January 13, 2023)
• Financial & Tax Paperwork to Safeguard in Case of a Natural Disaster (Go Banking Rates, May 6, 2022)
• Why Don’t We Prepare for Disasters? (Government Technology, April 28, 2022)
• 8 Things You Can Do Right Now to Prepare Before a Natural Disaster Strikes (Apartment Therapy, March 22, 2022)
• Six Reasons I Can’t Stand Preparedness Fairs (Jenny Novak Publications, March 21, 2022)
• The Truth About “72 Hours” (Resilience Post, January 14, 2022): Opinion piece on how long people need to be prepared to be self sufficient following a major disaster.
• Sensational Images Of European Floods Belied By Declining Deaths & Damages (Forbes, July 19, 2021): “But the reason the floods were so deadly is because European nations were so unprepared for them. Last fall, the German government held a national “warning day,” when loud sirens and text messages were supposed to alert people to danger. “It was a debacle,” The Times of London reports. “Most of the technology didn’t work.” A professor of hydrology who helped build Europe’s flood prediction and warning network said there was a “monumental failure of the system.”
• FEMA Announces 2021-2022 Youth Preparedness Council (FEMA Press Release, June 15, 2021): “FEMA created the council in 2012 to bring together diverse young leaders interested in strengthening disaster preparedness across the nation and within their communities.”
• Opinion: Disaster preparedness starts with you (KATU2, May 1, 2021): “Governments at all levels and all sizes have a maximum possible response, and when a true disaster arrives, we have to acknowledge that it won’t be enough.”

Private Sector Preparedness

• The Home Depot Announces New and Enhanced Disaster Preparedness Resources (PR Newswire, April 29, 2021): “The Home Depot^®, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, is offering new and enhanced resources for natural disaster preparedness and is encouraging customers to prepare early for all natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wildfires.”

Preparedness for Pets and Other Animals

• Preparing Farm Animals for Disaster (FEMA Fact Sheet, June 17, 2021): This is a personal narrative from a FEMA employee who works with farm animals.

Preparedness for Children, Senior Citizens, and Other Vulnerable Populations

• UNDRR Training to Enhance DRR Strategies Using Disability Inclusion (UNGETI, Event October 11, 2023)
• A New Law Ensures Kids’ Needs Are Prioritized In Natural Disasters and Other Catastrophic Events (Government Executive, June 7, 2022): On June 6, President Biden signed the “Homeland Security for Children Act,” which the House and Senate passed in September and May, respectively. Previous attempts to enact this bill died in earlier sessions of Congress. 

Catastrophic Preparedness

• The coming California megastorm (The Seattle Times, August 13, 2022): “This vapor plume will be enormous, hundreds of miles wide and more than 1,200 miles long, and seething with ferocious winds. It will be carrying so much water that if you converted it all to liquid, its flow would be about 26 times what the Mississippi River discharges into the Gulf of Mexico at any given moment.”
• Experts warn California of a disaster ‘larger than any in world history.’ It’s not an earthquake. (USA Today, August 12, 2022)

Statutory Authority / Legal Basis

• Bee Cave City Council votes for disaster declaration for solar eclipse; LTISD cancels school (KXAN, March 27, 2024): “The disaster declaration allows the mayor authority over their jurisdiction to request state funding if needed during the eclipse. “We don’t want to cause alarm, but this is an important move to ensure we can use all the tools we have available to be prepared for this influx of people to the area,” Bee Cave Mayor Kara King said in a press release from the city.”
• As coronavirus surges, GOP lawmakers are moving to limit public health powers (Washington Post, July 25, 2021): “Legislatures nationwide have passed measures, some shaped by conservative think tanks and activist groups.”
• Opinion: Jones Act Waivers Should be a Last Resort (Maritime Executive, June 14, 2021): “The Jones Act waivers following Hurricane Irma in 2017 had exactly that result. Foreign ships were chartered in to replace American tankers, costing American mariners and their American employers millions. The primary beneficiaries (in addition to foreign shipowners) were oil traders who had sought the waivers so that they could use cheaper foreign ships and pocket the difference in freight costs (a form of “disaster arbitrage”).”

Education and Training

• The FEMA Higher Education College List: College list by the numbers (as of June 1, 2021): 726 total • Emergency and Disaster Management Programs in Other Countries – 26 • Emergency Management Programs – 328 • Executive Education Programs – 3 • Homeland Security Programs – 254 • International Disaster Relief/Humanitarian Assistance – 10 • Public Health, Medical and Related Programs – 28 • Related Programs – 77

Risk Communication / Preparedness Messaging

• The best emergency radios in 2023, tried and tested (CNN, August 14, 2023)
• 8 hilarious but true wildlife tips from the National Park Service (Washington Post, April 12, 2023): This article describes efforts taken by National Park employees to communicate park-related risks with visitors.
• Effective risk communication saves lives and builds disaster resilience (Open Access Government, March 24, 2023)
• The Covid mask wars have left us unprepared for the next pandemic (Vox, March 10, 2023)
• Oregon Tried to Inform Residents About Wildfire Risk. The Backlash was Explosive. (Route Fifty, November 3, 2022)
• Family and Friends May Beat the Stats in Vax Persuasion (Futurity, July 25, 2022)
• How High the Floods of Sea Level Rise? Check the BPC Lamp Posts. (Tribe, April 22, 2022)
• The end of the world is coming, even if you’ve heard it all before (LA Times, April 6, 2022): This editorial explains that climate change warnings are falling on deaf ears because the requirements for change seem overwhelming for most people.
• CDEMA has developed a “Disaster Fighters” disaster preparedness campaign that features celebrities from several of the participating countries in the region. See the video here:
• Blue Messenger Bicycles bring lifesaving information to South Sudan (UNDP, June 2, 2021): ” Bright and strikingly blue, each bicycle is mounted with a megaphone, an amplifier, a battery, and a USB stick. They broadcast recorded messages and collect feedback from communities. After proving their concept worked, and with support and technical expertise from UNDP South Sudan’s Accelerator Lab and Communications Unit, the team received 50 bicycles in October 2020 to expand their reach.”

Drills and Exercises

Alert and Warning

• Radar Gaps Threaten Millions as Severe Weather Season Ramps Up in US (Washington Post, March 24, 2024)
• Without Warning: A Lack of Weather Stations Is Costing African Lives (Yale, October 31, 2023)
• Beijing’s top spy agency cracks down on illegal foreign weather stations amid push to stop data leaving China (SCMP, October 31, 2023)
• The Hurricane Otis Forecast Bust And An Important Lesson (Forbes, October 28, 2023): “Even with such hyper-intensification, National Hurricane Center forecasters certainly had some perspective that explosive development was possible.”
• Nationwide test of Wireless Emergency Alert system could test people’s patience–or help rebuild public trust in the system (NextGov, October 4, 2023)
• Google launches earthquake alerts on Android in India (Tech Crunch, September 27, 2023)
• Libya floods show need for multi-hazard early warnings, unified response (WMO, September 14, 2023)
• Flash flood forecasting and early warning saves lives and combats poverty (Asian Development Bank, September 3, 2023)
• Officials think of improvements to disaster alerts (2 News Oklahoma, August 30, 2023)
• Hawaii has a robust emergency siren warning system. It sat silent during the deadly wildfires (CNN, August 13, 2023)
• Google alert failed to warn people of Turkey earthquake (BBC, July 27, 2023)
• NOAA to Improve Storm Surge Predictions Ahead of 2023 Hurricane Season (Government Executive, May 5, 2023)
• Climate disasters: How much would it cost to implement early warning systems worldwide? (Euronews, January 9, 2023)
• US touts effort to build climate ‘early warning system’ with African nations (The Hill, December 13, 2022)
• Disaster experts say heat warning systems are falling short (NPR, September 6, 2022)
• New method can predict summer rainfall in the Southwest months in advance (PHYS, April 28, 2022)
• Weather subscription services are increasingly essential on an overheating Earth (Protocol, April 28, 2022)
• CDC launches disease forecasting center to warn public of health threats (ABC, April 19, 2022)
• WMO Climate Risk Early Warning Systems (CREWS) EWS Resources Page: This website contains several great sources of information on early warning systems and standards, as well as best practices.
• Scientists Spy on Mount Etna With Fiber Optic Cables (Wired, April 8, 2022): “Writing last week in the journal Nature Communications, researchers described how they used a technique known as distributed acoustic sensing, or DAS, to pick up seismic signals that conventional sensors missed. “
• Mount Rainier To Feature More Lahar Detectors (National Parks Traveller, April 6, 2022)
• The World’s First Warning Research Center Has Opened (Psychology Today June 23, 2021): “The Warning Research Centre (WRC) brings together global expertise to explore the role of warnings in managing vulnerabilities, hazards, risks, and disasters. The focus is to prevent adverse disaster impacts through improved warnings.”

Responder Communication Systems

• Funding Mechanisms Guide for Public Safety Communications (CISA, June 2021): “This Funding Mechanisms Guide for Public Safety Communications highlights strengths, challenges, opportunities, and other considerations for each funding mechanism to assist agencies in determining whether the strategy is suitable for their community. The guide also provides funding examples from states and localities, showcasing challenges and successes associated with real-world applications.”

Preparedness Grants

• Fiscal Year 2022 Homeland Security National Training Program Continuing Training Grants (DHS Fact Sheet, August 2022)
• Biden-Harris Administration announces $1 Billion in Community Wildfire Defense Grants from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (USDA Press Release, July 26, 2022)
• The Biden-Harris Administration Acts to Address the Growing Wildfire Threat (White House Press Release, June 30, 2021)
• As hurricane season looms, Biden doubles funding to prepare for extreme weather (The Washington Post, May 24, 2021)
• California Unveils Sweeping Wildfire Prevention Plan Amid Record Fire Losses and Drought (Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2021)

Planning and Preparedness Technologies

• Community Science Project Helps Track Geohazard Risks in Uganda (EOS, July 22, 2022)
• Virtual reality helps communities get the feel of natural disasters (ASCE, September 1, 2021)
• FEMA Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT)

Inclusion/Engagement in the Preparedness and Planning Processes

• Disaster survivors feel more prepared for the next one but are often left out of planning (The Conversation, February 14, 2022)

Other Preparedness Topics

• White House launches American Climate Corps (NBC News, September 20, 2023)