Author Archive | Wesley Shaw

Fast, Perfect, and Cheap Disaster Response

“The federal government is a support role. So if you think FEMA responds to disasters or that we’re in charge, first of all, we’re never in charge, we’re always in support, and and we work for a lot of different folks.” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate delivers a great TED talk on the federal role in […]

Florida Takes Hard Look at its Future Climate

The State University System of Florida has released Climate Scenarios: A Florida-Centric View, a serious look at what future climate conditions might mean for the sunshine state. From the intro: The purpose of this document is to provide an informed opinion on future climate scenarios relevant to Florida. It offers a primer on Florida’s vulnerabilities […]

NOAA Releases New Storm Surge Brochure

NOAA’s National Hurricane Center Storm Surge Unit has put together a new brochure explaining the what storm surge is and how to best measure it. There’s nothing here on how to prevent losses, but the before/after shots (on page 3) should motivate some people to think about how we need to plan for it. Added […]

Animated Map of Extreme Weather Events

Just an animated map showing last year’s extreme weather events around the country. Amusing if you don’t think about it. Very worrisome if you do. Extreme Weather Map

Mississippi to be Dropped from the National Flood Insurance Program?

A troubling article from the Bolivar Commercial spells out why Mississippi may be removed from the National Flood Insurance Program as early as this spring. The issue is over a state law prohibiting counties and cities from enforcing building codes, including local floodplain management ordinances, against qualified hunting and fishing camps. The NFIP requires that […]

Making Insurance Seem Smarter

Pretty clever marketing: FloodSmart.gov should do something like this for floods and flood insurance. Note, this requires FLASH and a decent Internet connection (or a lot of patience). Happy Friday, everybody. chaosinyourtown.com

New Reality: Innocous High Tide Floods Street [video]

Delaware Sea Grant has released a great short video showing how a little (offshore) storm plus a high tide can affect a seemingly safe street. Take a short break and watch. Expect a lot more like this as we see more sea level rise.

New Webinar: The Front Lines of Climate Change

Next Wednesday (November 30th) at 2PM CST the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium will be hosting what sounds like an interesting webinar on how climate change is impacting Bangladesh (for those who don’t know, that nation is often cited as one of the countries most susceptible to negative climate change impacts). The talk will be given […]

Army Corps of Engineers Releases Updated Sea Level Rise Procedures

The Army Corps of Engineers has updated its circular (“Sea-Level Change Considerations For Civil Works Programs“) spelling out how it will approach designing its projects to address sea level rise. If your community has any Corps projects, you’ll definitely want to have a quick skim (it’s shorter than it looks: most of the important stuff […]

The Latest on Post-Disaster Recovery [audio]

The American Planning Association has released a short interview with Ed Thomas and Alessandra Jerolleman (both from the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association) on the best way for communities to recover quickly and safely from a major storm, flood, etc. Their work is the foundation of our (largely in development) After the Storm section. You can […]