Category Archives: Uncategorized
UN Program Tries to Make Cities More Climate Ready
No targeting funding for communities, but the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction may help with coordination.
For more info, see the United Nations Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready, Read More
Best Practices for Effective Hurricane Communication
Louisiana State University has released a great brochure on best practices for communicating about hurricane risks. It's short, simple, and it makes sense. Here's the meat of it, broken down by audience:
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Be Proactive in Educating the Public: Gaining compliance during a hurricane requires year-round efforts. Waiting until the storms hit, Read More
High Tech (and generally free) Tools for Disaster Preparation
Mashable has written a short article outlining some of the many ways that people can take advantage of the technology they already own (computers, smart-phones, etc) to help prepare themselves for natural disasters. Some of the ideas:
Using Google My Maps to create evacuation maps (see video below for an intro on how to do this)
Storing medical information, Read More
Sunday: Scheduled StormSmart Coasts Site Maintenance [UPDATED]
Just a heads-up: we've got some exciting work to do on the StormSmart Coasts site.
We think you'll like the results, but in the meantime, we're going to pull the site down for a few hours Sunday evening (Feb. 21st) and put our robots to work. If you visit then, there's no telling what you might find. Rest assured, we should be up and running at full force, Read More
2010 Coastal Resilience Symposium: May 26, Houston [EVENT]
Just announced: the 2010 Coastal Resilience Symposium will be held at Rice University (Houston) on May 26th. From the event's new webpage:
"Hurricane Ike was not the "Big One" for the Houston area, but it gave us a much clearer picture of what we might expect should a large hurricane make landfall to our southwest.
How well would we be able to recover?, Read More
State Farm to Drop 125,000 Policies in Florida
Approximately 125,000 of State Farm's "most vulnerable customers" in Florida should brace themselves to receive some potentially bad news: their policies with State Farm Insurance are being cancelled.
MSNBC and others are reporting that State Farm Florida will be canceling policies for nearly a fifth of its clients, most of them in coastal areas. It began, Read More
FEMA Chief Urged To Extend Ike Programs
Briefly: The Houston Chronicle reports that U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee asked the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Friday to extend housing and case management assistance programs for Hurricane Ike victims from February to September.
"FEMA Chief Urged To Extend Ike Programs" (via The Houston Chronicle)
Photo:, Read More
FEMA Grants Conference Call—February 5
A friend just passed this announcement our way:
The DHS Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives would like to connect you to some of our colleagues in FEMA and share information on specific grant programs to strengthen your resilience against hazards. The call will provide an overview of four programs:
Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), Read More
State of the Coast Conference June 8-10, Louisiana
From the press release:
State of the Coast: Implementing a Sustainable Coast for Louisiana
June 8-10, 2010, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and many others have partnered together to host the State of the Coast (SOC), Read More
Training Opportunity: FEMA 550 – Residential Construction for Gulf Coast Design Professionals
FEMA will be offering its "Recommended Residential Construction for the Gulf Coast Design Professionals" course on September 15, 8:00am – 4:15pm at the Army National Guard Emergency Operations Training Auditorium in Gulfport. Details from the flier:
This 1-day course on FEMA 550, Recommended Residential Construction for the Gulf Coast, developed by FEMA, Read More
