Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health From Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism, 2009

Based on ten indicators, assesses progress in the readiness of states, federal government, and hospitals to respond to public health emergencies, with a focus on the H1N1 flu. Outlines improvements and concerns in funding, accountability, and other areas

Children and Megadisasters: Lessons Learned in the New Millennium

Hurricane Katrina is America’s most recent encounter with a megadisaster. But what made it a megadisaster instead of just another category 3 hurricane of the type that seasonally exists in the Gulf of Mexico? Katrina was not the largest or strongest hurricane to strike the United States mainland in the recent past, but its effects were devastating and wide reaching beyond our wildest nightmares, far beyond those of Hurricane Andrew (1992), a category 5 hurricane that scoured much of Florida and the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina’s track directly targeted gaping vulnerabilities in infrastructure and society, and set in motion a series of events that culminated in the deaths of nearly 2000 people, resulted in hundreds of missing individuals, and caused a potential economic impact of up to $150 billion. The disruption of people’s lives was immeasurable, as was the impact on the long-term physical and mental health of the victims, which continues today. Katrina also led to a substantial decline in the confidence that the public has in its government to provide essential services during a disaster. Children are among the most susceptible members of a community when catastrophes such as these strike because of their dependent nature as well as their physiologic and psychological vulnerability. Children affected by Katrina were no exception. Persistent critical gaps exist in the ability to prepare for and respond to the needs of the youngest victims. These were clearly exposed as children endured an at times ineffectual disaster response followed by a stressful recovery that is still ongoing. An analysis of the issues that faced children during this event and some others from the recent past may help society reduce the impact of such disasters on children in the future. This article focuses on a few of the major shortfalls in the care of children that have become especially apparent in the last few years: Facilitating evacuation; Providing shelter; Caring for those with special medical needs; Addressing mental health needs

Intelligent evacuation management systems: A review

Crowd and evacuation management have been active areas of research and study in the recent past. Various developments continue to take place in the process of efficient evacuation of crowds in mass gatherings. This article is intended to provide a review of intelligent evacuation management systems covering the aspects of crowd monitoring, crowd disaster prediction, evacuation modelling, and evacuation path guidelines. Soft computing approaches play a vital role in the design and deployment of intelligent evacuation applications pertaining to crowd control management. While the review deals with video and nonvideo based aspects of crowd monitoring and crowd disaster prediction, evacuation techniques are reviewed via the theme of soft computing, along with a brief review on the evacuation navigation path. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing reliable automated evacuation systems that will help in ensuring the safety of the evacuees especially during emergency evacuation scenarios

Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government for State-Level Transportation Organizations, Research Report 11-02

The Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20 (HSPD-20) requires all local, state, tribal and territorial government agencies, and private sector owners of critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) to create a Continuity of Operations/Continuity of Government Plan (COOP/COG). There is planning and training guidance for generic transportation agency COOP/COG work, and the Transportation Research Board has offered guidance for transportation organizations. However, the special concerns of the state-level transportation agency’s (State DOT’s) plan development are not included, notably the responsibilities for the entire State Highway System and the responsibility to support specific essential functions related to the State DOT Director’s role in the Governor’s cabinet. There is also no guidance on where the COOP/COG planning and organizing fits into the National Incident Management System (NIMS) at the local or state-level department or agency. This report covers the research conducted to determine how to integrate COOP/COG into the overall NIMS approach to emergency management, including a connection between the emergency operations center (EOC) and the COOP/COG activity. The first section is a presentation of the research and its findings and analysis. The second section provides training for the EOC staff of a state-level transportation agency, using a hybrid model of FEMA’s ICS and ESF approaches, including a complete set of EOC position checklists, and other training support material. The third section provides training for the COOP/COG Branch staff of a state-level transportation agency, including a set of personnel position descriptions for the COOP/COG Branch members

Bloated bodies and broken bricks: power, ecology, and inequality in the political economy of natural disaster recovery

Disaster recovery efforts form an essential component of coping with unforeseen events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and typhoons, some of which will only become more frequent or severe in the face of accelerated climate change. Most of the time, disaster recovery efforts produce net benefits to society. However, depending on their design and governance, some projects can germinate adverse social, political, and economic outcomes. Drawing from concepts in political economy, political ecology, justice theory, and critical development studies, this study first presents a conceptual typology revolving around four key processes: enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment. Enclosure refers to when disaster recovery transfers public assets into private hands or expand the roles of private actors into the public sphere. Exclusion refers to when disaster recovery limits access to resources or marginalize particular stakeholders in decision-making activities. Encroachment refers to when efforts intrude on biodiversity areas or contribute to other forms of environmental degradation. Entrenchment refers to when disaster recovery aggravates the disempowerment of women and minorities, or worsen concentrations of wealth and income inequality within a community. The study then documents the presence of these four inequitable attributes across four empirical case studies: Hurricane Katrina reconstruction efforts in the United States, recovery efforts for the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, and the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand. It then offers three policy recommendations for analysts, program managers, and climate researchers at large: spreading risks via insurance, adhering to principles of free prior informed consent, and preventing damage through punitive environmental bonds. The political economy of disaster must be taken into account so that projects can maximize their efficacy and avoid marginalizing those most vulnerable to those very disasters

Application of Remote Sensing for the Prediction, Monitoring, and Assessment of Hazards and Disasters that Impact Transportation

Although remote sensing has been used in predicting, monitoring, and assessing hazards and disasters for over 50 years, its use in the transportation domain is still in its infancy. This study was conducted to identify the research needs involving the use of remote sensing for such applications within the transportation domain. The first step taken was to determine the current state of remote sensing applications in the transportation domain associated with the prediction, monitor, and assessment of hazards and disasters. The second step was to identify the impacts that such events may cause and the information needed to prevent or reduce their impacts. With the knowledge of the required information, remote sensing requirements and technology limitations were defined. Then according to the knowledge of the current state of research and the limitations of remote systems, future research needs were identified. Finally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank these research needs

A public health management model for acute chemical incidents in Wales

The price of industrial progress is the potential for exposure of an increasingly informed public to chemical hazards in the environment. Of particular concern are acute exposures to chemical incidents, where problematic health risk assessments have highlighted the lack of expertise and resources available to support public health professionals in Wales responsible for protecting the health of populations. A systematic literature review of chemical incident databases, public health surveillance systems and major chemical incidents worldwide was used to guide the development of the first active, multi-agency community-based public health surveillance system for acute chemical incidents to be undertaken in Europe. A total of 642 acute chemical incidents were reported in Wales from all sources over a three year period. Of the 270 incidents reported by the primary source, chemical spills were the most frequently reported type of incident (28%) and operational industrial sites the most common location (25%). Of the estimated 238,000 people exposed, 528 reported symptoms in a total of 57 incidents. A single chemical was implicated in 86% of the incidents. Shortfalls were identified in the current expertise and resources available to public health professionals in Wales, leading to the development of a public health management model for acute chemical incidents. Model development took place in the context of United Kingdom - wide initiatives and involved the conduct of structured interviews with 41 organisations with interests in the field. The model selected for Wales was implemented on 1 February 1997 and comprised three levels of operation: (a) accountability for the protection of public health vested in health authorities at the local level; (b) a subscription-based front-line advisory and support unit to those authorities; (c) and a centrally funded national co-ordinating centre to provide the necessary evidence-base through programmes of surveillance, training, and emergency planning