In order to increase public awareness of emergency preparedness in Canada, in 1995, government, private, and voluntary organizations created a national program called Safe Guard. As part of that effort, several documents of potential interest to Observer readers have been posted on the Emergency Preparedness Canada Web site: http://www.epc-pcc.gc.ca/research/scie_tech/index.html. The p roject also has its own Web site: http://www.safeguard.ca/english/index.html. Free printed copies of each of these documents can be requested by phone: (613) 991-7066; fax: (613) 996-0995; or e-mail: communications@epc-pcc.gc.ca.
In order to make disaster prevention and mitigation activities an integral part of development initiatives, the World Bank recently launched the ProVention Consortium--a global partnership of government agencies, international organizations, academic institutions, private businesses, private citizens, and other concerned groups (see the Observer, Vol. XXIV, No. 4, p. 3). In June, the consortium sent via e-mail the first issue of its ProVention Consortium Newsletter, which will be distributed once a month to provide information on projects, meetings, and conferences on disaster management. It will also contain interviews with prominent disaster professionals as well as a special section that reports on a specific disaster-stricken country.
More information about the ProVention Consortium is available from the World Bank Web site: http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/urban/provention/index.html. Interested p ersons can also contact Melanie Zipperer, Disaster Management Facility, World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433; (202) 473-1378; fax: (202) 522-3224 or (202) 522-2125; e-mail: DMF@worldbank.org; WWW: http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/urban/dis_man/dis_man.htm.
Focus on Wildfires . . .
The United Nations has announced its 2000 World Disaster Reduction Campaign and published an information kit in English, French, Spanish, and Russian for interested local governments and organizations. The kit includes scientific articles, a poster, and case studies of forest fire hazards and disaster prevention, as well as a booklet by and for young persons that includes personal accounts, essays, poems, and illustrations.
During the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-1999), the International Day for Disaster Reduction was a significant U.N. effort to raising awareness of disaster reduction in countries and communities around the world. Considering the success of this annual event, when the IDNDR came to an end and was succeeded by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), the General Assembly of the U.N. decided to continue observing the day on the second Wednesday of October. Each year, the event will be the culmination of a year-long public awareness campaign organized by the secretariat of the ISDR to promote disaster prevention among communities and populations at risk.
The theme for 2000--Disaster Reduction, Education, and Youth--recognizes the importance of establishing a "culture of prevention," as opposed to a culture of fatalism, by instilling awareness and knowledge beginning as early as possible in a child's development. This year's campaign will highlight wildfire hazards. The main objectives have been defined as:
In support of this mission, the ISDR Secretariat is joining several other national and international agencies in hosting the Second Hemispheric Conference on Disaster Reduction in the Education Sector in the Americas in Caracas, Venezuela, October 2-4, 2000 (see related article in this Observer).
The secretariat invites interested individuals and educational institutions to send examples of exemplary national or local education programs that are participatory and demonstrably contribute to building a culture of prevention. The secretariat plans to publish these accounts later this year.
Along with the information kit mentioned above, the ISDR Secretariat has prepared other supporting materials, including an ISDR brochure, a guide to activities and actions that could be undertaken at the local level, a teacher's guide, a children's disaster booklet, T-shirts on the theme of forest fire mitigation, audio-visual materials, a CD-ROM, a report on the 1999 world disaster reduction campaign, a kids' corner on the ISDR Web site (http://www.unisdr.org), and information on the U.N./Sasakawa Disaster Prevention Award.
The International Day for Disaster Reduction will be held on October 11, 2000, with celebrations taking place at the U.N. and locally around the globe. For an information kit, more information about the 2000 ISDR campaign, and suggestions for local activities and events, contact the Awareness and Promotion Issues Officer, U.N. ISDR Secretariat, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland; tel: (41 22) 917 90 00; fax: (41 22) 917 90 98/99; e-mail: isdr@un.org; WWW: http://www.unisdr.org. Interested persons can also contact Helena Molin Valdes, ISDR Unit for Latin America and the Caribbean; e-mail: hmolin@undpcos.nu.or.cr; or consult the Web site of the Regional Disaster Information Center, CRID, in San José, Costa Rica: http://www.crid.or.cr.
Over the next 60 years, erosion may claim one out of four houses within 500 feet of the U.S. shoreline. Driven by a rising sea level, large storms, flooding, and powerful ocean waves, nature is wearing away beaches and bluffs along U.S. ocean and Great Lakes shorelines and undermining waterfront houses, businesses, and public facilities. When Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994, it requested an in-depth analysis of proposed policy changes to federal programs that would address erosion hazards. The results of that study, conducted by the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment and funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), were recently released.
Besides the startling findings above, the report Evaluation of Erosion Hazards (2000, 252 pp., free) states that those who live along the coast face as large a risk of damage from erosion as they do from flooding. Roughly 1,500 homes and the land on which they were built will be lost to erosion each year, with losses averaging $530 million per year. At current enrollment levels, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will pay $80 million a year for erosion damage, or about 5% of current premiums. Property values have already dropped by about 10% in erosion-prone areas, and most future damage will occur in low-lying areas that are also subject to the highest risk of flooding. To fully reflect the risks in these areas, flood insurance rates, which usually cover erosion losses, should be doubled over current rates.
The authors of this report make two recommendations for improved management of this hazard:
Despite higher risks, current flood insurance policyholders are paying the same rates for flood insurance as those in non-eroding areas. If rates for structures in erosion-prone areas are not adjusted, other flood insurance policy holders will have to subsidize what is likely to become a substantial cost. And, through the use of erosion maps, rate increases could be confined to the highest risk areas. Alternatively, more modest rate increases could be spread across a larger "Coastal High Hazard Zone" that includes both the highest-risk flood and erosion-prone areas.
Copies of Evaluation of Erosion Hazards are available from Mark Crowell, FEMA, 500 C Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20004; (202) 646-3432; mark.crowell@fema.gov. The complete report, as well as a 20-page summary, are also available on-line at both the FEMA and Heinz Center Web sites: http://www.fema.gov/nwz00/erosion.htm or http://www.heinzctr.org.
To mitigate losses from natural hazards in coastal areas, FEMA has published an updated coastal construction manual that presents a comprehensive approach for managing risk. The publication, Coastal Construction Manual: Principles and Practices of Planning, Siting, Designing, Constructing, and Maintaining Residential Buildings in Coastal Areas (2000, free), provides technical guidance on the best practices for building along shorelines.
For the first time, the revised manual emphasizes land-use planning methods, including approaches that reduce the impacts of long-term erosion (see the preceding article). Careful land-use planning and site design are cited as critical predecessors to any development and building project. Rather than attempting to conquer the natural features of the coast, developers, the Coastal Construction Manual suggests, should consider options that incorporate the natural features of the land to reduce risk. The manual evaluates numerous practices for improving construction and reducing economic losses associated with coastal disasters and provides detailed guidance for implementing them.
FEMA has developed several training courses to support the new manual:
The three-volume manual will also be available on CD-ROM (FEMA 55, Third Edition), and free copies of both the print and CD-ROM editions can be ordered from the FEMA Publications Center, P.O. Box 2012, Jessup, MD 20794-2012; (800) 480-2520.
FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Team investigation of the May 1999 tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas corroborated the supposition that severe winds pose a substantial threat to those in high-occupancy buildings (e.g., schools, hospitals and other critical care facilities, nursing homes, day-care centers, and commercial buildings) as well as to those in residential neighborhoods that lack access to shelters.
Recently FEMA, aided by a panel of nationally recognized experts, developed Design and Construction Guidance for Community Shelters. Prior to its development, there was no building code, standard, or comprehensive design guide that addressed design and construction of shelters for extreme winds. The designs presented in this document are intended to provide near-absolute protection, and these community shelters are intended to serve many different users. Detailed information is provided for both separate structures and safe rooms within larger structures. The manual includes decision-making software, checklists for evaluating existing buildings, case studies, and sample plans.
The guidance also discusses shelter location, design loads, performance criteria, and human factors that should be considered. In addition to construction drawings, emergency operation plans, and cost estimates, two case studies are presented that illustrate how to evaluate existing shelter areas and make shelter selections.
Copies of the manual, FEMA 361, are free and can be ordered from FEMA Publications, P.O. Box 2012, Jessup, MD 20794-2012; (800) 480-2520. For more information on FEMA's safe room initiative, see http://www.fema.gov/mit/saferoom/. For more information on FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Teams, visit http://www.fema.gov/mit/bpat.
Congress was in a giving mood on June 30, 2000, passing an appropriations bill that provides $661 million to help New Mexico rebuild following the Los Alamos fire, $350 million for fighting other wildfires, and $360 million to help North Carolina and other eastern states recover from last September's Hurricane Floyd-associated flooding and other agricultural problems. Among the activities funded are housing assistance, agricultural assistance, economic development assistance, compensation to fishing operations for losses and equipment damage, and disaster loans.
The bill also provides $1.5 million to study flood damage reduction options for the town of Princeville, North Carolina; $2 million for preconstruction engineering and design of an emergency outlet from Devils Lake, North Dakota, to the Sheyenne River to reduce flooding; and $25 million for the Agency for International Development to provide disaster assistance to Mozambique, Madagascar, and southern Africa. The Bureau of Land Management will receive $200 million for emergency rehabilitation and wildfire suppression. The Forest Service gets $2 million for emergency expenses resulting from damage caused by wind storms and $150 million for emergency rehabilitation, presuppression, and wildfire suppression activities. Fifty million dollars has been made available to FEMA for the buyout or elevation of uninhabitable flooded properties.
The wildfire near Los Alamos, New Mexico, known officially as the Cerro Grande Fire (see the Invited Comment in this Observer), received considerable attention, as Congress included the "Cerro Grande Fire Assistance Act in the lengthy bill. This act, intended to compensate victims of the fire, acknowledges it was caused by the National Park Service and outlines procedures for compensating victims. In addition, $10 million will fund an emergency conservation program to rehabilitate farmland damaged by the fires, $4 million has been provided for watershed and flood prevention in areas scarred by the fires, and $138 million was set aside to remediate damage to Department of Energy facilities.
The complete text of Public Law 106-246 can be found at any federal repository library or at the Library of Congress Web site: http://thomas.loc.gov.
Education is a determining factor in both the creation and reduction of vulnerability to natural disasters, and education can clearly lead to major advances in disaster prevention.
Recognizing this fact, in 1992 the Organization of American States (OAS) initiated a process to create and implement a hemispheric action plan for disaster reduction in the education sector. This broad process of consultation and consensus, supported by international, regional, and national organizations, culminated in "EDUPLANhemisférico," a "Hemispheric Plan of Action for the Reduction of the Vulnerability in the Education Sector to Disasters," adopted during the first Hemispheric Conference on Disaster Reduction of the Education Sector in 1997.
EDUPLANhemisférico is now being presented to governmental and nongovernmental agencies to gather political, technical, and financial support for the implementation of programs in the following areas:
EDUPLANhemisférico is being implemented through local, national, and regional activities supported by "technical secretariats"--a wide variety of agencies, organizations, and educators involved in collaborative efforts to reduce vulnerability. Technical secretariats are directly involved with the institutions that operate at the community, educational, administrative, or geographic level. Their actions begin locally but can result in national, regional, and hemispheric application and impact. They develop programs, encourage citizen participation in making schools safer, and develop links to experts focusing on school infrastructure and hazard reduction.
As of May 2000, five organizations and institutions willing to commit time, personnel and (when available) funds to support mitigation had become technical secretariats. The Universidad Nacional de Trujillo in Peru serves as the general coordinator of EDUPLANhemisférico in Latin America and the Caribbean; in the U.S., a technical secretariat has been established at Texas Women's University.
EDUPLANhemisférico is actively seeking additional technical secretariats among all interested public and private institutions committed to disaster reduction in the education sector. Particularly important are networks of community-based NGOs, professional associations, technical associations, and development assistance institutions. People and organizations interested in learning more about EDUPLANhemisférico or becoming a technical secretariat, should contact Brenda Phillips, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Texas Women's University, P.O. Box 425557, Denton, TX 76205; (940) 898-2117; fax: (940) 898-2102; e-mail: brendaphillips@prodigy.net; or Jesús Angel Chávez Machado, Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Peru; e-mail: jachm@unitru.edu.pe; or the Natural Hazards Project, Unit of Sustainable Development, OAS, 1889 F Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20006; (202) 458-6295; fax: (202) 458-3560; e-mail: natural-hazards-project@oas.org.
The technical secretariats will meet in Venezuela, October 2-4, 2000, for the Second Hemispheric Conference on Disaster Reduction of the Education Sector. More information on this meeting is available from the OAS Natural Hazards Project at the address above.
Below are descriptions of recently awarded contracts and grants for the study of hazards and disasters. An inventory of contracts and grants awarded from 1995 to the present (primarily those funded by the National Science Foundation) is available on the Natural Hazards Center's Web site: http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/grants.html.
Wade Guice Hurricane Museum. Funding: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program, $100,000, 12 months. For further information, contact Clif Lusk or Robert Boteler, Mississippi Emergency
Management Agency, P. O. Box 4501, Jackson, MS 39296-4501; (601) 352-9100; fax: (601) 352-8314; WWW: http://www.memaorg.com/index2.htm.
This grant will contribute to a $3.9 million project to create a museum in Biloxi, Mississippi, that will feature the latest in
hurricane-resistant construction technology and promote greater public awareness of the risks from hurricanes. The
building will demonstrate hurricane-resistant construction techniques through the use of cut-away panels located throughout the building. It will also serve as an education center for public officials, flood ordinance administrators, emergency
managers, engineers, and other building professionals.
Tornado Shelter Options and Shelter-Seeking Behavior of Mobile Home Residents. Funding: National Science
Foundation, $84,040, six months. Principal Investigator: Thomas W. Schmidlin, Department of Geography, Kent State
University, Kent, OH 44242-0001; (330) 672-2045; fax: (330) 672-4304; e-mail: tschmidl@kent.edu.
Occupants of mobile homes are highly susceptible to injury or death in tornadoes; approximately 45% of all tornado-related fatalities occurred among mobile home residents in the U.S. in the 1990s. This study will assess the shelter-seeking
behavior of mobile home residents during a tornado threat, the availability of tornado shelters for mobile home residents in
general, and the feasibility of using a nearby vehicle as an alternative shelter. Two vehicles, a sedan and a pickup truck,
will be tested in a wind tunnel from five separate angles to determine the minimum wind speed required to lift and tip the
vehicles.
The Anthropology of Health During Reconstruction in Post-Hurricane Honduras. Funding: National Science
Foundation, $71,378, 12 months. Principal Investigators: James P. Stansbury and Anthony Oliver-Smith, Department of
Anthropology, P.O. Box 117305, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7305; (352) 392-2253; e-mail: jpstans@anthro.ufl.edu and aros@ufl.edu.
This project will investigate health and nutritional status in three hurricane-affected areas of Honduras. It is based on the
hypothesis that health and nutritional status will be worse in large urban areas than in small regional cities. Relationships
between health status and household income, demographic factors, educational levels, and hygiene will also be tested.
Research and Education in Natural Disaster Risk Assessment. Funding: National Science Foundation, $200,000, 48
months. Principal Investigator: Rachel A. Davidson, Department of Civil Engineering, University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223; (704) 547-2930; fax: (704) 510-6953 e-mail: radavids@uncc.edu.
This study will examine the premise that natural disaster vulnerability has little influence on decisions related to buying,
financing, insuring, and occupying structures. Its ultimate goal is to institutionalize natural hazards information within
structure-related decisions. Davidson will develop a model system for rating a structure's multihazard natural disaster risk,
apply the rating system to a sample of structures in three U.S. cities, and develop an interactive geographic information
system application for disseminating the rating tool. She will also develop a course on natural disaster risk for engineers,
include undergraduate students in the research, and mentor students from under-represented populations, particularly
women.
Advanced Simulation Methods for Seismic Performance of Urban Regions. Funding: National Science Foundation,
$383,388, 14 months. Principal Investigator: J. Donald Trotter, Engineering Research Center (ERC), Room 1, Box 9627,
Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762; (662) 325-3671; e-mail: trotter@erc.msstate.edu.
This project will produce an integrated model of the relationship between earthquake faults and the distribution of various
types of seismic damage, ranging from individual components and structures to collective damage among specific classes
of structures. It is intended to provide policy makers and emergency response agencies with information on the potential
impacts of a major earthquake in a densely populated region. It will integrate earthquake ground motion modeling by
Carnegie Mellon University's Quake Project (CMU-Quake), modeling and infrastructure systems created by the Pacific
Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center at the University of California-Berkeley, and the advanced
computational and visualization methods employed by the ERC in computational field simulation at Mississippi State
University.
An Investigation of the Geotechnical Aspects of the June 1999 Central Mexico Earthquakes: Preliminary Assess-ment. Funding: National Science Foundation, $12,110, 12 months. Principal Investigator: Jonathan D. Bray, Civil and
Environmental Engineering, 437 Davis Hall, MC 1710, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1710; (510)
642-9843; fax: (510) 642-7476; bray@ce.berkeley.edu.
This funding will support publication of a report written by the response team from the University of California and the
National Autonomous University of Mexico that investigated two earthquakes that occurred in the Central Region of
Mexico in June 1999. The report will be made available in printed form and on the World Wide Web and will highlight key
lessons from these quakes.
Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Reconnaissance of the November 12, 1999, Duzce, Turkey Earthquake.
Funding: National Science Foundation, $25,000, six months. Principal Investigator: Jean-Pierre Bardet, Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Southern California; (213) 740-0608; fax:
(213) 744-1426; e-mail: bardet@usc.edu.
On November 12, 1999, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred in the area of Duzce-Bolu, Turkey, resulting in extensive
damage and loss of life. This funding provides partial support for a reconnaissance team that was dispatched shortly after
the quake to document the geotechnical, engineering, geological, seismological, and tsunamigenic features. This is a multi-institutional award involving the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Southern California.
Rapid Generation of Ground Motion Maps of the 8/17/99 Turkey and 9/20/99 Taiwan Earthquakes. Funding:
National Science Foundation, $49,953, 12 months. Principal Investigators: Paul G. Somerville and Arben Pitarka, URS
Greiner Woodward Clyde, 566 El Dorado Street, Suite 100, Pasadena, CA 91101; (818) 449-7650, e-mail:
Paul_Somerville@urscorp.com.
Together, the Turkey and Taiwan quakes provide an unprecedented opportunity to understand large earthquakes and their
effects on the natural and built environments; there are practically no recordings of magnitude 7 or larger earthquakes
available for use in engineering analysis and design. The data from these quakes have the potential to greatly enhance
scientific ability to characterize the ground motions in seismically active regions. This award will support the development
of ground motion maps that take into account site conditions and should thus provide insight into the causes of damage and
building failure.
High-Resolution Climate and Land-Use Records from Cave Stalagmites and County Gazetteers for China Over the
Last 2,000 Years. Funding: National Science Foundation, $10,000,18 months. Principal Investigator: George A. Brook,
Department of Geography, GGS Building, Room #204, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2502; (706) 542-2856;
fax: (706) 542-2388; e-mail: gabrook@arches.uga.edu.
This award funds doctoral dissertation research to distinguish global environmental changes associated with natural
variations in climate from those resulting from human activities. Studies of land-use and land-cover changes have generally
been limited to the last 30 years. This project will explore the degree to which cave stalagmites can provide both climate
and land-use data for the areas near and above caves, thereby allowing a more accurate assessment of the role of humans in
environmental change. Stalagmite scientific analysis will be combined with meteorological records drawn from county
gazetteers in China that provide information for more than 2,000 years.
Women's Leadership Training to Develop Neighborhood Networks in Ukraine. Funding: U.S. Department of State;
$126,929; 12 months. Principal Investigators: Marion McNamara, Office of International Research and Development,
Snell Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331; (541) 737-6419; e-mail: mcnamarm@ucs.orst.edu; and Roberta
Hall, Anthropology Department, Waldo Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331; (541) 737-3860; e-mail:
rhall@orst.edu.
This project will create neighborhood networks in Uzhgorod, Ukraine, that are trained to prepare for and respond to an
emergency. A group of 13 women from Ukraine will travel to Corvallis, Oregon, to learn how to set up these networks in a
manner similar to the Neighborhood Watch program in the U.S. as well as how to teach emergency preparedness.
Additionally, the project will work to establish professional ties between emergency service providers in Uzhgorod and
Krakow, Poland.
Increasing the State of Washington State Emergency Management Division's GIS/Remote Sensing. Funding:
Washington State Emergency Management Division, $80,000, 12 months. Principal Investigators: Robert Freitag, Frank
Westerlund, and Earl Bell, Institute for Hazard Mitigation Planning and Research, Box 355740, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA 98195-5740; (206) 616-2395; fax: (206) 685-9597; e-mail: bfreitag@u.washington.edu; WWW: http://depts.washington.edu/mitigate.
This project assesses the feasibility of remote sensing for hazard mitigation and planning and the plausibility of developing
a state geographic information system (GIS). It will also develop recommendations for implementation. The Washington
State Emergency Management Division is particularly interested in GIS use for preliminary damage assessment, disaster
operations, and mitigation analysis. They would like to determine the viability of obtaining and using geospatial data for
hazard identification, mapping of populations and structures, and determining damage. The project will also evaluate the
use of satellite imagery to determine pre-event conditions and to conduct post-event analysis.
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