IAEM Scholarship Program is accepting applications for 2016-2017 scholarships
Full-time students working towards a degree in emergency management, disaster management, or a closely related field should apply now for the IAEM Scholarship. Graduate and undergraduate applications with complete instructions are available on the IAEM website. Questions may be directed to Scholarship Program Director Dawn Shiley.
IAEM Editorial Work Group extends deadline to May 2 for the special focus issue of the IAEM Bulletin about 'Emerging Technology's Impact on Emergency Management'
The IAEM-Global Editorial Work Group has extended the deadline for article submissions to Monday, May 2, 2016, 5:00 p.m. EDT, for the special focus issue on "Emerging Technology's Impact on Emergency Management." This issue is being published in partnership with the IAEM-USA Emerging Technology Caucus. Articles might include, but are not limited to: cybersecurity specific to emergency threats and emerging vectors; 3-D printing in emergency management; drones (regulatory aspects); drones (actual use); wearable tech; mobile tech; self-driving cars and related implications; robots for searching buildings; overview of the full spectrum of emerging technology, both nationally and internationally; emerging technology in the EOC – innovative uses and new technology we need; and using social media to provide feedback to the government or to share information. The deadline for article submissions is May 2, 2016; please read the author's guidelines before submitting your 750-1,500 word article to Karen Thompson, editor.
Indonesia-Japan cooperates to reduce disaster risks in Bengkulu
The Indonesian Red Cross is cooperating with the Japan Red Cross Society to improve community-based disaster risk reduction in three districts in the province of Bengkulu. READ MORE
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IAEM-LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN NEWS
CDEMA announces new project to create resilience culture in region
The Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency recently announced a new project aimed at reinforcing disaster risk reduction and creating a resilience culture in the Caribbean. READ MORE
IAEM-USA NEWS
FEMA seeks comments on refreshed National Incident Management System
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Apr. 8 released the refreshed National Incident Management System (NIMS) for a 30-day national engagement period. National engagement provides an opportunity for interested parties to comment on the draft of the refreshed NIMS, so that it reflects the collective expertise and experience of the whole community. FEMA supports the mission of strengthening the security and resilience of the nation by working to improve the ability of all to manage incidents, events and emergencies. NIMS provides a consistent and common approach and vocabulary to enable the whole community to work together seamlessly and manage all threats and hazards. FEMA is hosting a series of ten 60-minute engagement webinars between Apr. 8 and May 2, 2016, to highlight key proposed changes to NIMS and answer participant questions about submitting feedback. All webinars are open to the whole community, and all include the same information. To review the draft of the refreshed NIMS and for additional webinar information, visit the FEMA website. To provide comments on the draft, complete the feedback form and submit it to FEMA-NIMS@fema.dhs.gov. The national engagement period will conclude May 9, 2016, 5:00 p.m. EDT.
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Applications for FEMA/EMI's FY2017 Master Exercise Practitioner Program (MEPP) Series will be accepted May 1-July 1, 2016
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute (EMI) will be accepting applications May 1-July 1, 2016, for the Fiscal Year 2017 Master Exercise Practitioner Program (MEPP) course series. The MEPP is a series of three courses focusing on advanced exercise design, conduct, and evaluation practices in each phase of the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program. The MEPP assigns candidates to an exercise planning team where they are challenged to demonstrate their expertise at all levels of exercise design and conduct through in-class and take-home proficiency demonstrations. Candidates apply best practices and lessons learned from their organizations and experiences as well as key learning concepts from the MEPP curriculum to their exercise planning team assignments. Course details and registration information are available online.
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FEMA updates Public Assistance Alternative Procedures Pilot Program Guide for Permanent Work
On Apr. 4, 2016, FEMA's Public Assistance program issued the Public Assistance Alternative Procedures Pilot Program Guide for Permanent Work, Version 3. The Alternative Procedures Pilot Program was implemented in 2013 as a part of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act. The Pilot Program empowers communities with choices and enables them to make decisions based on their post-disaster recovery priorities. The guide details information on grants on the basis of fixed estimates, an independent validation of estimates, project consolidation, and full federal cost share funding for alternate projects. The updated guide contains several important changes, including the added requirement of an expert panel review of cost estimates for projects over $25 million, updating technical language in accordance with regulation, and clarifying guidance on insurance, scope of work changes, and time extension requests.
'Scarier than we initially thought': CDC sounds warning on Zika virus*
Public health officials used their strongest language to date in warning about a Zika outbreak in the United States, as the Obama administration lobbied Congress for $1.9 billion to combat the mosquito-borne virus. READ MORE
Earn Your Master's from Georgetown
Georgetown University offers Emergency & Disaster Management master's degrees in three distinct formats—online, on campus, and executive. See which format is right for you. MORE
Study: Slow fault movements may indicate impending earthquake
Scientists from Nanyang Technological University at its Earth Observatory of Singapore have discovered a way to forecast earthquakes based on slow fault movements caused by moving sub layers of the earth, announced NTU in a press release. READ MORE
National Weather Service 'stops shouting'; will use lower case in forecasts
The weather may sometimes be scary, but forecasters shouting about it don't help, a leading federal agency said. Beginning next month, the National Weather Service will stop using all capital letters on many of its forecasts. The agency is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which said new hardware and software allow it "to break out of the days when weather reports were sent by 'the wire' over teleprinters, which were basically typewriters hooked up to telephone lines." READ MORE
Gorman-Redlich Weather Receiver with Signboard Support
Stay safe with the Gorman-Redlich CRW-S NOAA Weather Radio receiver, which includes SAME decoding and interfaces with digital signage, emergency lighting, PA systems and more. MORE
A Zika catastrophe could rival Hurricane Katrina
A mosquito doesn't care who it's biting. Yet the spread of diseases like Zika, which is now said to cause a grave birth defect, carries an outsized risk for poor people. That's because "poverty equates to poor quality housing, in addition to uncollected garbage and standing water in poor neighborhoods that allow certain insects to breed nearby," wrote Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and microbiologist at Texas Children's Hospital, in an essay for the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. READ MORE
Severe weather: More than just a seasonal threat
Campus weather preparedness plans, outreach and training must take into account the fact that tornadoes, as well as other weather hazards, can happen at any time. READ MORE
Which destinations are most at risk from a natural disaster?
Stuff.co.nz
Vanuatu and Tonga are the two most likely destinations to be caught up in a natural disaster. Based on data taken from its "2015 World Risk Report," the United Nations University for Environment and Human Security revealed the countries that posed the highest and the lowest risk. The South Pacific was seen as an especially risky area, according to the Telegraph. READ MORE
USDA to invest $103 million in natural disaster recovery, rehabilitation
EP NewsWire
The Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service recently announced that it will invest up to $103 million in the Emergency Watershed Protection program, which will partially go towards recovery and rehabilitation of aging dams. READ MORE
Bringing the landslide laboratory to remote regions
American Institute of Physics via Phys.org
It'd be hard to overstate how landslide-prone China's Loess Plateau is; thanks to millions of years' accumulation of the wind-deposited, highly-porous sediment from which the plateau takes its name, the region has been called the most erosion-prone on Earth. READ MORE
El Niño, La Niña patterns may be keys to predicting tornado outbreaks
WHNT-TV
Weather forecasting at its most fundamental level is pattern recognition: knowing what usually happens before, during, and after certain patterns develop in the atmosphere and over the oceans. Just the casual glance over years of data shows at least a little relationship between severe weather seasons in Alabama and Tennessee and ocean temperature patterns in the Pacific: El Niño and La Niña. READ MORE
Updated version of Hazus now available
As part of the ongoing Hazus moderzination efforts, the Hazus team recently has deployed Hazus-MH 3.1. Hazus Multi-Hazard (Hazus-MH) is a nationally applicable, standardized methodology, which uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to estimate physical, economic and social impacts of disasters. This methodology graphically illustrates the limits of identified high-risk locations due to earthquake, hurricane and floods. Hazus-MH allows users to visualize the spatial relationships between populations and geographic assets for the specific hazard being modeled. States and communities use Hazus-MH to increase hazard awareness and to perform risk assessments that evaluate economic loss for certain natural hazards. The updated software can be downloaded for free on the Flood Map Service Center (MSC) Hazus Download page. ArcGIS version compatibility remains at version 10.2.2 and it is supported for 64-bit Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 only. For educational resources and guidance on anticipated updates, visit the FEMA Hazus home page.
FEMA launches new preparedness feature to smartphone app
FEMA recently launched a new feature to its free smartphone app that will enable users to receive push notifications to their devices to remind them to take important steps to prepare their homes and families for disasters. The reminder feature allows users to receive pre-scheduled safety and preparedness tips, including testing smoke alarms, practicing a fire escape plan, updating emergency kits and replacing smoke alarm batteries. The app also provides a customizable checklist of emergency supplies, maps of open shelters and open recovery centers, and tips on how to survive natural and manmade disasters. The FEMA app offers a feature that enables users to receive push notifications of weather alerts from the National Weather Service for up to five locations across the nation. The latest version of the FEMA app is available for free in the App Store for Apple devices and Google Play for Android devices. Users who already have the app downloaded on their device should download the latest update for the reminder alerts feature to take effect. The reminders are available in English and Spanish and are located in the "Prepare" section of the FEMA app.
Pasco's new emergency management director hit the ground running*
TBO.com
It has been fairly easy for Pasco County's new emergency management director, Kevin Guthrie, to make a case for the need to prepare for weather hazards beyond hurricane season. Mother Nature has provided plenty of impetus in recent weeks. READ MORE
Fourth Annual Crisis Management Conference to be held in London on Sept. 14, 2016
The Fourth Annual Crisis Management Conference (CMC 2016) will take place in London, UK, on Sept. 14, 2016. This one-day crisis management conference offers delegates the unique opportunity to hear how organizations prepare for and respond to crises, and share views, experiences and the latest crisis management thinking with like-minded professionals from industry, government and academia. CMC 2016 will once again bring together top-level speakers at the forefront of crisis management to discuss how their organizations prepare for and respond to crises. This year's theme, "Preparing for and responding to unknown and unfamiliar risks," was drawn from one of the findings of a recent crisis management survey, which found that organizations were more confident in their ability to respond to familiar risks, such as industrial accidents, product recalls and extreme weather events, than they were unfamiliar risks such as cyberattacks, terror attacks, and strategic failure. The program for CMC 2016 will be announced soon, and other details are now available online. Those interested in speaking at the conference should email an outline of their suggested topic here.
Earthquake hitting 7.1 on the Richter scale shakes buildings in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India
A powerful earthquake has struck South Asia today shaking buildings in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. The 7.1 scale quake was centered about 25 miles west of Ashkasham in remote northeastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Tajikistan. Residents left their homes in Kabul and Islamabad when the quake struck, with buildings swaying for more than a minute in both capitals. READ MORE
5.2 earthquake rattles lower North Island
A strong magnitude 5.2 quake was felt widely across central New Zealand early today. The quake, which was located 15km west of Masterton and struck at a depth of 24 kilometers, disrupted commuter train services out of the Wairarapa and prompted checks on the region's bridges. READ MORE
Pakistan ends search for 23 people trapped by landslide
Times LIVE
The 23 were buried in their homes by a landslide in Kohistan district. Rescuers could only find five injured people and two dead bodies that were pulled from the rubble. "The rescue operation has been called off today and the elders of the area and local religious leaders have declared the landslide victims dead," local police official Ali Rehmat told AFP. READ MORE
North Koreans hardest hit by natural disasters, study shows
Nearly 7 out of 10 North Koreans were affected by natural disasters in 2015, including droughts and floods. The analysis from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Leuven in Belgium indicated that about 18 million North Koreans were disaster-stricken to varying degrees, the highest among all countries in the world. READ MORE
Fireworks disaster at Kerala Temple kills 106 in South India
A series of recent explosions caused by a fireworks display during a religious festival at a temple left 106 people dead and hundreds more injured in the southern Indian state of Kerala, the local authorities said. READ MORE
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Natalie Rodriguez, Assistant Executive Editor, 469-420-2635 | Contribute news