Annual Meeting 2010

The Hazards Center held its second Annual Meeting Feb. 17-18, 2010, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Each of the Center’s 21 Principal Investigators presented an update on projects covering the main focus areas of Center research: engineering, social resilience, planning, coastal hazards modeling and advanced information systems.

The meeting also included several guest speakers who are preeminent in the fields of hazards and disasters. Highlights included:

• Eric Berman from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who spoke about HAZUS, a revolutionary loss-estimate tool that helps predict damage losses from winds, flooding and earthquakes.
• Michael Dunaway, who spoke about disaster-related initiatives at the Human Factors Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
• David Schanzer, co-director of the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions (IHSS), told the group about important projects carried out by the Center in the hazards field.
• Todd Davison from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Gulf Coast Service Center provided an overview of complementary activities taking place through its regional offices in coastal regions of the United States.
• Special guest and Hazards Center Advisory Board member Gerry Galloway spoke about the importance of science-based policy development and the need to communicate risks to the public in clear terms that are easy to act upon to their vulnerability.

Annual Report 2010

The Center has issued its first Annual Report. The report highlights accomplishments made to date by Center partners, and lays out the direction for future Center research and outreach activity. A copy of the Annual Report is now available on the Center’s website at: http://bit.ly/UNC2010report

National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)

Online Home: http://www.nemaweb.org/home.aspx

Who they serve: Emergency management directors from all 50 states, eight territories and the District of Columbia.

What they do: Provide national leadership and expertise in comprehensive emergency management; give vital emergency management information and assistance; and advance continuous improvement in emergency management through partnerships, programs and policy positions.

Of note:

• NEMA’s mid-year conference is held March 5-10, 2010, in Alexandria, Va. The 2010 Annual Conference will be held Oct. 17-21, 2010, in Little Rock, Ark.
• Each year, NEMA awards the Lacy E. Suiter Distinguished Service in Emergency Management Award to an outstanding emergency manager. Go here: http://www.nemaweb.org/default.aspx?ID=2107 for more information and to learn about nominating a deserving emergency manager you know.
• Current emergency management job postings from across the country: http://www.nemaweb.org/jobs/default.aspx

Emergency Management Assessment Program (EMAP)

Online Home: http://www.emaponline.org

Who they serve: State and local emergency management departments, divisions or offices responsible for emergency management functions in the United States only.

What they do: Assessment and peer review accreditation for government programs responsible for coordinating prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities for natural and human-caused disasters.

Of note:

• EMAP also works with the private sector to inform technological and other products that concern emergency management.
• EMAP’s outreach to public officials advocates regional preparedness activities. To learn more about EMAP’s message to elected and appointed officials, go to: http://bit.ly/EMAPpoliticians

Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)

Online Home: http://www.emacweb.org

Who they serve: The entire United States.

What they do: They are a congressionally ratified organization that provides form and structure to interstate mutual aid. Through EMAC, a disaster impacted state requests and receives assistance from other member states quickly and efficiently.

Click here to download the EMAC Deployment Brochure

Of note:

• EMAC publishes several brochures and manuals at: http://www.emacweb.org/?306 that give first responders (including medical professionals) sage, hard-earned advice about emergency response.

International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM)

Online Home: http://www.iaem.com/index.htm

Who they serve: Emergency management professionals worldwide.

What they do: Give members information, networking and professional opportunities to support them in their work saving lives and protecting property during emergencies and disasters.

Of note:

• IAEM gives scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in accredited college programs pursuing a degree that includes emergency management courses. Know someone who should apply? Go here: http://www.iaem.com/resources/scholarships/application.htm. The deadline is May 14, 2010.
• Also, the IAEM 4th National Emergency Management Summit is March 3-5, 2010, in Washington, DC. Called the “leading forum on disaster, epidemic and terrorism planning, response and recovery,” this year’s media partners are Harvard Health Policy Review and Health Affairs.

By Doug Hoell

Hoell, Director of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, shares some of the preparedness wisdom he’s gleaned through 35 years of professional emergency management.

What is “Emergency Management?”
As we build our lives, our homes and our communities, we must consider man-made events and natural disasters that might threaten to disrupt or destroy them. We know that disasters are going to happen. Our best chance to survive them is to be prepared before hand.
The primary focus of the Emergency Management profession is to lead that preparedness effort. In an environment and economy that dictates resources be delivered “just in time,” preparedness presents significant challenges. Is it better to have 10 to 14 days worth of food and water in your home all the time or should you put your faith in the government to provide for you in a crisis? Being prepared is everyone’s responsibility. Individuals, businesses, churches, volunteer organizations and government all must play a role.
The Emergency Management profession has become the center pointcenter point of disaster preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. Emergency Management professionals consider likely hazards and advocate for building practices and standards that account for and reduce the effects of those hazards on our communities. When disaster strikes, Emergency Managers help people in the affected community find a path back to normal life. In general, Emergency Management is an under-paid, under-appreciated career. However, the rewards are immense, in that it offers abundant opportunities to help disaster-affected people become disaster survivors.

North Carolina Division of Emergency Management
North Carolina (NC) began a hazard mitigation planning initiative in 1998, well ahead of the federal Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. As we begin the first major updates to those 183 plans, we realize that implementing regional hazard mitigation plans can be much more efficient, especially for smaller communities. That is why we are creating one of the nation’s only regional plans - the Toe River Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. We hope that it will become the national model for hazard mitigation planning. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve helped establish a national standard in the field.
The NC Division of Emergency Management is a member in the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) - a state-to-state aid agreement for sharing response personnel and equipment. In fact, the EMAC was born out of North Carolina’s response and support to Florida following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. We sent 300 personnel and 200 pieces of heavy equipment to assist with debris clean-up in Homestead and Florida City. Since 1996, North Carolina has sent staff and equipment to eight states and D.C. Today, EMAC includes all 50 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories.

What lessons does the Haiti earthquake provide?
The earthquake in Haiti is truly a catastrophe. The event occurred in a densely populated city, so it created maximum impact. The nation’s medical infrastructure could not address the injuries and they had no readily available response resources beyond their own limited inventory.
Similar things happen anytime a disaster occurs. The people with the least are always affected the most. In our own country, when disasters happen, the elderly, low-income families, people with special medical needs or without adequate insurance, homeless and unemployed come to the forefront. Their needs are compounded by the consequences of disaster, and our humanitarian nature leads us come to their aid. The management of donations and volunteers is a whole discipline within the business of Emergency Management.
Disaster recovery in Haiti will take 10 years or more and it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The tragedy is the lives lost, the families separated and the destruction to homes, businesses and public infrastructure. Disasters like this, Hurricane Katrina and even the terrorist attacks of 2001 create sudden and irreversible change. Life will never be like it was before these events.
I believe the real challenge with disasters is to ensure as much as possible that the changes that come afterward are positive changes. As we reconstruct, we should rebuild in a manner that reduces the affects of future disasters. Survivors learn to be better prepared. Unaffected citizens learn from media coverage how to better prepare for future disasters. Governments recognize the need to make preparedness a priority, and we all do our part to help our neighbors get back on their feet.

Q: What is one of the most harrowing emergencies you’ve responded to?
A: During the Winter Storm of 2000, I was the Emergency Director in Lee County North Carolina and had never before experienced snowfall of that magnitude. Our citizens awoke that cold January morning to 24-26″ of snow across the entire county. I remember “plowing” snow with the bumper of my vehicle as I got out at first light to assess the situation. I went to assist one of my Emergency Medical Service (EMS) units on a routine call and quickly realized that we were going to have difficulty reaching people with medical emergencies.
I had visions of people dying in their homes because we couldn’t reach them or freezing to death in automobiles trying to reach the hospital. I immediately began making calls to North Carolina Emergency Management to secure high-wheeled military vehicles to help us reach folks in their homes. I knew no-one was expecting or prepared to deal with that much snow! We didn’t have widespread power outages, but every road in the area was practically impassable to all but the largest four-wheel drive vehicles. People were effectively trapped in their homes.
The phones in our emergency operations center started ringing by daylight with citizens’ pleas for help. A young mother was one of the first to call, stating that she didn’t believe we’d get much snow, so she hadn’t gone to the grocery store for milk or diapers for her baby. That was typical of the kind of calls that we’d continue to get for the following week. Stores weren’t open and roads weren’t passable. Opening shelters would prove to be a major undertaking, taxing our resources to the limits. This event certainly pushed us to the extremes!

Q: As an emergency manager you’ve seen a special slice of human behavior- how different people react in life and death situations. Please share any trends or important lessons regarding this part of your work.
A: People become very humble when they realize that poor decisions made on their part could cost them their life. There’s nothing quite so helpless as the feeling you get when someone who has elected not to evacuate their beachfront home calls as the wind, rain and waves are threatening to take the home from beneath them, and you know there’s no one to send to get them. Praying shouldn’t be “Plan B”!

Q: What is the most challenging aspect of your work; what is the most joyful?
A: Doing more with less has always been one of our biggest challenges. We often find ourselves in positions of knowing what needs to be done and not having the time or resources to do it. Resourcefulness is our most used tool. Knowing at the end of the day that I’ve made a positive
difference in someone’s life is my biggest reward.

Q: Is there any tool or resource that you and your fellow emergency managers do not have that you desperately need to improve your ability to successfully respond to emergencies?
A: The single resource that I desperately need is time. There just never seems to be enough to do all the things I want or need to do.

Q: How do you remain calm and effective in emergency situations? Do you practice any special calming technique?
A: It’s just my demeanor. I know that I have a highly trained team of individuals working alongside me who know their jobs and who are dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service possible.

Q: What is your personal preparedness philosophy?
A: If you don’t plan for it, it will happen.

Q: Your presentation suggests that the technology you use, monolithic concrete roofs and walls with steel rebar reinforcement to form house frames, is not mandated by state building codes or Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “Shelters in Place” codes. Correct?
A: Correct. The technology … is often used in commercial construction projects. Residential builders (because of the myth that concrete is too expensive) use wood for the roof and wall framing. Such materials and methods are near obsolete, but are still allowed by state building codes [in most areas]. Even with straps, wooden roofs are still vulnerable to flying objects during hurricanes. Even if the house withstands the storm, if the roof is opened, the interior is exposed to wind and water. In just days, mold, moisture, and rot condemn any chance to repair damage to the house and its contents..

We need stronger federal and state building codes. Dade and Broward Counties (Miami area) have the highest building code requirements in the United States and are great models.

Q: Why do builders not use the safest storm technology to protect homes to withstand extreme weather?
A: Unfortunately, some builders see a home damaged by a storm as a chance for new work and expensive repairs. Most code departments, until recently, have had minimal regulations to protect coastal homes from hurricanes. Since 2004, new rules have appeared in the codebooks, and inspectors are enforcing these rules, lobbied by insurance companies.

Q: How do your homes compare in cost to consumers versus the average local market homes?
A: The difference in cost is minimal when you consider the lifetime of the home and savings in insurance, maintenance [and] energy efficiency. Take, for example, our poured-in-place concrete pitched roof. Builders today continue to use wood truss roofing systems, which are highly vulnerable to tornado-force winds. The likeliness of penetrating a concrete roof or wall is far less than [one] made with wood. Our window and door systems use glass and aluminum framing that is missile-impact resistant.

Research today estimates a wooden house will last 25-30 years with proper maintenance. A monolithic concrete constructed house can last for generations.

Q: How did you determine that your roofs, windows, and doors, withstand 300 mph winds? When you say your homes are 30-40 percent more energy-efficient, what does the percentage refer to - 30-40 percent less spent on heating and cooling per year?
A: Our products have been tested through several labs ,… including [at] Texas Tech University. One test involved a cannon that shoots an object at speeds of up to 100 mph into wall panels built with wood, brick, metal [or] solid concrete. Concrete was the only material to resist the object. In addition, we work very closely with the Green Coalition and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) environmental companies.

Concrete eliminates air infiltration through the roof and wall, which allows for greater control of interior air quality. There are no drafts or cold spots, greatly reducing [fuel costs] for heating and cooling. The homes consume an estimated 30-40 percent less energy and wear less on the systems equipment.

Q: Do you have plans to build disaster-proof communities as opposed to individual homes? Could you foresee being able to create affordable and high-end, storm-proof communities? What would you need to do this - government subsidies?
A: Category Five Homes in specific is not looking for government subsidies, but we welcome joint ventures. Our goal is to build affordable safe havens that withstand the test of time and nature’s ferociousness. We also hope to help enhance state building codes throughout the United States and the Caribbean, blending Green Coalition fundamentals with 21st-century construction technology.

Renowned disaster-recovery researcher Dr. Bruce Glavovic (Massey University, New Zealand) spent ten days with Hazards Center Exec. Director, Dr. Gavin Smith, last month. Dr. Glavovic is an expert on the importance of creating storm-safe communities. Drs. Smith and Glavovic began efforts to write a book about hazards, disasters and planning for climate change adaptation, among other project work.

Dr. Smith also met with Doug Hoell, Director of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, to discuss how hazards research can help both emergency management officials and residents in hazard-prone areas.

The Hazards Center is getting ready for its 2nd Annual Meeting and the publication of its Annual Report. Of the former, on February 17 - 18, approx. 50 of the Center’s Principal Investigators (PI) and Advisory Board members will meet in Chapel Hill to assess the Center’s work in 2009. The keynote speaker for this event is Univ. of Maryland Professor Gerry Galloway, one of the nation’s foremost flood management experts.

New Orleans is home to approx.1.13 million people in the metro area and 7 major colleges and universities. Hurricane Katrina, and the fact that the City sits seven feet below sea level, has given university administrators good reason to develop intense, wide-ranging plans to protect campus communities during severe storms. The list below highlights some of the best preparedness tips and policies at Tulane, Loyola, and the University of New Orleans.

When it comes to storms, Tulane U says:

• Be Insured. They urge students to get renters’ insurance. Their plans even explain the best ways to secure and protect electronics and furniture before evacuation.
• Everyone needs an emergency kit with essentials like non-perishable food, flashlights, medications, and bedding.
• To make sure you have an out-of-state emergency contact who knows your emergency plans.
• Know the roads. The Tulane website links to state evacuation routes and offers suggestions about how far inland one should travel.

The Tulane University storm emergency website is:
http://tulane.edu/emergency/preparedness/hurricane-planning.cfm

Loyola U says:

• Disaster plans are serious business. They require all students to create a personal evacuation plan and submit it to the university before they get keys to a dormitory or start classes.
• Communication is key. An emergency hotline and website are operated from a remote inland server if servers on campus stop working.
• Everyone will be served. Loyola has a last resort contingency shelter for those students, such as international students, who have nowhere to evacuate to.

The Loyola New Orleans storm emergency website is:
http://www.loyno.edu/studentaffairs/hurr_brief.html

U of New Orleans says:

• Personal emergency plans are mandatory before one can begin classes (like Loyola).
• Don’t call us- we’ll call you. Students are advised to tell family to wait for their call in an emergency instead of adding to the clogged phone lines.
• Remember Fido: U of New Orleans asks its community to plan for pets before an emergency, an issue which caused much trouble in the wake of Katrina with hungry, stranded animals roaming the city and struggling to survive.

The University of New Orleans storm emergency plan is:
http://ehso.uno.edu/docs/UNO-HurricanePlanDetailed.pdf

Loyola University New Orleans Provost Edward Kvet shares how better planning is protecting and propelling Loyola to the forefront of well armed colleges and universities in storm zones.

New Orleans is emerging from one of the most disastrous natural and man-made disasters in national history. Post-secondary institutions stand at the forefront of its transformation. Hurricane Katrina forced colleges and universities there to recognize the urgency of hurricane preparedness, and it showed the city how vital these institutions are to its health.

Loyola University New Orleans (Loyola) stands at the forefront of New Orleans’s metamorphosis. In 2009, the university was given an Award of Excellence by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)for its Crisis Communications Plan. That plan is just part of the story. A senior chemistry major and P!N Hurricane Relief Scholarship winner, Alex Girau, interviewed the university’s provost to glean some of the wisdom behind Loyola’s recovery.

Q. What was the most devastating impact Hurricane Katrina had on Loyola?

A. Loyola suffered very little structural damage and short-term financial damage, even though there were budget and program cuts. However, maybe the most significant damage was the personal losses suffered by our faculty and staff, over 60% of whom had total or significant loss of their homes.

Q. How did the hurricane impact enrollment?

A. Loyola’s freshman enrollment before Katrina was 900 students. Our current demand is higher than that. We attribute this to New Orleans’s new reputation as a city of unique opportunity and entrepreneurship- a sort of exciting “social experiment”.

Q. How did Katrina shape the university’s present Hurricane Emergency Plan?

A. Hurricane Katrina and other emergencies, such as the Virginia Tech shooting, forced Loyola to adopt a more robust action plan that accounted for several evacuation types (short, medium or long term). In 2006, Hurricane Gustav threatened the newly renovated levee system surrounding the city. This gave Loyola a chance to execute and evaluate our new plan. In the end, the levees held, and Loyola performed a successful evacuation with two weeks of successful distance learning through the Blackboard online classroom system.

Q. If you could wave a magic wand and have any wish granted regarding preparing Loyola to withstand severe storms– what would it be?

A. Regarding the Loyola community: I would wish that we be able to prepare for the various unexpected circumstances that invariably arise, and be able to successfully and safely meet the needs of our students, faculty, and staff. In terms of the City: post-secondary institutions like Loyola, UNO, Dillard, Tulane and Xavier account for the majority of the City’s employment…Katrina made the City realize the importance of its education sector. Indeed, we have been pivotal to the City’s recovery.

Q. What important lessons that you learned from this experience do you most want to share with other college and university campuses?

A. As advice for staff and administrators: institutions with a strong mission and sense of community will fair best in times of stress. Days after the university was closed due to Katrina, the first decision made by Loyola President, Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., was to pay faculty and staff during the evacuation. We believe that the people and the community come first. What doesn’t break a community makes it stronger.

The Weather Channel’s tropical storm expert, meteorologist, Steve Lyons, sums up this year’s storm season and shares his preparedness philosophy.

Q: Climatologists have referred to the 2009 storm season as less active than normal. Is this a fair characterization? What else can you say about this year’s tropical storms and hurricanes?

A: Yes, this was a quiet year, not only from the standpoint of the Atlantic Basin as a whole, but also for what people remember. Only two rather weak tropical storms impacted the United States (US) coastline, Claudette in August and Ida in November and neither did much damage. There were no US hurricanes, and the season as a whole was slow relative to seasonal outlooks and compared to recent, severely damaging hurricane season years like:

2008 IKE & GUSTAV

2005 DENNIS, KATRINA, RITA AND WILMA

2004 CHARLEY, FRANCES, IVAN AND JEANNE

2009 A big break for the coastal US

Q: Has weather forecasting improved or changed in the past year?

A: There has not been a big improvement in forecasting this year. Track errors were a little lower, but mostly because the forecasts were easier this year. Over the past 15 years, we have seen great improvements in hurricane track forecasts. The big problem remains forecasting a hurricane’s intensity. There has been little improvement on that front for many years now. Research is being done to try to improve intensity forecasts, but due to the many scales of atmospheric motion involved, this is a tough problem, especially since we have a very poor sampling of weather over open oceans. Satellites have improved weather sampling over the oceans in the past 15 years, but we need more satellite information from the open ocean to get the intensity forecast to improve. Models cannot do this alone!

Q: What is your preparedness philosophy or how do you see your role in the storm preparedness movement?

A: I try to forecast the impacts from the hurricane and focus on them. Each hurricane leaves its own unique damage “footprint”, with five unique toes: wind damage, wave damage, rainfall damage, coastal flooding damage, and tornado damage. Improving these forecasts will save lives and help convince people to prepare and evacuate when they need to. If you leave it up to a resident to try to figure out what a 100 mph hurricane of large size moving at 20 mph towards them will do, most can only guess. They don’t need to do that if I give them the expected hurricane damage footprint, which requires models to do so!

Q: What advancements or technological innovations in storm forecasting are meteorologists most excited about?

A: Well, new models are continually developed, the “HWRF” or Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast model is one that continues to improve. Unfortunately, this year we lost the scatterometer satellite. That was a big blow to efforts to identify initial disturbances and the radii of winds around storms and hurricanes. The scatterometer satellite, which we called “QuickSCAT”, measured surface winds over the global oceans by emitting energy pulses and gathering their scattered signal from the ocean surface . It was a hugely successful satellite. Launched into space in 1999, QuikSCAT was expected to last two years. It finally died in late 2009, outlasting its lifetime by at least 7-8 years. Unfortunately, replacement satellites are not expected until around 2016 (hopefully sooner)! Until then, hurricane forecasters are left without this powerful tool, but will have cloud-drift wind estimates from more conventional satellite imagery, and of course Hurricane Hunter winds in very tiny areas in and around the hurricane.

Q: What are the major events that have occurred within the meteorological community this year?

Some private, and non-profit groups like FLASH (Federal Alliance for Safe Homes), continue to work on making the coastline more hurricane resistant. This is a huge problem now- a growing population in harm’s way. Insurance companies know that homebuilders can now make hurricane-wind proof homes, we just need to build more of them. Water damage is always a problem and homes and their contents are always vulnerable to it. Getting states, counties and cities to develop areas that are NOT likely to see huge losses in a hurricane remains a long-term goal!

Dr. Bruce Glavovic, Associate
Director of Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand, will visit the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters at UNC Chapel Hill (Hazards Center) this month. Dr. Glavovic has diverse research experience that complements Hazard Center work. His current work focuses on building sustainable communities able to weather severe storms and other hazards.

In specific, Dr. Glavovic specializes in:

• Hazards, sustainability and community resilience
• Coastal hazards
• Collaborative planning and hazards
• Hazards and poverty-environment linkages
• Adapting to climate change

“My interest in natural hazard mitigation stems from my experience working in coastal communities in South Africa, the USA and New Zealand,” says Dr. Glavovic. “I have found that, despite the differences in culture, lifestyle, politics, etc., the imperative to build sustainable communities is widely recognized. But translating rhetoric into reality remains elusive. In this age of global change - including future climate change impacts - coastal communities are on the frontline of what I call ‘a battle for sustainability’”.
Dr. Glavovic worked extensively in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina, researching long-term recovery and measures to prevent future disaster.

While in the states, Dr. Glavovic will develop a joint research agenda with Dr. Gavin Smith, Hazards Center Executive Director. The research concerns disaster recovery, and includes the study of public and private projects, as well as work of non-profit and emerging organizations.
Regarding the protection of coastal zones from natural hazards, Dr. Glavovic says,

“Coastal communities the world over will have to develop innovative ways to become more robust, resilient and sustainable. We must transform thinking and practice with respect to, firstly, our relationship with nature. We need to move beyond the prevailing exploitive and destructive patterns of natural resource use. This would expose fewer people to natural hazards and we could benefit from nature’s ability to mitigate hazard impacts. For example, intact coastal ecosystems such as mangroves or wetlands can attenuate the impacts of coastal storms. Secondly, we need to learn to make social choices that reconcile individual and community needs. The pursuit of short term profit through high risk coastal property development exposes people and property to hazard impacts. Planning and community decision-making processes that foster such outcomes…put people in harm’s way. We need to learn to empower communities to make choices that are more inclusive, safer and sustainable. In short, we need to reform our governance arrangements to ensure more sustainable and resilient outcomes. Otherwise, coastal communities are going to experience horrendous impacts in coming decades.”