Disaster Management

Ubisoft’s role-playing shooter The Division wouldn’t be as much fun if players followed Nafeez Ahmed’s advice and stayed rural.  Photograph: Ubisoft

Whether it’s a natural disaster, bioterrorist attack or pandemic, experts reckon society as we know it will collapse within 13 days of a catastrophic event. So what do you do next?

theguardian.com - by Keith Stuart - February 10, 2016

On 22 June, 2001, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, organised a war game like no other. The two researchers, working with an array of bodies such as the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, set out to simulate the effects of a biological attack on the US. The project was called Operation Dark Winter.

What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope.

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submitted by Carrie La Jeunesse

PAHO/WHO calls for more collaboration between governments and indigenous communities in preparing for emergencies and disasters

Washington, D.C., 6 October 2015 (PAHO/WHO) -- Involving indigenous communities in disaster risk reduction activities can save lives during catastrophes, experts with the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) said on the eve of the International Day for Disaster Reduction 2015.

Building on a growing recognition that mainstream methods of disaster preparedness and mitigation have left indigenous people and their deep knowledge on the sidelines, PAHO/WHO is calling for new disaster risk reduction models based on close collaboration with the communities often most affected by catastrophes, both natural and man-made.

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Firefighters prepare to battle the Wolverine wildfire near Chelan, Washington, in this U.S. Forest Service picture taken August 16, 2015.  REUTERS/US FOREST SERVICE/HANDOUT

npr.org - by Lucy Perkins - August 17, 2015

The Army is deploying 200 soldiers to help fight wildfires that are burning through about 1.1 million acres across the Western United States. That's according to a press release from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

"It's been nine years since wildfire was so widespread all at once that active military troops joined firefighters battling blazes," NPR's Howard Berkes reports. "Four military C-130 cargo planes are also in use as air tankers."

A group at the fire center in Boise submitted the request to the Department of Defense, according to the press release, which cites about 95 large wildfires in seven states.

The DOD approved deployment of soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington. They'll be organized into 10 crews, all sent to the same fire, which has yet to be announced.