by Jay Reeves - Associated Press - September 20, 2011

Tar balls mix with seashells washed up near Pensacola Beach, Fla., on Sept. 14 - Melissa Nelson / AP

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Tar balls washed onto Gulf of Mexico beaches by Tropical Storm Lee earlier this month show that oil left over from last year's BP spill isn't breaking down as quickly as some scientists thought it would, university researchers said Tuesday.

Auburn University experts who studied tar samples at the request of coastal leaders said the latest wave of gooey orbs and chunks appeared relatively fresh, smelled strongly and were hardly changed chemically from the weathered oil that collected on Gulf beaches during the spill.

The study concluded that mats of oil — not weathered tar, which is harder and contains fewer hydrocarbons — are still submerged on the seabed and could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security Newswire - September 12, 2011

Most people still believe help will arrive within hours // Source: hsdl.org

A new survey finds that most Americans are unprepared for major disasters and that they maintain a false sense of security with regard to what will happen if a major disaster or a terrorist attack took place; contrary to reality, almost one-third of respondents believed that during a major disaster, calling 911 would bring help within an hour, while 30 percent said they believed help would come within several hours.

A new survey finds that most Americans are unprepared and maintain a false sense of security during a major disaster or terrorist attack.

The poll, conducted by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, indicated that more than half of the families surveyed had no emergency plan in place for a major hurricane or earthquake. Even those with plans in place were lacking essential items like a flashlight, two days of food and water, key phone numbers, and extra batteries.

submitted by Luis Kun

The Los Angeles Times - September 8, 2011

Diannyra Bolata, 25, and her son Diego, 2, rest on the floor in the terminal at San Diego's  Lindbergh Field after all outbound flights were canceled. Credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times

Most power-stricken customers in San Diego County will be without electricity until the end of Friday, the president of utility serving the area said Thursday night.

San Diego Gas and Electricity President Michael Niggli said that power had been restored to three substations that service areas in southern Orange County. He also predicted that a "few more" areas would have electricity restored by midnight.

"After that," he told reporters at a news conference, "it's going to be a slow march throughout tomorrow" to restore power.

 PHOTOS: Blackout leaves millions without power

He said about 3 million people in the county were affected by the massive power outage.

by Ashley Hayes - CNN - September 8, 2011

(Additional Photos in this Washington Post Article)

CNN iReporter Nick Bohacz of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, said flooded roads prevented him from getting to work.

(CNN) -- Thousands of people were told to evacuate their homes Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee moved across already sodden portions of the Northeast, triggering near-historic flooding and leaving at least three people dead.

In Luzerne County, in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, between 65,000 and 70,000 people were ordered to leave their homes by Thursday afternoon as the Susquehanna River rose above flood stage, according to Emergency Management Coordinator Stephen Bekanich.

The county, which earlier said 100,000 to 125,000 residents were being evacuated, did recalculations and revised the number downward.

While Wilkes-Barre, in Luzerne County, was spared flooding as of late Thursday afternoon because of a 17-mile levee system, other communities not protected by the system were not so fortunate.

by Rick Jervis - USA Today - September 7, 2011

A residential street is lined with homes destroyed by a wildfire in Bastrop.

BASTROP, Texas – Todd Jamison, a division chief for the Little Elm Fire Department near Dallas, has fought house fires and wildfires.

But when wildfires — such as the ones in this area 25 miles east of Austin — engulf homes and neighborhoods, his job becomes far more complex, he says.

On Wednesday, Jamison, one of hundreds of Texas firefighters helping fight a nasty blaze here, revisited one of the homes he and his team spent nearly two hours trying to save the day before. Now, it was a pile of smoldering cinderblocks. The only signs of what was once a home: a few charred lawn chairs and a melted toilet.

• PHOTOS: Texas Wildfires

"This is a different beast for us," Jamison says of the ongoing firefight. "We're fighting to protect homes."

September 3, 2011

CBS News - September 2, 2011

A firefighter breaks down after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed September 11, 2001 after two hijacked airplanes slammed into the twin towers in a terrorist attack.  (Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

(CBS) The 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City killed almost 3,000 people, but what about New Yorkers who were in the area at the time but survived? New studies show they face heightened risk for asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cancer - but not all health experts agree the attacks are to blame for survivors' health problems.

For one study - published in the September 1 issue of The Lancet - Mount Sinai researchers evaluated more than 27,000 police officers, firefighters, construction workers, and office workers who were in or around ground zero over the nine years following 9/11. The researchers found more than one in five responders had multiple physical or mental health illnesses.

As the human populations of our small planet exceeds 7 billion on its way potentially to 9 million or 10 billion by the mid-21st Century, migrations of millions are becoming common place -- some out of desperation, others out of seeking opportunity and a better life.  According to a large percentage of climatologists and other scientists that are studying global change, the social ecologies of many large cities will become non-viable for their human populations and many other species due to climate change, the drying up of water supplies, the lose of food sources, natural disasters, wars, and other factors.  In other cases, new cities of opportunity or attractive culture will draws those seeking a better life and way of being.  

Tens of millions, and perhaps hundreds of millions will be forced to leave their homes in search of more viable communities.  Millions more will create new communities with intentionality, exploring new economic, social, and political models that improve health, human security, resilience and sustainability for the new citizens.  In some cases, simple shared principles will shape new, fast growing economies, and, in other cases, rules and conditions will be imposed on inhabitants of new communities and cities.

It is hard to argue against that fact that the U.S. and even "Communist" China, for that matter, have great influence in global markets and on health and human security -- for their own people as well as human populations world-wide. The power of capital within global, regional, national, and local markets has been transforming the world since the growth of the industrial revolution, which has only accelerated since the broad introduction of global communication and computing in the 20th century. That said, there has been growing criticism of the destructive nature of market fundamentalism and laissez faire economics in the face of a growing awareness of ecosystem carrying capacities, and the problems inherent in growth economies in decline.  So what happens when capitalists become aware of the destructive nature of growth economies, where populations are exceeding the carrying capacities of ecosystems and mass consumption economies begin to collapse?

Photograph by Eduardo Munoz, Reuters

AP Business Writers - by Jonathan Fahey and Peter Svensson - August 28, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) -- Below the streets of New York City, a network of pipes, cables and tunnels up to 200 feet deep transports power, gas, water, Internet traffic, trains, sewage and more. When Hurricane Irene hit the city Sunday, this underground network was largely protected from major damage.

On the island of Manhattan, only a handful of its 1.6 million residents lost power. And roughly 50,000 households in the city's outer boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island lost power.

Elsewhere, Irene left millions of East Coast residents without power, as winds knocked trees into above-ground power lines.

But while the city's buried infrastructure is safe from wind, it is vulnerable to flooding. Some experts say the city simply got lucky that the flooding wasn't more severe. The subway system is especially at risk, which is why transportation officials preemptively shut it down.