Disasters

  • DisastersNew law allows mobilizing reservists to respond to natural disasters

    Except for a crisis involving a weapon of mass destruction, the U.S. military reserves historically have been prohibited from providing a homeland disaster response; new authority in this year’s Defense Department authorization act changes that

  • DisastersAlternative-powered energy supply for disasters

    Emergency preparedness retailer Disaster Relief Supply says that the popularity of solar and dynamo powered emergency products has increased

  • DisastersPlanning traffic routing in no-notice disasters

    Spontaneous evacuations of New York City and Washington, D.C. following the 9/11 terrorist attacks demonstrated that U.S. cities are not prepared to manage the sudden influx of traffic into roads and highways following a no-notice disaster

  • DisastersGroundbreaking tests to offer better understanding of post-earthquake fires

    Post-earthquake fires are a well-known and serious hazard, but very little is known about the performance of fire protection systems in earthquakes; groundbreaking tests to be conducted next week are aimed at better understanding of the effects of earthquakes on building systems designed to suppress or prevent the spread of fires

  • PreparednessTornado season survival tips for employers

    Dozens of tornadoes have already ravaged the Midwest and more recently, Texas, indicating that the tornado season is moving into high gear; employers should review their business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans to keep employees safe and operations running should a devastating twister strike

  • Nuclear safetySeismic safety worries about South Carolina nuclear fuel facility

    The worries about the seismic safety of nuclear energy-related facilities, worries which have only grown since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, extend not only to nuclear power reactor, but to other facilities as well; the most recent example is a Westinghouse facility outside Columbia, South Carolina, one of only three facilities in the United States which make nuclear fuel for commercial reactors

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  • ResilienceOnly half of industrial firms confident they could recover quickly from disaster

    Many organizations are struggling to manage their data in hybrid physical, virtual, and cloud environments; many still use multiple, disparate tools, which are likely to be spread across multiple sites, with just over a third (36 percent) managing three or more different solutions to protect their critical data

  • Hurricane seasonVerizon says it is ready for hurricane season

    With less than a month to go until the start of the 2012 hurricane season, Verizon says its wireless network is prepared to serve customers in the event of a major storm or emergency

  • ContinuityBusiness continuity paper competition winner announced

    A paper titled “High Fidelity Simulation Exercises for Training Strategic Crisis Management” wins continuity journals’ best Business Continuity Paper of the Year 2012 competition

  • Data storageYucca Mountain as a data depository

    For nearly three decades, Yucca Mountain was the place designated as the country’s nuclear waste repository; after many years of study and exploration, the Obama administration, two years ago, decided not to ask for additional funds for the project; now there is another idea for the site: turning it into a giant, secure data center 

  • DisastersImprove tsunami warnings by placing GPS on commercial ships

    Researchers find that commercial ships travel across most of the globe and could provide better warnings for potentially deadly tsunamis; this finding came as a surprise because tsunamis have such small amplitudes in the deep water, in contrast to their size when they reach the coastline, that it seemed unlikely that the tsunami would be detected using GPS unless the ship was very close to the source and the tsunami was very big

  • DisastersU.S. severe weather insurance losses in April nearly $1 billion

    A series of severe weather events across central and southern sections of the United States caused upward of $1 billion in insured losses. Economic losses were even higher during the month of April

  • Hospital disaster preparednessHospital-based disaster preparedness center opens in Utah

    A 7,000 square-foot disaster preparedness center opened in Salt Lake City; the center is a fully-equipped environment with eighteen patient rooms, medical training mannequins, training classrooms, disaster simulation labs, and a secure supply area; the key is that the preparedness training is done in a working environment

  • Company preparednessSteps organizations should take to prepare for disasters

    Even if your company has not been affected by tornados, tsunami waves, or wildfires, all employers need to be prepared for the mayhem that natural disasters cause

  • British state-backed reinsurer has £4.5 billion to cover Olympic Games terror-related losses

    Pool Re, the British state-backed reinsurer which covers commercial property losses from  terror attack-related activities, has £4.5 billion ($7.327 billion) of assets to cover the Summer Olympic Games. Pool Re said it had no plans to jack up premiums for the event. If the damage from bombings or other terror-related incidents were to cost more than that amount, the British taxpayer, under the Pool Re structure, would step in to cover the difference. Pool Re was set up in the 1990s when the U.K. government was worried that the terror campaign pursued by Irish militant groups could make London property uninsurable and damage the national economy.