Resilience / Recovery

Chlorine Is a Highly Useful Chemical That’s Also Extremely Dangerous − Here’s What to Know About Staying Safe Around It
Chlorine is extremely toxic, and because it’s ubiquitous in many industries across the U.S., it often is released in chemical accidents and spills. As with other household chemicals, it is very important to understand its risks, read labels before using it, store it in its original container in a secure place and dispose of it safely.
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New Tool Helps Communities Plan for and Mitigate Disasters
When hurricanes make landfall, coastal communities are especially vulnerable to storm surges, high winds, and freshwater flooding. Residents can be left without clean water, food, shelter, electricity, and access to medical care for days. Communities need proper tools to adequately prepare for these storms, especially as climate change worsens the impact of these extreme weather events. The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard (PIRS), recently launched by S&T’s Coastal Resilience Center, helps local governments plan for hurricane season—and beyond.
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Nuclear War Would Be More Devastating for Earth’s Climate Than Cold War Predictions – Even with Fewer Weapons
A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 130 million people and deprive a further 2.5 billion of food for at least two years. A global nuclear war including the US, Europe, and China could result in 360 million people dead and condemn nearly 5.3 billion people to starvation in the two years following the exchange.
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Microgrids Can Help Communities Adapt to Wildfires
Wildfires have become increasingly frequent due to climate change, with record occurrences in areas not historically prone to them. For some of the most vulnerable communities, clean energy microgrids can be both more effective and cheaper than conventional technologies.
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Building a Database on Public Response to Severe Weather Hazards
The public is being surveyed on perceptions and response to flash floods, tornados, severe thunderstorms and winter weather under a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Bringing Disaster Risk, Vulnerability Down to Community Level
A comprehensive update to NOAA’s Billion Dollar Disasters mapping tool now includes U.S. census tract data – providing many users with local community-level awareness of hazard risk, exposure and vulnerability across more than 100 combinations of weather and climate hazards.
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At-Risk Communities to Invest in Disaster Mitigation Projects
Bipartisan legislation to make permanent FEMA National Risk Index (NRI), an online tool that utilizes data to identify communities that are most vulnerable to natural disasters, has advanced in the Senate. The bill would require FEMA to use data from the NRI, or a similar tool, o designate the communities across the nation that are most in need of mitigation projects – and help them access federal funding and support to plan for mitigation and resilience projects.
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With Threats of Nuclear War and Climate Disaster Growing, America’s “Bunker Fantasy” Is Woefully Inadequate
Faced with a Congress unwilling to fund large-scale sheltering measures — although in Europe and elsewhere, vast public shelters were built, the community bomb shelter was almost universally rejected in the U.S. as communistic — the Kennedy administration decided instead to encourage the private development of the individual shelter industry and to establish dedicated spaces within existing public structures.
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The Evolution of U.S. Emergency Risk Assessment and Response
The U.S. emergency management system evolved from responses to many past situations, including the Great Depression and the Cold War. The current system formed as a seeming patchwork of federal, local, nonprofit and other agencies. While the current system has advantages and weaknesses, understanding its makeup can help us address current crises, including pandemics and climate change.
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Improving Florida’s Hurricane Resilience: Alternative Fuel Vehicles, Infrastructure
When events like tropical storms or other unforeseen crises disrupt a state’s primary supply of gasoline and diesel, emergency fleet efforts can become hampered as access to fuel is restricted or completely unavailable.
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How the Terrifying Evacuations from the Twin Towers on 9/11 Helped Make Today's Skyscrapers Safer
One legacy of the 9/11 tragedy and the harrowing experience of those who successfully escaped the Twin Towers – the disaster was the most significant high-rise evacuation in modern times — is that today’s skyscrapers can be emptied much more safely and easily in an emergency.
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9/11 Prepared Firms for COVID-19 Economic Effects
Companies which experienced the financial impact of 9/11 were more resilient to the economic effects of COVID-19, according to new research.The research is the first of its kind to compare the events of the last eighteen months with 9/11.
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Securing Domestic Supply Chain of Critical Materials
DOE announced $30 million in funding for 13 national lab and university-led research projects to develop new technologies that will help secure the supply of critical materials that build clean energy technologies.
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Flood control: Seeking Community-Driven Answers to Living with Flooding
Researchers have used a localized flooding event to envision how human beings can live with the threat of water invading their living and working spaces.
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Small Towns Should Focus on Resilience
With heatwaves, bushfires, and floods, small towns and their surrounding communities have confronted a combination of successive disasters fueled by climate change. And it’s predicted to only get worse. “So, the challenge for all of us, but particularly areas at increasing risk of climate-fueled disasters, is to get ahead of what’s coming,” says one expert. “We need to ask: what we can do to reduce or even prevent some of these disasters from happening?”
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