Stadiums as shelters part 2
JC | 07.01.2008 | 07:52:42 |
July 1 '08: In Japan, architect Shuhei Endo has been working on fusing disaster response and recovery capabilities into the design to stadiums, Architectural Record reported in the June 2008 edition. Endo's design incorporates curved lines and open spaces to maximize the space available for large response operations to move into an area also used by sports teams, AR reviewed. Local communities in the US such as Charleston, S.C. have been using stadiums to house displaced people after disasters. Similar uses have been put into place during Hurricane Katrina and during the Southern California wildfires in 2007.

Social Network allows users to build customized social issues communities
JC | 06.24.2008 | 09:26:33 |
June 24 '08: Wired reported on a new social network which allows users to build their own social activist network and then link it to other similar networks. The project, called Change.org was begun by two men in their late twenties, and now boasts up to 2,000 non-profit group now using it, Wired reported.

Private organization works to help respond in the first 72 hours
JC | 06.20.2008 | 08:57:58 |
June 20 '08: The First Response Team of America is a privately run organization to help communities respond and recover in the first days after a disaster. On its website, the organization said it helps local, state and federal first responders "by removing the initial obstacles that local emergency and government officials encounter when dealing with a natural or manmade disaster."

Midwest flooding hits communities and food prices hard
JC | 06.18.2008 | 14:03:04 |
June 18 '08: Flood waters from the Mississippi River are working their way south to communities in Illinois, Missouri and other states CNN reported. The destruction from the severe storms over the Midwest have caused large-scale evacuations, as well as causing a surge in global food prices. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that fuel costs will likely rise due to damage to corn crops which produce ethanol used as an additive in gasoline.

University creates disaster preparedness website and outreach for diverse and minority communities
JC | 06.11.2008 | 10:28:35 |
June 11 '08: A new website for minority community disaster preparedness and outreach has launched. The National Resource Center on Advancing Emergency Preparedness for Culturally Diverse Communities' DiversityPreparedness.org is the product of a partnership between Drexel University's School of Public Health's Center for Health Equality and the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. In a press release Dennis Andrulis, the director for Drexel's Center for Health Equality said, "If you strengthen the precontext of a community before a disaster you make sure the effects are less severe after the storm."

ReadyCommunities Partnership Buffalo Symposium and Planning Session
JC | 06.06.2008 | 08:58:15 |
June 6 '08: During the ReadyCommunities Partnership Buffalo Symposium and planning session, members of the city, local and regional governments partnered with their business and community counterparts to plan and design a pilot project to help the community respond and recover from a disaster in the first 72 hours of a crisis. Through leveraging community resources, attendees developed several key points during the symposium which was opened by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

Verizon preps Georgia residents for 2008 hurricane season
JC | 06.05.2008 | 10:27:04 |
June 5 '08: In a press release telecommunications company Verizon announced a new public awareness and preparedness push targeting residents in Georgia for the 2008 hurricane season in addition to the company's efforts at strengthening its communications infrastructure. So far in 2008, the company reported more than $80 million in Georgia "to strengthen and enhance its wireless network".

ReadyCommunities Partners gather in Buffalo
JC | 06.04.2008 | 15:08:35 |
June 4 '08: First responders, local officials and community stakeholders will gather in Buffalo, New York today to discuss the upcoming Buffalo pilot program during a planning session and symposium with the ReadyCommunities Partnership working with symposium co-chairman Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. Building on the Niagara's key location for commerce and security for both American and Canadian governments, RCP and Mayor Brown's office will work to design a pilot project planned for later this year.

Partnership looking into emergency organ donor response
JC | 06.04.2008 | 08:53:48 |
June 4 '08: In New York City, the New York Times reported a new federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration which will fund "a team of medical experts and bioethicists ... looking to expand the city's donor pool by deploying a 'rapid organ-recovery ambulance' to collect and preserve the organs of people who die of cardiac arrest." If successful, the new program could add as many as 22,000 people to the nation's donor pool.

Community Foundation's 9/11 Survivor's Fund closes and serves as financial recovery model
JC | 06.03.2008 | 13:17:54 |
June 3 '08: On its created by the Community Foundation announced it was closing operations after seven years of providing recovery outreach for those surviving families who were affected by the attacks on 9/11 in Washington DC. In conjunction of the fund's closure, the Community Foundation has released a final report to the community, and a disaster recovery process outline.

Muslim disaster relief group partners with Dartmouth College Students
JC | 06.02.2008 | 12:09:09 |
June 2 '08: On their website site the the Muslim community disaster relief group Islamic Relief USA said it had partnered with students from Dartmouth College who volunteered to travel to New Orleans and help the local community with their on-going recovery operations. "For about two weeks during winter break (2007) this past December, 14 Dartmouth College students took the long journey from New Hampshire to Louisiana to do their part in assisting in the aid efforts," the relief group's website read.

Citizen groups working to respond to China disaster
JC | 05.30.2008 | 10:03:56 |
May 30 '08: Chinese government officials are utilizing grassroots citizen groups to help with disaster recovery efforts in Sichuan province, the Washington Post reported. The groups are using Internet technologies such as chat groups and online social networking to organize themselves.

Jewish community members establish information sharing portal
JC | 05.29.2008 | 08:30:38 |
May 29 '08: Members of the Jewish community have established the Secure Community Network to promote information sharing among community stakeholders as well as to establish "national standards for improving security at the local level" the organization's website read. SCN offers its members access to "critical safety and security" information through its Internet portal which includes forums, security awareness programs, model crisis management and rapid response scenarios tailored for the Jewish community.

IPAWS
JC | 05.28.2008 | 13:11:13 |
May 28 '08: HLSWatch, while talking about federal officials encouraging a do-it-yourself approach to hurricane preparedness and building on personal preparedness wrote that federal officials are working to alert communities and the private sector through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS).

Sustainable infrastructure development after disasters
JC | 05.28.2008 | 05:25:01 |
May 28 '08: Following a disaster which destroys the infrastructure, public/private partnerships should work to rebuild improved, sustainable and resilient solutions, a Matthew Wacman wrote in an article featured in World Changing. "The planning policy would focus on finding sustainable solutions to broken or destroyed systems ... Safety measures and the making of resilient urban systems are very important, yet the scope of disaster-planning could be expanded to include a focus on implementing new solutions that provoke a change in the game entirely."