
Disasters That Worry Emergency Planners Most - aaronbrethorst
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/09/the-disaster-next-time/403063/?single_page=true
======
paulmd
Another factor is that successful preparedness for past events produces a
false sense of complacency for future events. The more disaster planners
succeed, the less people think their work is necessary.

~~~
mikestew
See also: Y2K. What a waste of money all that was, amiright?

~~~
alblue
No

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throwaway049
I can't find the exact quote, but a former Chief Constable of Avon and
Somerset Police said something like "On my patch I have to worry about an
international airport, a nuclear power station, and Glastonbury Festival". I
once volunteered to be a pseudo-casualty needing a decontamination shower from
the Fire & Rescue Service on site there. By the time they had rigged up fire
appliance vehicles for showers and dug a waste water pit the sun was going
down and it wasn't great weather for an outdoor cold shower.

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struct
Sounds obvious, but was that billion-dollar disaster graph adjusted for
inflation?

~~~
phaemon
Yes. If you click the NOAA link on that graph, it'll take you to a Summary
Stats page where you can switch between CPI adjusted and unadjusted. The link
is:

[http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/summary-
stats](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/summary-stats)

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CmonDev
Surprised to not see "civil war" mentioned.

~~~
pjc50
Civil war in the west is just not going to happen. There is localised
political violence, but a proper civil war requires the defection of some or
all of the military. The most likely country for this that counts as "western"
is Turkey.

~~~
rsync
Uhmmm ... Spain ?

That was only 75 years ago ...

~~~
acveilleux
And a close call in 1981 and 1982.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-F)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt)

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cryoshon
"“To me it’s about numbers,” Fugate said. “How big can the numbers get?
[Those] will produce the biggest numbers.”"

This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating our
disaster relief.

To me, it's about potatoes. How tasty can our potatoes get? Those will be the
tastiest potatoes.

~~~
jackgavigan
_> This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating
our disaster relief._

When I read this, I remembered that the FEMA administrator at the time of
Hurricane Katrina was a political appointee with zero relevant experience, so
I went looking to see if Fugate is any different. Boy, is he!

Fugate has spent his entire career in this space, starting as a volunteer
firefighter in high school, then working as a paramedic before spending ten
years as emergency manager at the county level, then deputy director and
director at the state level (in Florida). He turned down the FEMA
administrator job in 2005 (when the aforementioned political appointee
resigned in the aftermath of Katrina).

His reaction to being nominated by Obama for the role was to tweet "Pigs do
fly" \-
[https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490](https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490)

He supports the use of technology, including social media as a communications
tool in the aftermath of disasters -
[http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement-
craig-f...](http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement-craig-fugate-
administrator-federal-emergency-management-agency) \- and crowdsourcing of
disaster reporting via smartphone apps - [http://www.fema.gov/disaster-
reporter](http://www.fema.gov/disaster-reporter)

He is a licensed ham radio operator and he used to run a website (domain
registered in 2000; now inactive) with links, information and advice on how to
prepare for disasters -
[http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm](http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm)

This guy is awesome. If he says it's about numbers, I believe him.

~~~
whiddershins
There was a great essay a few days ago by that FEMA director, who apparently
was not at all unqualified for his role.

[http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael-
brow...](http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael-brown-stop-
blaming-me-for-hurricane-katrina/)

~~~
jackgavigan
To be fair, I'm sure he did the best he could. The responsibility lies with
the guy who appointed him into that role.

