DisasterNewsNow

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COMMENT: At @DisasterNewsNow, it's important to highlight specific news and trends that not only has shaped recent month as they happen, but also highlight potential future breakthroughs in humanitarian, emergency and disaster, technologies and policymaking efforts.

As expected, 2015 was the year that natural and man-made disaster events made headlines. Not so much for the frequency or lack thereof, but the intensity and long-term impacts on populations and governments. Media outlets such as Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or CBC [1] did an excellent job of highlighting major events over the past twelve months, showing the devastating effects in detail. Meanwhile, in the USA, the primary meteorological agency, NOAA or National Ocean & Atmospheric Administration, in their annual reporting [2] has shown that in the USA alone, billion-dollar disaster events in 2015 adjusted for inflation is hampering Federal efforts in responding to affected municipalities.

On the local front in California, USGS or United States Geological Survey informed San Francisco Bay Area residents about the confirmed connection of two primary faultlines -- Hayward and Rogers Creek [3] -- that will have devastating effects if one faultline triggers the other. Not good news on all levels of government response and primary first responders. Public and private sectors in this region will have to detail a more robust mitigation and recovery planning with this latest development.

Finally, on the humanitarian front, two interesting developments may in fact improve emergency and disaster response worldwide. In the practical, on-the-ground response to handling refugees, the private firm IKEA is currently demonstrating a new concept for housing affected populations [4] that should catch that attention of government agencies and NGOs alike. In the area of communications, the American communications group ARRL or American Radio Relay League hopes to take advantage of the first amateur radio satellite payload [5] scheduled for 2017 launch that will connect private citizens into a dedicated communications network, bolstering the already existing amateur radio communications network.

REFERENCES:

[1] Floods, earthquakes, wildfires, heat waves: 2015 was deadly for many around the world http://www.cbc.ca/1.3346639

[2] Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/

[3] Alarming discovery shows the Bay Area's 2 most dangerous earthquake faults may be connected http://cbsloc.al/1RXD15j  

[4] Ikea designed a better shelter for refugees — here's what it can do http://read.bi/1O8UBAR

COMMENT: The recent Tokyo Motor Show 2015 featured an amazing piece of technology that promises to take autonomous vehicles to a whole new level. The video clip seen here from @techinsider (http://www.techinsider.io/) shows a fully functioning autonomous robot -- MOTOBOT version 1 -- driving a Yamaha Motor Company motorcycle in a test of its self-driving skills, at speeds up to 120+ MPH. The hope is that future versions of MOTOBOT will be developed for the purpose of advancing safety testing of motor vehicles, thus making automobiles safe for human beings. But this could also develop into a future world where autonomous robots or androids will be the drivers of everything on the road. Why is this news at all? Are there any legitimate concerns from the human point-of-view? Autonomous machines will inevitably run into problems associated with its programming or design, and it is the ethical thing for the stakeholders and all concerned to provide safeguards around this emerging field of artificial intelligence and robotics.

REFERENCES:

This humanoid robot can ride a motorcycle all by itself http://www.businessinsider.com/yamaha-autonomous-robot-motorcycle-2015-11

A Motorcycle Riding Robot? Meet Yamaha’s MOTOBOT http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/2015/10/article/a-motorcycle-riding-robot-meet-yamahas-motobot-ver-1/

COMMENT: Anyone who is remotely familiar with the history of modern technologies knows that the public sector (DARPA, NASA, etc.) developed the initial technologies first that usually ends up in the private sector. Now, it's the private sector's turn (general public) who is being asked to do the same. In this case,  National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a vision to equip its astronauts with a simple yet useful or critical tool for life aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The recent NASA contest on Freelancer.com asked the public to design a smartwatch that will accommodate potential features intended to inform and alert ISS astronauts on their environmental conditions. Everybody knows the dangers of living in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), where radiation and space vacuum dominates. So the challenge here was to design a simple device that would include notifications and alerts related to potential emergencies and disasters. The winning design (see links below) by Canadian contestants offered such a solution.

As a practical matter, NASA foresees ISS astronauts making use of such a wearable device, first on an experimental basis in order to work out the smartwatch concept, and second to pinpoint the actual notifications and alerts that would be immediately useful in a weightless environment and in a tight limited working space such as a space station. Researchers on the ground would be involved in monitoring the results for future space flights or space missions beyond Earth orbit.

In the future, it is expected that once again, innovations related to the public sector will in time trickle down to the private sector in any number of useful tools and applications. An iOS or Android smartphone, for example, that is relatively inexpensive and includes similar notifications and alerts on environmental conditions, may become the way that most people will become conscious and aware of emergencies, disasters and business continuity concerns on a daily basis.

REFERENCES:

Will astronauts use a smartwatch aboard the ISS? http://http://dailym.ai/1L1hcwf

Governor Brown Signs Executive Order to Bolster Cybersecurity URL: http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=19082 PDF: http://gov.ca.gov/docs/B-34-15.pdf

COMMENT: Once again, California leads the nation in being the first US State to enact "cutting-edge" innovation or legislation designed to support innovation. In this case, California Governor Jerry Brown has chosen (presumably with proper legal consultation) to support via California Executive Order on August 31st, 2015 the ability of the State government, by way of the California Office of Emergency Services, to defend the State infrastructure against cybersecurity threats inside and outside the United States. This is huge.

This Executive Order enables the immediate creation of the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC), which is to be overseen by the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES). Central to this is the immediate creation of a multi-agency Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT). The EO also details the standards and governing entities that will be interacting on the Federal and State levels, and is to include other public and private sector parties as well. The general public is encouraged to learn more about this development (abovementioned links).

Esri's Disaster Response Program: Lessons Learned from Past Events http://training.esri.com/Courses/ts_DisasterResponse/player.cfm?c=495

COMMENT: GIS professionals and persons interested in emergency preparedness, disaster management and business continuity, can now access this free ESRI (http://training.esri.com/) online training seminar -- Esri's Disaster Response Program: Lessons Learned from Past Events --primarily focused on recent natural disaster events here in the United States and abroad. In recent months, the United States had experienced the Napa, California earthquake event of 2014, and the North American blizzard event of 2015 that affected Boston, Massachusetts, for example -- both highlighted in this training seminar. ESRI presenters focused in on four key outcomes that can assist municipalities, organizations and the general public to understand how GIS information can be presented in an easy to understand way. 

This is good news for our information-oriented 21st century modern world. In recent months, municipalities and organizations worldwide have been briefed on the creation of a brand new position or professional title, Chief Resilience Officer (reference link), whose primary task is to work with the PIO or Public Information Officer of municipalities and organizations in informing interested parties on information gathered when performing this kind of natural disaster GIS analysis, for example. 

REFERENCES:

Napa, California earthquake event of 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_South_Napa_earthquake

North American blizzard event of 2015 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_North_American_blizzard

First developmental test flight of New Shepard space vehicle https://www.blueorigin.com/news/blog/first-developmental-test-flight-of-new-shepard

Obama admin releases draft offshore well control regulations http://www.worldoil.com/news/2015/4/13/obama-admin-releases-draft-offshore-well-control-regulations

2010 United States deepwater drilling moratorium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_deepwater_drilling_moratorium

COMMENT: Five years after the British Petroleum (BP) offshore oil rig disaster event in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration has finally come out with proposed Federal regulations for these transnational oil corporations to follow. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) (http://www.bsee.gov/), the Federal agency responsible for oversight in this area, released their proposed regulations, and is giving the American public the required time period for public review before BSEE final adoption later this year (30 CFR Part 250; Docket ID: BSEE-2015-0002). According to World Oil (link) magazine, this proposed BSEE Federal regulation:

"...addresses the range of systems and equipment related to well control operations. The measures are designed to improve equipment reliability, building upon enhanced industry standards for BOPs and blowout prevention technologies. The rule also includes reforms in well design, well control, casing, cementing, real-time well monitoring and subsea containment." - World Oil, 04/13/2015

Fire & Flood Prediction - Advanced Capabilities from NCAR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZeqgHyqXgo

Published on Mar 20, 2015 INFO: After working for more than a decade to tackle the challenges, NCAR and its research partners have developed the capability to build two new prediction systems — one for wildfires and one for floods. The systems can provide public safety officials with detailed, 12- to 24-hour predictions of these destructive disasters. The fire prediction system can also help guide tactics for prescribed burns.

Cascading Failures: Earthquake Threats to Transportation and Utilities http://resilience.abag.ca.gov/projects/transportation_utilities_2014/

COMMENT: San Francisco Bay Area often takes the lead when it comes to innovative approaches and getting ahead of the curve. When it comes to the emergency, disaster and business continuity field, the concept of Resilience or Resiliency in this context means the ability for communities, municipalities, public and private sectors, to overcome various challenges as it relates to natural and man-made events.

Transportation and Utilities, the focus of Cascading Failures, are two areas of concern that are part of what the Federal government in the United States call critical infrastructure. Both are key determinants or factors that defines what it is to be a modern 21st century nation from still developing nations in what used to be called the Third World. Natural or man-made events that directly or indirectly affect both of these sectors will negative consequence affecting everything from the global financial markets to public confidence.

Association of Bay Area Governments or ABAG has led the charge here in the Bay Area on this issue. Cascading Failures 2014 Report is the latest from ABAG in covering resiliency in the emergency, disaster and business continuity contexts. As everyone knows, California is earthquake country, with earthquake faultlines located mostly along the coastal regions up and down the State. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, the two primary faultlines are the San Andreas and Hayward. Both faultlines run through significant populated areas of the region, as seen here in the Cascading Failures report.

Coursera AI Planning MOOC Statistics 2015 http://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/2015/03/03/coursera-ai-planning-mooc-statistics-2015/

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC7pvCIb4-g Published on Jan 8, 2015 Cal OES shows you some of the success stories from the Wireless Emergency Alerts.