Preparedness and Communications

When Cleveland County, Okla., submitted its five-year hazard mitigation plan, it was reduced from more than 500 pages down to around 150 pages, thanks to a reduction in requirements of certain information.

City-hired consultants told residents that under their new calculations, emergency roads would have to be elevated higher than the city previously called for, but residential roads could stay lower than originally planned.

A new undertaking by the North Central Texas Emergency Communications District is relying on drones to create 3-D models of certain areas, like schools, to enable a better response should a threat arise.

The area had damaging flooding from Superstorm Sandy and Tropical Storm Irene, and such storms are expected occur more often, said the report. Sea level over the next 50 years is expected to rise 0.4-3.2 feet in New Haven.

The county moved to a RAVE Mobility notification system, paid for by a grant from the East Texas Council of Governments, which replaced the CODE RED system used by city and county emergency management services.

The NFIP is the sole source of flood insurance for more than 5 million homes and businesses across the U.S. A lapse would have prevented the program from selling new policies and renewing current ones.

A new high-tech system can blare messages with specific instructions about what to do or where to go, and it has a battery backup that can survive PG&E power shut-offs as well as cellphone network failures.

The audit focused on the emergency alert, evacuation and shelter plans in place for the California Office of Emergency Services and Ventura, Sonoma and Butte counties ahead of their respective wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

The White House and Congress reached a deal on a $1.4-trillion spending package that would bolster election security, increase funding for wildfire fighting and pay for gun safety research.

The Ohio Safe Room Rebate Program will take applications Jan. 6-April 6. Qualified homeowners that are selected are eligible for up to 75 percent of the allowable costs used to install and construct a safe room, up to $4,875.

An example is the 2011 magnitude 6.2 earthquake that hit New Zealand, that left continuing physical, economic and psychological aftershocks. The quake redrew the geography of Christchurch; it’s flatter and smaller now.

The city has entered into a five-year partnership with Caltech, which will use an innovative new research field to collect mountains of data on earthquake activity for public safety applications.

“We’re putting billions of dollars into the infrastructure every year,” said state Sen. Tom Lee. “It seems like we ought to have some sense … of where we might be relative to our current tide levels 50 … or 40 years from now.”

Flood projections keep getting worse, critical roads and infrastructure are mere feet from toppling into the sea, cities along the coast are paralyzed by the difficult choices ahead — the reality check sounds bleak.

A new multidisciplinary group is hoping to start a conversation that can answer questions about new concerns specific to using drones in the nation's most densely populated metropolitan areas.