Preparedness and Communications

As preventative steps, the city has undertaken a comprehensive open space vegetation management program revived by the Santa Cruz Fire and Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation departments in recent years.

Federal authorities hope to sharpen the disaster warnings they send directly to cellphones, as well as to state and county emergency managers, to make the warnings faster and clearer about life-threatening conditions.

The resolution would also have the city council direct the convening of a climate working group of city staff and citizens to discuss further steps the city should take to promote a carbon-free, sustainable city.

Marshalltown, Iowa, was hit by an EF-3 tornado last summer, and the lower-income and migrant communities were right in its path. Two Iowa State professors hope their projects lead other communities to the path of resiliency.

A geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey says the recent earthquake in Ridgecrest, Calif., was the first that has been significant since the start of the earthquake early warning system.

Many U.S. cities rely on levees for protection from floods. There are more than 100,000 miles of levees nationwide, in all 50 states and one of every five counties. Most of them seriously need repair.

Record-high water levels in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and other climatic data have led FEMA to revise the maps for communities along the lakes, said Andrew Martin, chief of FEMA's regional Risk Analysis Branch.

The Butler County, Ohio, sheriff has been trying to overtake EMA for some time, but until recently the county commissioners couldn’t entertain the notion because it was prohibited by state law.

Officials are grappling with an existential question that quake-prone countries such as Japan and Mexico have faced before: Is it better to issue too many earthquake warning alerts or not enough?

The port was reopened at about 6 a.m. Sunday and vessels were once again allowed into and out of the Mississippi River and the port, according to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard.

In the aftermath of the October 2017 fires, Sonoma County schools decided they needed to develop mitigation plans and protocols to deal with various natural hazards and the trauma they can cause to students and school employees.

While tropical storms and hurricanes are a risk along the Gulf Coast throughout the summer and fall, Barry comes at a time when the Mississippi River is already swollen from unprecedented late-season flooding.

The push for more credible exercises was made by former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate and echoed by professor Hans Scholl, who looked at the Cascadia Rising 2016 Exercise that was one of the largest ever held in the U.S.

The tropical depression is projected to take a westward path away from Alabama and toward the Louisiana and Texas coast, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rain is expected in many parts of Alabama.

A basic disaster kit should have supplies for three days to cover your family and pets if you’re evacuated and two weeks of supplies if you’re sheltering in your home, possibly without heat, electricity and running water.