Disaster Recovery News

Many in southern California recovering from the recent fires now have placed sandbags around their homes in preparation for a storm coming in on Tuesday off the Pacific Ocean. The storm is predicted to bring flooding and possibly even mudslides.

Robert Jablon with the Associated Press writes:

“A low-pressure area about 700 miles off the coast was heading northeast and could bring an inch of rain through Thanksgiving and up to 4 inches in the mountains, said Stan Wasowski, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

Flash flood watches were posted through Wednesday evening for areas where grass and brush that normally anchors the soil, helping to prevent mudslides, burned away. Some places could get a half-inch of rain in an hour, the Weather Service said.”

Hundreds have been evacuated from their homes in preparation for the storm. There is much concern for the homes that were left vulnerable from the recent fires. Agencies providing aid are ready to take action should there be further disasters.

Read more about this story here.

Learn more about preparing for an emergency and making a disaster kit. After a storm has passed, there are steps one can take to recover from a flood and get their home and business back to as normal as possible.

Home and business owners along the southern coast would do well to asses the threat of damage due to a storm surge to their property. A SLOSH model is what emergency managers use to determine which are residents should be evaluated first in the event of a major hurricane.

SLOSH stands for Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes. The test is a computerized model used to estimate the storm surge heights and winds. The data used in making such determination is collected from historical data, hypothetical situation analysis and hurricane predictions. The test takes into account the pressure, size, speed, track and winds in a given area. These tests are considered to be accurate + / – 20%.

Emergency evacuation teams use the SLOSH data as they are tracking storms and engaging in potential emergency response.

More on Hurricane Preparation

At a blogger roundtable in Washington DC last week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Paulison discussed hurricane preparation and plans. Some highlights from that session were that both agencies don’t want the public to be caught off guard this hurricane season. The last two years were considered pretty mild by disaster experts but in no way does the government want people to sit back and do nothing in preparation for the season.

To this end, the two went on to discuss making sure individuals properly prepare for a potential disaster by winds and flooding. The two also discussed how the National Response Framework has been laid out and how the agency plans to encourage the public to create emergency plans through Ready Campaign Advertisements. Questions were also fielded related to the response and preparation help available for the poor or disabled.

The entire transcript is lengthy but very interesting, especially for those that may live in a high hurricane frequency zone.

Complete Chertoff Blogger Roundtable Transcript