Central Florida

Resilience System


You are here

Problem

Florida Tops U.S. List for Risk in Climate Change Study

           

Two weeks after a king tide flooded parts of Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, a heavy rain flooded this Miami neighborhood near Coral Way and Southwest 23rd Street on Oct. 6. Jenny Staletovich Miami Herald Staff

Florida has more to lose with sea rise than anywhere else in the U.S., new study says

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Union of Concerned Scientists - Underwater - Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate (28 page .PDF document)

miamiherald.com - by Alex Harris - June 18, 2018

Florida stands to lose more homes — and real estate value — to sea level rise damage than any other state in the nation this century, according to a new study.

By 2045, nearly 64,000 homes in Florida face flooding every other day. Half of those are in South Florida.

If you buy a house now, before your new mortgage is paid you might have to regularly do the rolled-up-pants, shoes-in-hand commute that has become an enduring image of sea rise.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

West Antarctic Ice Melt Poses Unique Threat to U.S.

           

Sea level rise contributions from ice melt in different areas, including Greenland (a), West Antarctica (b), East Antarctica (c) and median of global glaciers (d). Values are ratios of regional sea level change to global mean sea level change. Adapted from Kopp et al. 2015.

axios.com - by Andrew Freedman - June 14, 2018

News of Antarctica's accelerating ice melt garnered worldwide headlines yesterday, as scientists revealed that 3 trillion tons of ice has been lost to the sea since 1992 — mostly from the thawing West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Antarctic Peninsula.

Why it matters: The location of the ice melt is important for determining the future of coastal communities, according to climate scientists. And, due to West Antarctica melting, it turns out that the U.S. coastline will be hit extra hard . . .

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

U.S. Disaster-Response Force Stretched Thin as Hurricane Season Starts

           

reuters.com - by Andy Sullivan - June 13, 2018

With the 2018 hurricane season already underway, FEMA is scrambling to hire more people who are willing to depart at a moment’s notice for assignments that can last months at a stretch.

Internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show the agency's disaster-response force is understaffed by 26 percent. And as last year revealed, many of those who sign up don't always respond when needed.

The extraordinary string of domestic disasters in 2017 continues to weigh on the U.S. agency. With thousands of workers still out in the field, official figures show that 33 percent of FEMA’s disaster-response workforce is available for deployment, down from 56 percent at this time last year.

Some specialties are stretched especially thin: Only 13 percent of the workers who direct federal aid to pay for rebuilding costs after a disaster hits are currently available.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Hurricanes Are Lingering Longer. That Makes Them More Dangerous.

           

Hurricane Harvey over the Gulf of Mexico in August 2017. The storm stalled over Texas and dropped nearly 50 inches of rain in some places.  Credit NOAA/NASA GOES Project

CLICK HERE - STUDY - A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed

A new study shows that storms are staying in one place longer, much like Hurricane Harvey did last year.

nytimes.com - by Kendra Pierre-Louis - June 6, 2018

 . . . A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature focuses on what is known as translation speed, which measures how quickly a storm is moving over an area, say, from Miami to the Florida Panhandle. Between 1949 and 2016, tropical cyclone translation speeds declined 10 percent worldwide, the study says. The storms, in effect, are sticking around places for a longer period of time.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

How Storms, Missteps and an Ailing Grid Left Puerto Rico in the Dark

           

A transmission tower and downed lines in the mountainous terrain of eastern Puerto Rico. Workers from the island and throughout the United States have worked to restore power after Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September.

It took months to restore electricity in Puerto Rico after hurricanes dealt a one-two punch. Many homes are still without power, and the system’s future is far from certain.

nytimes.com - by JAMES GLANZ and FRANCES ROBLES - Photographs by TODD HEISLER - May 6, 2018

 . . . After Maria and the hurricane that preceded it, called Irma, Puerto Rico all but slipped from the modern era . . .

 . . . an examination of the power grid’s reconstruction — based on a review of hundreds of documents and interviews with dozens of public officials, utility experts and citizens across the island — shows how a series of decisions by federal and Puerto Rican authorities together sent the effort reeling on a course that would take months to correct. The human and economic damage wrought by all that time without power may be irreparable.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Free Resources for Disaster Resilience

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

No person or place is immune from disasters or disaster-related losses, and recent events have proven that even prepared communities can be overwhelmed in a state of emergency. Our reports provide guidelines and targeted resources for all stakeholders in a disaster response, including state and local governments, emergency medical services and health care centers. Read these online for free.
CLICK HERE - Related Books

Pages

Subscribe to Problem
howdy folks
Page loaded in 0.991 seconds.