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I am a graduate student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake Cityand will complete my Master's degree work this coming June in PublicAdministration and Middle East Studies. I have a dedicated interest inthe field of international disaster relief operations and thus myrequest for research assistance.
My general topic is t o identify policy considerations that guide acountry (e.g. U.S.), international agency, or NGO in deciding whetherto assist another country with disaster relief, how much and what kindof relief to provide, and how to deliver it. A major goal of thispa per will be to investigate the various considerations taken intoaccount dealing with the character of the country's culture, economy,politics and religious orientations(s) that impact those decisions.For example, an understanding of the different way t he governmentbureaucracy works in Egypt as opposed to Kuwait will affect whichdomestic contacts are essential to the success of a relief effort andwhich are only a required formality. Also, for example, an under-standing of Muslim Brotherhood operatio ns in Egypt to embarrass thegovernment whenever possible helps to understand its role in moreefficient delivery of assistance than the official agencies followingthe 1992 Cairo earthquake. There are of course many other informal aswell as formal organ izations that must be considered when a reliefeffort is organized. I wish to ferret them out, at first statinggeneral principles, but ultimately to apply them against the backdropof disaster in the Middle East. Admittedly, there have not been manydisa sters in that region that compare with the Armenian tragedy orEthiopian famines or Rwandan/Bosnian genocides. But Turkey and Egypt(two of my countries) have certainly had earthquakes, Kuwait had oilwell fires it had to request assistance for in order t o extinguish,the Iraqi agricultural system is clearly at the mercy of Turkey's damprojects, and Jordan is becoming increasingly vulnerable to drought asmore and more demand is placed on the Jordan river. It would seem tome that international relief ag encies would want contingency plans inplace for such emergencies to cut down on the time needed to constructthe relief "pipeline". I would like to find a source for such plans.
Contrarily, does the U.S. and other large donors/organizers usuallyhave free rein in dispensing aid in a disaster situation? Does thatdiffer from country to country and region to region of the world? Whatare the long-range development implications of short-sighted emergencyoperations - especially when a wholesale pull-out occurs after themedia-based hype has run its course?
Although e-mail is convenient for these requests, there may be otherpublished reports or other media that address the topics I haveoutlined above. If so, what/where are they and how may I obtai n them? I would welcome all the contacts I can muster to be able to write apolicy paper that is accurate, practical and useful.
F. Bruce Funk
6691 South 1570 West
West Jordan, Utah 84084
Fax: (801) 281-0415
E-mail: bruce.funk@m.cc.utah.edu
The Communications Subcommittee of the National Emergency ManagementAssociation (NEMA) Public Sector Committee is req uesting informationregarding various emergency management associations. The informationwill be compiled into a data base to be used by state emergencymanagement offices. Please forward your emergency managementassociation contact information, includin g the name of a specificcontact person, to Bill Lent, e-mail: blent@ix.netcom.com; fax: (301)599-2316.
One of the goals of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) isto encourage and support the inclusion of emergency management-relatededucation in colleges and universities across the United States. Tofurther this end FEMA's Emergency Managemen t Institute (EMI), inEmmitsburg, Maryland, which focuses on skills-based training forexisting emergency management personnel, has undertaken severalprojects that promote college-based emergency management education forfuture emergency managers. In 199 5 EMI devoted a full-time staffofficer to the task of working with academics to develop and promoteemergency management-related college courses.
As part of this effort, EMI assembled an annotated list of collegesand universities in the United State s that teach one or more emergencymanagement courses [see the Hazards Center Web site: http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/colleges/colleges.html - ed.]. This twenty-plus-pagedocument describes courses and programs offered and provides point-of-contact information for each institution listed. To enhance itscomprehensiveness, an early draft of this document was mailed to overtwo thousand academics who receive the "Natural Hazards Observer"newsletter, and the list is now routinely provided to emergencymanagement personnel interested in continuing their education, as wellas to academics wishing to develop their own emergency managementcourses.
Following the development of the college list, cours e syllabi andoutlines of existing emergency management-related courses werecollected. Over seventy course outlines or syllabi are now included inthis compilation, which is available free of charge to any academicwishing to investigate the development of emergency management-relatedcourses.
Next, EMI developed its own outline of a potential emergencymanagement curriculum consisting of classroom-based, upper-division(junior/senior), baccalaureate-level courses. EMI is now working witha variety o f colleges and universities to develop this curriculumwhich includes:
Aim and Scope of Emergency Management (1998)
Business and Industry Crisis Management (1998)
Citizen and Community Disaster Preparedness (1998)
Disaster Response
Operations and Management (1998)
Earthquake Hazard Management and Operations (1999)
Economics of Hazards and Disaster (1999)
Emergency Management Skills and Principles (1999)
Ethics in Disaster and Emergency Management (2000)
Hazardous Materials Management (1999)
Issues in Emergency Management (2000)
Law for the Emergency Manager (2000)
Living in a Hazardous Environment (1997)
Politics of Disaster (1998)
Principles and Process of Disaster Plannin
g (1998)
Principles and Process of Disaster Relief and Recovery (2000)
Principles and Process of Hazards Mitigation (1998)
Public Administration, Policy and Emergency Management (1998)
Research Methods in Emergency Management (1998
)
Social Dimensions of Disaster (available)
Sociology of Disaster (available)
Technology and Emergency Management (1998)
Terrorism and Emergency Management (1999)
EMI is contracting with various academic institutions and in dividualsto develop Instructor Guides, much like existing EMI course InstructorGuides, for each course. These guides are being developed insufficient detail to enable an informed instructor to teach the courseat the upper division level with a minimum of additional work outsideof becoming familiar with the recommended course materials.
As courses are developed, EMI will make them available via theInternet, announce their availability in the "Natural HazardsObserver," and "Disaster Research," an d direct mail announcements tothose schools teaching emergency management courses. As a result, FEMAhopes to advance emergency management degree programs throughout theU.S., to include some level of degree program in every state in thenation.
The first of FEMA's Higher Education Project college-level emergencymanagement related courses are now available. They are:
1) "The Sociology of Disaster" - a 278-page Instructor Guide meant asa resource for professors of sociology who are planning a co urse forundergraduate university students.
2) "The Social Dimensions of Disaster" - a 619-page Instructor Guidethat supports a more generalized and expanded treatment of subjectsconsidered in "The Sociology of Disaster" course. Emphasis is on thep ractice of emergency management and the social aspects of disaster.
Requests for FEMA Higher Education Project courses should be addressedto:
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
U.S. Department of Commerce
NTIS Sales Desk:
(703) 487-4650
Methods of Payment: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, check, NTISDeposit Account, purchase or money order. Call 1-800-553-NTIS.
NTIS Home Page:
For international trade, technology and export information visit NTIS'Home Pa
ge on the World Wide Web: http://www.fedworld.gov/ntis/ntishome.html
FedWorld:For access to on-line government information, hook-up with FedWorld:By modem: Set modem parity to none, data bits to 8 and stop bit to 1. Set terminal emulation to ANSI. Set duplex to full. Then set yourcommunication software to dial FedWorld at (703) 321-3339.By Internet: Telnet to fedworld.gov. For Internet File TransferProtocol (FTP) service, connect to ftp.fe dworld.gov. For World WideWeb service, point your Web browser to http://www.fedworld.gov.Fed World Help Desk: (703) 487-4608.
"The Sociology of Disaster": Paper - $49.00 (plus handling: U.S.,Canada, Mexico). Download from FedWorld BBS, $15.00. Use NTIS ordernumber PB97-115380.
"The Social Dimensions of Disaster": Paper - $60.00 (plus handling: U.S., Canada, Mexico). Download from FedWorld BBS, $15.00. Use NTISorder number PB97-115372.
Questions co
ncerning the Higher Education Project can be addressed to:
Wayne Blanchard, PhD, CEM
c/o the Federal Emergency Management Agency
NETC/EMI, Building N, Room 430
16825 South Seton Avenue
Emmitsburg, MD 21727
(301) 447-126
2; fax: (301) 447-1598
E-mail: wayne.blanchard@fema.gov
http://www.adpc.ait.ac.th/Default.html
The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Bangkok, is aregional center committed to the protection of life, property, and theenvironment in Asia and the Pacific. It assists local, regional, andnational governments in developing their capabilit
ies and policiesthrough training, information provision, and technical assistance tomitigate the impact of disasters. The new ADPC Web site includes pagesentitled: What is new?, About ADPC, Information and Research, Learningand Professional Developmen
t, Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program(AUDMP), International Consultancies and Alumni Coordination, OurDisaster Network, and Our Disaster Links. In addition, the ADPCnewsletter - "Asian Disaster Management News" - is available on-line.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/puad/ijmed
The "International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters" isthe official journal of the International Sociological Association'sResearch Committee on Disasters and
has long been one of the morerespected and useful academic journals dealing with disastermanagement. The journal Web site offers information about the journal,article submission, contents of recent issues, upcoming articles, book reviews, special issu
es, and subscribing to the journal.
http://www.netway.net/caic
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) has enteredcyberspace, offering much information about snow avalanche hazards.The site
includes daily mountain weather and avalanche reports,warnings, hotline telephone numbers, general avalanche and CAICinformation, information on danger scales, avalanche educationlistings, awareness courses and programs, avalanche safety tips, briefre
ports on Colorado avalanche accidents, an index of books and videoswritten by the CAIC staff, U.S. and world avalanche accidentstatistics, avalanche photos, and, of course links to other avalanche-and weather-related pages
http://www.iwaynet.net/~kwroejr/violent.html
Ken Roe's "Eye on the World" Web site is an index of other Weblocations, including this section - a surfer's paradise of sitescovering general hazards information, e
arthquakes, fires, volcanoes,and weather-related catastrophes. The focus is primarily specificevents or locations with lots of photographs.
http://www.sra.org
The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) provides an
open forum foranyone interested in the discipline, which is broadly defined toinclude risk assessment, risk characterization, risk communication,risk management, and policy relating to risk. The society's interestsinclude risks to human health and the
environment, both built andnatural. It considers threats from physical, chemical, and biologicalagents and from a variety of human activities, as well as naturalevents. The new SRA Web site includes information about the societyand its members, a sch
edule of coming events, news about riskanalysis, a section on risk science, a list of opportunities ofvarious kinds (job openings, fellowships, etc.), and a compendium ofother risk-related sites.
http://www.riskwo
rld.com
Another risk Web site, Riskworld covers risk assessment and riskmanagement news, abstracts, reports, Web sites and newsgroups, newpublications, professional organizations, upcoming events, academiccourses, grants/fellowships, softw
are, job openings, and more. Forexample, the full text of Volume 2 of the final report of thePresidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and RiskManagement is now available via RiskWorld, as are a link to the fulltext of a final report on
California EPA's risk assessment practicesand abstracts from the 1996 Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting and the SRA-Europe 1996 Annual Meeting.
The National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994 created significantopportunities for mitigation. Section 553 of the Act authorizes aMitigation Assistance Program, which FEMA has designated FloodMitigation Assistance (FMA), and Section 554 es tablishes the NationalFlood Mitigation Fund to provide assistance under Sec. 553.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has recently announcedrules and regulations to implement the requirements of Secs. 553 and554. FMA was developed to add ress concerns regarding repetitively orsubstantially damaged structures, or both, and the associated claimson the National Flood Insurance Fund. The overall goal of FMA is tofund cost-effective measures that reduce or eliminate the long-termrisk of fl ood damage to buildings, manufactured homes, and otherinsurable structures.
FEMA will ask the governor of each state to identify a point ofcontact (POC) for FMA. Each state, through the POC, will receiveannual funding for technical assistance and p lanning grants throughthe annual Cooperative Agreements. States will distribute the planninggrants at their discretion, in accordance with the specified grantlimitations. (If a governor chooses not to identify a POC tocoordinate the FMA, communities m ay submit applications and plansdirectly to FEMA.)
The regulations outline a basic planning process with minimumstandards for the Flood Mitigation Plans. Existing plans, such asthose credited through the Community Rating System or those preparedin conformance with Sec. 409 of the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. 5176, maymeet the requirements of FMA with few or no modifications. The planshould summarize the planning process, and should be reviewedperiodically by the community in order to remain a viable document.Flood Mitigation Plans must be formally adopted by the legal entitysubmitting the plan for FEMA approval.
All FMA projects must be consistent with the goals of FMA, that is, toreduce the risk of flood damage to structures insured under th eNational Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Specifically, projecteligibility is dependent on two components: the type of activity mustbe eligible (elevation, acquisition, etc.) and each project must meeta set of minimum criteria (cost effectiveness, env ironmentalconsiderations, etc.).
The regulations address the need for states and communities tomaintain liaisons with other organizations and agencies to bettercoordinate available programs. FMA strongly encourages states tomaintain a multihazard interagency mitigation team or othercoordinating body. The regulations for FMA were developed to beflexible enough to work with existing programs with complementarygoals. With the limited funds available in FMA and in other mitigationprograms, the abi lity to package programs will be important topotential applicants.
FEMA used an open process in the development of these regulations,coordinating with many of our constituent groups. Several forums wereheld to help identify issues and approaches to implementing FMA, anddraft regulations were circulated for comment.
For further information contact: Robert F. Shea, MitigationDirectorate, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 500 C Street SW.,Washington, DC 20472; (202) 646-3619; fax: (202) 646- 3104.
This interim final rule is effective April 29, 1997. Comments on therule should be submitted by June 18, 1997. Send any comments to theRules Docket Clerk, Office of the General Counsel, Federal EmergencyManagement Agency, 500 C Street, S.W., Room 840, Washington, DC 20472;fax: (202) 646-4536.
We recently received an nice brochure from the National ScienceFoundation (NSF) describing the variou
s NSF research opportunities inthe fields of environmental and global change. Rather than reproduceall the information presented there, we'll just direct you to threepertinent World Wide Web pages. The URL for the Environmental andGlobal Change Resear
ch home page itself is:
http://www.nsf.gov/stratare/egch/start.htm
Within that section, the Natural Hazards Reduction home pate is:
http://www.nsf.gov/stratare/egch/nathaz.htm
and the Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change page is:
http://www.nsf.gov/stratare/egch/hdgc.htm
Below are the latest conference announcements received by the NaturalHazards Center. Most previous issues of DR contain additional notices.For a comprehensive list of upcoming disaster-related meetings andtrainin
g, see our World Wide Web page:
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/conf.html
City of Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Fair. Los Angeles ZooParking Lot: April 11-13, 1997.
Worksho p on Landscape Disturbance. Sponsors: Western Forest FireResearch Center (WESTFIRE) and the USDA Forest Service. Lakewood,Colorado: May 12-15, 1997. Contact: Dr. Phil Omi, Director, WESTFIRE,Department of Forest Services, Colorado State University, For tCollins, CO 80523; (970) 491-2626; fax: (970) 484-9560; e-mail:westfire@lamar.colostate.edu.
Business Continuity Workshops. Offered by Survive Business ContinuityGroup. London: May 12-22, 1997. Con tact: Survive Secretariat, TheChapel, Royal Patriotic Building, Fitzhugh Grove, London SW18 3SX,U.K.; tel: 0181-874 6266; fax: 0181-874 6446; e-mail:surviveuk@cityscape.co.uk; WWW: http://www.survive.com.
Eighth U.S. National Conference on Wind Engineering. Baltimore,Maryland: June 5-7, 1997. Contact: Nicholas P. Jones, 8th U.S.National Conference on Wind Engineering, Department of CivilEngineering, The Johns Hop kins University, Baltimore, MD 21218-2686;(410) 516-7874; fax: (410) 516-7473; e-mail: 8usncwe@jhu.edu; WWW:http://www.ce.jhu.edu/~8usncwe/index.html.
ABC o f Business Continuity Planning. Offered by Survive BusinessContinuity Group. Northampton, U.K.: June 9-11, 1997. Contact: SurviveSecretariat, The Chapel, Royal Patriotic Building, Fitzhugh Grove,London SW18 3SX, U.K.; tel: 0181-874 6266; fax: 0181-874 6446; e-mail:surviveuk@cityscape.co.uk; WWW: http://www.survive.com.
Seventh World Conference on Disaster Management. Hamilton, Ontario,Canada: June 22-25, 1997. Con tact: Canadian Centre for EmergencyPreparedness, P.O. Box 2911, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 3R5; (905)546-3911; 1-800-965-4608; fax: (905) 546-2340; e-mail:ccep@netaccess.on.ca; WWW: http://www.netaccess.on.ca/~ccep/wcdm/.
Improving Local Emergency Management. Offered by: University ofWisconsin-Madison, Department of Engineering Professional Development.Madison, Wisconsin: June 26, 1997. Contact: Kati e Peterson, Departmentof Engineering Professional Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 432 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706; 1-800-462-0876;fax: (608) 263-3160; e-mail: custserv@epd.engr.wisc.edu ; WWW:http://epdwww.engr.wisc.edu/.
Eighth International Conference on Soil Dynamics and EarthquakeEngineering - SDEE'97. Istanbul, Turkey: July 20-24, 1997. Abstractssubmitted to the Eighth Internatio nal Conference on Soil Dynamics andEarthquake Engineering (SDEE'97) can now be viewed in SDEE'97 homepages: http://www.ceor.princeton.edu/sdee.html or http: //www.boun.edu.tr/sdee.html. Contact: Ahmet S. Cakmak, Conference Chair,Princeton University, Department of Civil Engineering and OperationsResearch, Princeton, NJ 08544-5263; (609) 258-4601; fax: (609) 258-1309 or (609) 258-2685; e-mail: ahmet@tremor.princeton.edu; or,Mustafa Erdik, Conference Co-Chair, Bogazici University, KandilliObservatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Cengelkoy, Istanbul81220, Turkey; tel: +90.216.332.6560; fax: +90.216. 308.0163,216.332.1711; e-mail: erdik@hamlin.cc.boun.edu.tr; mustafa@tremor.princeton.edu
Nuclear Emergency Planning. Offered by: Harvard School of Pub licHealth. Boston, Massachusetts: August 19-22, 1997. Contact: (617) 432-1171.
Asia-Pacific Disaster Conference 1997. Kauai, Hawaii: September 14-19,1997. Sponsor: Center of Excellence in Disaster Management andHumanitarian Assistance and the Paci fic Disaster Center. Contact:Center of Excellence in Disaster Management, 1 Jarrett White Road(MCPA-DM), Tripler AMC, Hawaii 96859-5000; (808) 433-7035; fax: (808)433-1446; e-mail: kanemota@website. tamc.amedd.army.mil; WWW: http://website.tamc.amedd.army.mil
1997 Association of Contingency Planners (ACP) Business RecoverySymposium. Salt Lake City, Utah: October 6-8, 1997. Contact: MiltMaugha n, Registrar, 1997 ACP Business Recovery Symposium, e-mail:maughma@thiokol.com.
1997 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Flood andStormwater Management Agencies (NAFSMA). Lake Buena Vista, Florida:N ovember 19-22, 1997. Contact: NAFSMA, 1401 Eye Street, N.W., Suite900, Washington, DC 20005; (202) 218-4122
International Disaster Management Conference. Sponsor: FloridaEmergency Medicine Foundation and others. February 18-22, 1998.Disaster '98 Re gistrar, Florida Emergency Medicine Foundation, 3717South Conway Road, Orlando, FL 32812-7607; (407) 281-7396 or (800)766-6335; fax (407) 281-4407;
Children's Emergencies in Disasters: A National Workshop. Presented bythe Health Resources and Serv ices Administration, Maternal and ChildHealth Bureau, the Florida Emergency Medicine Foundation, the NationalHighway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health ServicesAdministratio n. Orlando, Florida: February 18-19, 1998. (Held inconjunction with the 1998 International Disaster Management Conference- see above.) Proposals for presentations and papers are due June 30,1997. For abstract guidelines see: http://www.fema.gov/fema/c_chdiz.htm; or call (202) 884-4927; fax: (301) 650-8045; or e-mail:jscanlon@ccs.carleton.ca.
Eleventh European Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Sponsors:European A ssociation for Earthquake Engineering and French Associationfor Earthquake Engineering (AFPS). Abstracts due July 31, 1997. Paris,France: September 6-11, 1998. Contact: Eleventh European Conference onEarthquake Engineering, AFPS Secretariat, 4 Avenue d u RecteurPoincare, 75782 Paris Cedex 16, France; tel: 33-1 40-50-28-34; fax:33-1 45-25-61-51: WWW: http://dfc2.enpc.fr/ecee11
First International Conference on Computer Simulation in Risk Analysisand Hazard Mitigation (Risk 98). Organizers: Wessex Institute ofTechnology and Universitat Jaume 1. Palau de Pineda, Valencia, Spain:October 7-9, 1998. Contact: Professor C.A. Brebbia, Wessex Instituteof Technology, Ashurst Lodge, Ashurst, Southampton, SO40 7AA, U.K.;tel: 44 (0)1703 293223; fax: 44 (0)1703 292853; e-mail:wit@wessex.ac.uk.
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