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Thanks for your help,
Sincerely,
Angelo Trezza Polini
P.O. Box 322 Zapote
atrezza@cariari.ucr.ac.cr
I will appreciate your help to try to locate references of agencies with experience in the training of local communities to combat forest fires in Latin America. I just recently came back from Central America and saw how powerless are communities in a forest fire situation. I aim to develop some training experiences to prevent or mitigate the effects of forest fires in arid areas of Central America. Thanks.
Andres Recalde
Program Officer for Latin America
World Vision Canada
6630 Turner Valley Road
Mississauga, ON L5N 2S4
Canada
Tel: (905) 821-3033 x330
Fax: (905) 821-1825
E-mail: andres_recalde@worldvision.ca
WWW: http://www.worldvision.ca, http://www.wvi.org
I need information on an Earthquake Disaster Plan for my Disaster Plan Update. We are located on the New Madrid Fault in Illinois. You can contact me at 217-425-6667. Ask for the Safety Director.
Thank you,
Tom Dunn
todunn@ibm.net
I am a student of civil engineering at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. Our institute is working on a research project in cooperation with the German federal civil defence organisation "THW" (Technical Help service) with the main theme: "Methods of rescuing trapped persons from destroyed buildings." The aim of the project is to improve the effectiveness and the application of the "THW" and to get new information to update knowledge and equipment.
If you or members of your organisation are involved, if a disaster like gas-explosion, flood, earthquake, building collapse, etc. in your environment occurs, I want to ask you with a questionnaire about the procedure of the operations and evaluate the answers statistically. I need all kinds of information about operations where buildings have been damaged.
About the FEMA (USA) or the EMA (Australia) organizations I have got a lot of information and articles about big disasters. I have more than enough. The problem for me is to get information about special operations in single buildings - e.g., which SAR task-force or which fire trucks/fire departments were operating at the site, who rescued the trapped persons, and which equipment did the rescuers use and so on.
These are the people to whom I want to send my questionnaire. I am interested in all kinds of operations where buildings (every kind of building - big/small, high/low, old/new, schools, factories, flats, from bungalows to skyscrapers) suffered damage, from such hazards as:
Best regards and lots of thanks in advance!
Friedrich Zieger
Albert-Schweitzer Strasse 13
D-76689 Karlsdorf, Germany
E-mail: FZieger@aol.com
Fax: +49 - 7251 / 40199
I am looking for information on any public or private organizations who might be able to provide funding and/or technical assistance for the construction of a community tornado shelter. I reside in a mobile home park, which averages 12 homes with a total of approximately 25 to 30 individuals combined from the households. The environment consists of flatland [in Arkansas] with no nearby ditches and the residents cannot afford to provide a shelter adequate for the needs of the multiple families. Please notify me of any possible suggestions or solutions.
Thank you,
Carla McDaniel
cjmcdaniel@WWW.CJI.NET
The Division of Environmental Geoscientists is the fastest growing division of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. The Division grew from recognition of a need to educate the membership of AAPG and the general public about important environmental issues. By so doing, we will better be able to communicate to the general public and to government agencies the association's commitment to protect the environment while developing the world's natural resources in a responsible manner. "Environmental Geosciences," the quarterly journal of the division, was created to help accomplish these goals.
Coastal erosion, storm impacts, and coastal property damage seem to be in the news on a continual basis. Many state and federal agencies and researchers are working on better methods to assess coastal hazards and risks, to predict property damage, and to devise methods to mitigate future losses. As such, the division announces a call for ideas for a special issue of "Environmental Geosciences." We propose a "special issue" dedicated to examining various geological methods of coastal hazard mapping and coastal hazard mitigation. The articles can be scientific, policy oriented, or case studies.
At this point we would like to solicit ideas from prospective authors. Please send a short abstract or outline to Rob Young or Dave Bush (addresses below) by August 1, 1998. The publications committee will review the submittals and send notification of acceptance in fall 1998. Electronic submittal of abstracts/outlines via e-mail is encouraged. Please feel free to forward this memo to interested colleagues. To submit ideas or questions please contact either:
Robert S. Young
Department of Geosciences
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee NC 28723-9047
(704) 227-7503
ryoung@wcu.edu
David M. Bush
Department of Geology
State University of West Georgia
Carrollton GA 30118
(770) 836-4597
dbush@westga.edu
The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science seeks expressions of interest from USA researchers who may wish to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship to study in New Zealand in 1999. The institute plans to sponsor a position for someone interested in risk management policy and appropriate techniques for risk reduction in the area of natural hazards that can be maintained by central and local government.
Selection of a candidate will take place at the end of June 1998 and letters of support from the institute and the New Zealand government's Emergency Management Policy and Establishment Unit will then be forwarded to the candidate in time for then to make an application to the Fulbright Committee (by 1 August 1998).
For further information contact:
David Johnston
E-mail: d.johnston@gns.cri.nz
Fax: 64 7 374 8199
These are a few of the latest Internet resources we've discovered. For a list of selected Internet/Web sites dealing with disaster management, see http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/sites/sites.html.
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/bcfn
The "Boulder Creek Flood Notebook" is a unique Web project. It is
a plan for documenting and disseminating information about the causes
and effects of a specific disaster that has not yet happened: the next
great flood of Boulder, Colorado. The introduction to the notebook states:
The consequences of a major flood on Boulder Creek to human life, property, and to the natural environment can be devastating. Urban development within the floodplain of Boulder Creek has placed thousands of residents at risk to the devastating impacts of flash floods. . . The Boulder Creek Flood Notebook was designed to report, in a timely fashion, the extent of loss of life, property damage, social disruption, and environmental destruction associated with flooding on Boulder Creek . . . The purpose of this notebook is to provide an agenda for field workers to collect data which will be included in the future publication of "The Boulder Creek Flood of [year]: A Community Choice". Following a major flood, [that] report . . . will be distributed to emergency management agencies at the federal, state, and local levels as well as to other interested parties. This research is being undertaken in the hope that lessons from the next flood on Boulder Creek may be learned by residents of other communities susceptible to flood hazards and, in the words of Dr. Gilbert White, that "the citizens of Boulder may be helped to understand how their community came to be vulnerable to the flood, and the kinds of decisions that may either reduce or enlarge the human consequences of the next large flood."
This extensive outline and plan could easily serve as a model for similar research on disasters elsewhere.
http://www.denendeh.com/flycolor/wildfire/
The Canadian Wildfire Network Web site is "designed by, for and
about those people directly or indirectly involved in forest fire
fighting in Canada. It is aimed at bringing together these resources
in the hope of building a strong national firefighting reputation in
the spirit of cooperation and communication." The site includes
sections covering What's New?, Hot Spots (Web sites of the week),
People, Fire News, Cool Sites, Agencies, Fire Reports, Weather,
Behavior, Research, Education, Aviation, and Resources.
http://www.pswn.gov
The opening page of the Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN)
Home Page states:
To be effective before, during, and after their [emergency] response, public safety officials, throughout all levels of government, must be able to communicate with each other. Currently, federal, state, and local public safety entities compete for limited radio spectrum, have limited public safety budgets, and face challenges in keeping pace with advances in technology.
The PSWN was established by the White House to address these issues. The PSWN vision is "seamless, coordinated, and integrated public safety communications for the safe, effective, and efficient protection of life and property," and thus their mission is "to plan for and foster interoperability among wireless networks that meets the requirements of local, state, and federal public safety organizations." The PSWN Web site provides additional information about this effort, sections on recent developments and upcoming symposia, as well as a library with much background information about disaster communications issues.
Animals-in-Disasters List
Anyone that has had to deal with residents that won't evacuate
without their beloved cats or dogs - or has managed a shelter where
evacuees brought their iguanas and boa constrictors - or has witnessed
the carcasses of hundreds of cattle caught in flooding, will
understand the need for an animal component in plans for community
emergency management. Now there's a discussion list dedicated to the
subject of animals before, during, and after disasters. To subscribe,
send e-mail to:
listserv@listserv.aol.com
with no subject header and the single message: "subscribe animals-in-
disasters <your name>." This list is open to everyone in the public
safety and emergency management field at no charge. You do not need to
be a member of America Online to participate.
http://www.rothstein.com/
The Rothstein Catalog On Disaster Recovery, a resource for
several hundred books, software tools, research reports and videos, is
now available free on CD-ROM as well as at the URL above. Readers of
Disaster Research may request a free CD-ROM by forwarding their
complete mailing address to Rothstein Associates Inc., 4 Arapaho Road,
Brookfield, CT 06804-3104; fax: (203) 740-7401; e-mail: info@rothstein.com.
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