1) Mary Fran Myers Award: Nomination Deadline Extended
The deadline for the nominations for the Mary Fran Myers Award has been extended to April 15.
The Gender and Disaster Network and the Natural Hazards Center invite nominations of those who should be recognized for their efforts to advance gender-sensitive policy, practice, or research in the areas of disaster risk reduction. Established in 2002, the Mary Fran Myers Award recognizes that vulnerability to disasters and mass emergencies is influenced by social, cultural, and economic structures that marginalize women and girls, and may also expose boys and men to harm. The award was so named to recognize Myers’ sustained efforts as co-director of the Natural Hazards Center to launch a worldwide network promoting women’s opportunities in disaster-related professions and supporting research on gender issues, disasters, emergency management, and higher education.
The intent of this award is to recognize women and men whose advocacy, research, or management efforts have had a lasting, positive impact on reducing disaster vulnerability. All those whose work has added to the body of knowledge on gender and disasters, is significant for gender-theory or practice, or has furthered opportunities for women to succeed in the field are eligible.
The award committee is especially interested in soliciting nominations from outside the United States and strives to enable award recipients with high travel costs to attend the Natural Hazards Center workshop in Colorado.
There are three steps to nominate someone and all materials should be submitted electronically:
- Submit your full name and contact information (mailing address, e-mail, telephone, fax) and that of the nominee
- Attach a current resume or curriculum vitae of the nominee
- Write a letter of nomination detailing specifically how this individual’s work fits the award criteria as described above
- Optional: A one-page letter of support from another person or organization may also be submitted
Please direct any questions and submit nomination materials to mfmawards2008@gdnonline.org or be in touch by phone, +44 (0)191 227 3108, or fax, +44 (0)191 227 4715.
2) CSU Forecast Team Predicts Above-Average Hurricane Season
Hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) have predicted a very active hurricane season, anticipating 15 named Atlantic storms.
Of those 15 storms, the CSU team projects that 8 will become hurricanes and 4 will develop into intense storms (Saffir/Simpson Category 3, 4, or 5). Long-term averages are 9.6 named storms per year, with 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes.
According to Bill Gray, a CSU forecaster, the team issued a forecast of a less active season in early December, but has adjusted projections based on current oceanic and atmospheric trends.
Gray’s colleague, forecaster Phil Klotzback, said that the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 69 percent, compared with the last-century average of 52 percent.
Probabilities of tropical storm-force, hurricane-force and intense hurricane-force winds occurring at specific locations along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts within a variety of time periods are listed on the forecast team's Landfall Probability Web site, which can be found at http://www.e-transit.org/hurricane.
The CSU team will update its forecast on June 2, August 5, September 2, and October 1.
A CSU press release is available at http://wsprod.colostate.edu/cwis37/today/index.asp?url=display_story&story_id=1004375, while the complete forecast can be found at http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2008/april2008/apr2008.pdf.
3) Red Cross Names New President and CEO
Gail J. McGovern, former executive vice president at AT&T and president of Fidelity Personal Investments, was named President and CEO of the American Red Cross Tuesday, April 8.
Since 2002, McGovern has taught marketing in the MBA and Executive programs at the Harvard Business School. She will start with the Red Cross on June 23.
McGovern has extensive fundraising experience as a member of the Board of Trustees at The Johns Hopkins University, as well as with her involvement in fundraising activities for Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana Farber, and the United Way of Boston.
She has been recognized twice by Fortune magazine as one of the most powerful and influential women in corporate America.
To read the Red Cross’ announcement, visit http://www.redcross.org/pressrelease/0,1077,0_314_7611,00.html.
4) Call for Manuscripts: Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges
Community Disaster Recovery and Resiliency: Exploring Global Opportunities and Challenges, an edited and peer-reviewed volume, provides a forum for policy makers, students, scholars, community organizations, and citizens to discuss community trauma during the pre- and post- (immediate and long-term) disaster response and recovery periods as it is experienced around the globe. This volume engages practitioners, academics, researchers, policy makers, and grassroots organizations in search of sustainable ways to rebuild communities after disasters (both natural and human-induced). The editors of this volume are calling for diverse community examples as a framework to facilitate a candid, in-depth comparison of the best practices illustrating how communities experience disaster, recover from it, and affect social policies in such a way that the community’s vulnerability to disaster is reduced.
Chapter proposals in reference to opportunities and challenges to international community recovery are being accepted in the following areas:
- Building and Public Infrastructure
- Social and Cultural Revitalization (including formal and informal social support networks)
- Economic Revitalization
- Public Health and Safety
- Housing and Housing Policy
- Private-Public Partnerships for Building Sustainable Communities
Send a title, an abstract, and a 3- to 5-page double-spaced chapter proposal, in English, by June 1, 2008, to DeMond Miller at millerd@rowan.edu.
5) Some New Web Resources
[Below are some new or updated Internet resources we have discovered. For an extensive list of useful Internet sites dealing with hazards, see www.colorado.edu/hazards/resources/.]
A Network of Hope
The Oklahoma City National Memorial has created this Web site to help community leaders easily find information about disaster recovery. The site includes a collection of best practices from others that have experienced large-scale disasters, including terrorist attacks (New York), hurricanes (Charleston, South Carolina; Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana), earthquakes (Northridge, California), and floods (Des Moines, Iowa). It also describes common roles and expectations of government leaders, the public, religious organizations, and memorials after tragic events. According to the site, “although leaders are aware of the need to develop disaster plans, no one is really fully prepared in advance to meet the post-first responder needs of a community that has faced extensive destruction and trauma without being able to rely on outside assistance. Those communities that have experienced firsthand such destruction and trauma comprise a small group with special knowledge and understanding of what it takes to rebuild after such an incident.”
Making Hurricane Response More Effective: Lessons from the Private Sector and the
Coast Guard during Katrina
This Policy Comment from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University answers the question of why the private sector and the Coast Guard were so effective in their response to Hurricane Katrina, especially considering the poor response from the federal government. Written by Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University, the article presents four policy recommendations: (1) Give the private sector as much freedom as possible to provide resources for relief and recovery efforts; (2) Decentralize government relief to local governments and non-governmental organizations; (3) Move the Coast Guard and FEMA out of DHS; and (4) Reform “Good Samaritan” laws so that the private-sector is better protected when making efforts to help.
Why Don’t Tornadoes Hit Cities More Often?
In this Scientific American feature, Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research, answers a question asked quite a bit after a tornado ripped through Atlanta last month: Why don’t tornadoes hit cities more often? According to Wurman, “the glib answer” is that cities are small.
Mountain Hazards – Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Preparedness in the Himalayan Region
This site, developed by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal, is billed as a knowledge-sharing platform for disaster risk reduction. The site supplies key practitioners with current knowledge in the field of disaster preparedness—mainly for floods, landslides, and earthquakes—and helps build capacity in multi-hazard risk assessment. It is community driven, and serves as a dynamic online repository for materials such as publications, reports, articles, links, and news related to disaster risk reduction. The prime target countries for the site are Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
What is NAI?
This short document explains the rationale and necessity of No Adverse Impact (NAI) floodplain management, which holds that the actions of one property owner are not allowed to negatively affect the rights of other property owners; therefore, development activity should not impose any additional flood impacts on anyone. The two-page summary of No Adverse Impact floodplain management has been recently updated and approved by the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
Fire, Families and Decisions
This article in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management explores the role of families—and especially women—during bushfires. According to the article, “the family and a woman’s role within the family are where crucial decisions are made in advance of and during a bushfire.” This research is relevant to emergency managers as they shape future bushfire education programs and understand decision making in preparedness and response to a bushfire. The paper concludes that in order to reduce last-minute and dangerous decisions to evacuate at the height of a bushfire, there must be a solid understanding of family dynamics and women’s roles during a crisis. The article, in its entirety, can be accessed for free using the above link.
6) Conferences, Training, and Events
[Below are some recent announcements received by the Natural Hazards Center. For a comprehensive list of upcoming hazards-related meetings, visit our Web site at www.colorado.edu/hazards/resources/conferences.html.]
IFAT 2008 15th International Trade Fair for Water-Sewage-Refuse-Recycling— Munich, Germany: May 5-9, 2008. This international trade fair for the environmental sector will revolve around environmental solutions. It will be oriented to the future of environmental technology, focusing on everything from high tech to low tech, including comprehensive solution approaches. This trade show features innovations and new developments in the fields of water, sewage, refuse, and recycling. The exhibition program features state-of-the-art technology and a range of professional services for the field. In 2005, 2,223 exhibitors from 36 countries and 109,000 trade visitors from 166 nations participated in the trade show. For more information, see http://www.ifat.de/link/en/16607391.
3rd Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference: Learning from Experience—Carbondale, Illinois: May 20-22, 2008. The purpose of this conference is to discuss fire surrogates, oak regeneration, rare habitat restoration, wildlife management, and human dimensions of wildfire. Attendees of this conference will have the opportunity to participate in full-day field trips throughout Southern Illinois, including to a prescribed burn, and to gain knowledge of the areas natural history and cultural sites. For more information, see http://frames.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=212&mode=2&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true.
2008 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS)—New Brunswick, Canada: June 26-28, 2008. ISTAS 08 will be a multidisciplinary event for researchers in engineering, computer science, social sciences, arts, and humanities, as well as for community-based researchers, policy makers, and technology user communities. Papers and discussions will address both the social and technical aspects of the specific topics. The scope of ISTAS 08 will include research on how citizens, groups, and communities are or could be linked with information and communication technologies (ICT), and on designing and developing ICT with and for citizens, groups, and communities. For more information, see http://www.istas08.ca/~istas08ca/MediaWiki/index.php/Main_Page.
18th World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM)—Toronto, Ontario, Canada: June 15-18, 2008. The theme of this conference will be Resiliency - Individual, Community and Business. Participants will be from diverse backgrounds, including emergency management, business continuity, emergency response, risk management, IT disaster recovery, emergency health, or other related disaster management disciplines. The conference aims to provide a unique venue for disaster management professionals from around the world to present, network and learn. A major goal of WCDM is to offer a program that challenges delegates by examining traditional concepts and methods, and also one that provides new ideas and approaches to problem solving, both leading edge and topical presentations, and opportunities to connect with key individuals and organizations across the disaster management spectrum. For more information, see http://www.wcdm.org.
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness 2008 Meeting—Mesa, Arizona: July 11-13, 2008. DDP promotes homeland defense and prudent preparedness for disasters of all kinds, including war or terrorism. Its annual meeting brings together America's foremost authorities on strategic and civil defense, as well as prominent scientists speaking on real threats or manufactured scares. Recent topics included global warming, ozone depletion, and radiation hazards. For more information, visit http://www.oism.org/ddp.
2nd Australasian Natural Hazards Management Conference 2008: From Warnings to Effective Response and Recovery—Wellington, New Zealand: July 28-31, 2008. This conference is for emergency managers, planners, risk assessors, asset and utility managers, natural hazards researchers, and scientists. The conference will provide a forum to discuss the integration of hazard information into effective risk management, including applying hazard information to best practice planning, developing effective warning systems, improving response and recovery from events, and creating resilient communities through integrating science into practice. A “Gendering Disasters” workshop will examine the different ways that gender impacts individual planning and response to natural hazards events in New Zealand and overseas. For more information, see http://www.hazards-education.org/ahmc/2008/2008index.php.
74th Annual Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Annual Conference and Exposition—Kansas City, Missouri: August 3-7, 2008. This conference enables public safety communications professionals to update their knowledge, mingle with peers, and get the latest technology and information for public safety personnel. More than 90 sessions will address topics that enhance career effectiveness and advancement in the field of public safety. See http://www.apco2008.org/.
2008 ESRI International User Conference—San Diego, California: August 4-8, 2008. This conference brings together more than 14,000 professionals who work with or are interested in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions for their organizations or communities. The central goal is to enhance learning and provide solutions across disciplines and on campuses. Users from more than 120 countries have the opportunity to learn new skills, share information, and discover best practices, tips, and tricks that can be used instantly. Visit http://www.esri.com/events/uc/index.html.
International Geological Congress—Oslo, Norway: August 6-14, 2008. In collaboration with the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and other international and national organizations, the National IUGS Committees in the five Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden) will host this meeting. The symposia will be arranged in three categories: interdisciplinary global themes, major themes concerning the Nordic countries and the Arctic, and the disciplines comprising the earth sciences. A special session on educational outreach programs will explore the effective communication of information related to the geosciences, natural hazards, and the environment, and will feature presentations by geoscientists who have transmitted the excitement and utility of the geosciences to residents of their communities through service and education. See http://www.33igc.org.
31st International Geographical Conference—Tunis, Tunisia: August 12-15, 2008. For this major geographical event, the National Organizing Committee of the 2008 Tunis Congress has planned a scientific agenda meant to further develop the reflection and debates of the past two decades, while highlighting new paradigms and promoting new stances to geographers. Building Our Territories Together will be the major theme of the conference. Three major issues will be discussed: the territory, the operational orientation of geography, and the role of the players. Other topic themes are also scheduled, including the evolution of geographical thought, cultures and civilizations for human development, and the Renaissance of the Mediterranean. Tunis 2008 will provide an ideal forum for geographers to express and confront their visions on the major issues of our time. Visit http://www.igc-tunis2008.com/index.php?lang=en.
7) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
Technical Director for Hazard Mitigation and Emergency Management Programs
AMEC Earth & Environmental; Lakewood, Colorado
Position Description, Responsibilities and Experience Required:
This position is for a T\technical lead for AMEC’s successful and growing HM&EM program, and manager of the HM&EM staff in the Lakewood, CO office. The ideal candidate will be widely recognized as a leader in the field and will publish, train, or make presentations at national conferences; and be well networked in order to provide early identification of upcoming project opportunities and future market trends. S/he will have program/project/business/staff development and management experience in a P&L environment, and have a record of successful project wins and very satisfied clients. S/he will be responsible for staying up-to-date technically in the HM&EM arena and providing internal training and mentoring, and providing QA/QC of HM&EM deliverables.
The successful applicant will have the following:
-Bachelor’s degree in planning or other relevant field; advanced degree preferred
-Registration/Certification a plus (CFM, CEM, AICP, PE, etc.)
-10+ years of progressively responsible experience in HM&EM, Disaster Assistance, Floodplain Management, and/or related areas
-Thorough knowledge of, and working experience with FEMA programs and understanding of other federal agency HM&EM programs.
-Understanding of multi-objective funding sources for HM&EM
For more information or to apply, contact:
Bonny Griffith
Human Resources Manager
AMEC E&E-Lakewood, CO
Phone: (303) 975-2193
Email: bonny.griffith@amec.com
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Research Assistants / Post-Doctoral Researchers
Woods Hole Research Center; Falmouth, Massachusetts
Woods Hole Research Center has four research assistant and post-doctoral positions open. WHRC is seeking researchers with experience and responsibilities in remote sensing and programming to monitor and analyze land-use change and to model responses to climate change.
Visit http://www.whrc.org/about_us/jobs.htm for the complete job announcements.
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Post-doctoral Fellowship in GIS Analysis for Natural Hazard Mitigation
Southern Illinois University; Carbondale, Illinois
An active researcher is sought for analysis of large geospatial databases to assess flood risk and other hazards and disaster vulnerability. This project involves GIS-based hazard modeling to guide disaster planning and mitigation. The successful candidate will have a PhD in GIS-related science, hydrology, or geoscience.
For more information or to apply see,
http://www.gjc.org/gjc-cgi/showjob.pl?id=1205244428
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Program Officer
NYC Foundation; New York, New York
This position reports to the Program Director. The Program Officer will assist in the planning, design, management, and evaluation of all grants made by the program. S/he will research and conduct outreach on environmental change policies and the issues faced by organizations working in this arena. S/he will have primary responsibility for routine management and oversight of ongoing programs, and will work closely with the Program Director and the Program Review Committee to identify new funding opportunities. Lastly, s/he will develop and implement innovative strategies to accomplish the initiative's mission.
QUALIFICATIONS: The position requires an advanced degree (MA, MS or PhD in environmental studies, natural resource economics, engineering, energy, public policy, etc). S/he will have excellent administrative, time management skills, an ability to plan, organize and follow through on the grant making process. Foundation experience related to the environment and/or energy welcome to apply.
Interested candidates should e-mail a resume and cover letter to
hgleason@nonprofitstaffing.com
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Coastal Management and Coastal Hazards Specialist
NOAA; Silver Springs, Maryland
This position will be a contractor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This position is part of OCRM's Coastal Programs Division located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The successful applicant will be part of a core team administering the national Coastal Zone Management Program, with a particular focus on coastal hazards.
Full job announcement is attached and can be found at careerbuilder.com (search "coastal hazards" in Silver Spring, MD) or jht.com (search via "career opportunities" in Silver Spring, MD). Please send resumes to resumes@jht.com.
For further questions: please contact:
Josh Lott
NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management
301-563-1178
josh.lott@noaa.gov
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Emergency Management Analyst
System Planning Corporation; Washington, DC
System Planning Corporation is seeking an individual with 2-4 years in emergency management and continuity of operations experience to join a team supporting preparedness for multiple locations throughout the country. This position is located in Washington, D.C. and any travel would be very limited. This is a customer service oriented position and includes professional briefings, development and delivery of training programs, and one-on-one support to offices as they develop their emergency plans.
Requirements:
- 3-5 years of experience
- A bachelor's degree in emergency management, political science or related field
- Experience with public speaking and briefing of high-level individuals.
- Public affairs experience is highly desirable.
- Experience in the development and conduct of training.
- Strong writing skills, including experience writing emergency action plans and/or continuity of operations plans.
- Experience providing exceptional customer service.
- Ability to multi-task and work independently.
- Capitol Hill experience or understanding is preferred.
Interested applicants can send their resume, cover letter, and salary requirements to:
Megan Jones
Director, Center for Emergency Management
System Planning Corporation
mjones@sysplan.com
If you or your organization would like to add a job posting here in the DR, please feel free to e-mail the information to hazctr@colorado.edu.
Questions for the readership and contributions to this e-newsletter are encouraged. Questions and messages should be indicated as such and sent to hazctr@colorado.edu.