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A New Car-Share System Could Change the Urban Landscape

     

A new car-share system could change the urban landscape William Lark, Jr., MIT Media Lab

newsweek.com - by Jillian Rose Lim - April 16, 2014

Traffic congestion, limited space and air pollution are a few of the many plagues of urban life. But what if a network of svelte electric cars were waiting at hubs in your city, charging up their batteries until their next drivers come along?

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NCFPD Webinar - Community Resilience and Impacts of Interdependent Infrastructure Disruptions as Experienced from Hurricane Sandy

       

ncfpd.umn.edu - Friday, April 4, 2014

Under the dynamic conditions of rapid climate change and broader global changes, resilience and sustainability are not being achieved through traditional emergency management and humanitarian approaches alone. While community-based resilience networks are now beginning to emerge in a race to stabilize New York City's coastal communities significantly impacted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, many impacted neighborhoods are still trending toward greater vulnerability plaguing recovery and preparedness for the next wave of potentially larger storms.

10amCT / 11amET (One hour long)

Presented By: 
Michael D. McDonald, Dr.P.H.
Chairman, Global Resilience Inititatives
Executive Director, Health Initiatives Foundation, Inc.

Facilitated By:
John T. Hoffman, Col., USA, Ret.
Senior Research Fellow, National Center for Food Protection and Defense

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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President Obama Signs Flood Insurance Bill Into Law

President Barack Obama signs flood insurance bill into law.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

nola.com - by Bruce Alpert - March 21, 2014

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama Friday signed into law hard-fought legislation that will limit flood insurance premium increases to no more than 18 percent a year.

White House officials called Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., shortly after 1 p.m. CT to say the bill is now law.

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(CLICK HERE - H.R. 3370)

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Deadly New York Explosion Highlights Urgent Need To Fix City's Crumbling Gas Lines

huffingtonpost.com - March 13th, 2014 - Saki Knafo, Chris Kirkham

Public officials and engineers have long warned about the dangers posed by the outdated, moldering pipelines that snake beneath the streets of major cities like New York, feeding gas into the furnaces of millions of homes.

For nearly two decades, federal authorities have directed pipeline operators to replace these leak-prone, cast-iron lines with pipes made of plastic and other modern materials. And many states, including New York, have embarked on programs to do just that.

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One Year After Sandy, HUD’S ‘Rebuild By Design’ Unveils New And Innovative Proposals To Make Region More Resilient

rockefellerfoundation.org - October 28, 2013

One year after Hurricane Sandy hit, 10 teams of international design and resiliency experts released their ideas for ways to make the region more resilient to future storms and other climate events. The Design Teams are participating in Rebuild by Design, an initiative of the President’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to rebuild the region impacted by Hurricane Sandy. The ideas – 41 in total – target communities across the region impacted by Hurricane Sandy: from the Jersey Shore to Lower Manhattan, Newtown Creek to Jamaica Bay and Rockaway, and Nassau County to Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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Market Forces Sap the Power from Electric Utilities

greenbiz.com - by John Finnigan - March 10, 2014

Two seemingly unrelated announcements drew much attention in the electric utility industry recently. First, the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for the U.S. electric utility industry, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) jointly recommended (PDF) changing how utilities should be regulated. Second, Duke Energy announced it will sell 13 Midwest merchant power plants.

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Citing Urgent Need, U.S. Calls on Hospitals to Hone Disaster Plans

      

After high water from Hurricane Katrina inundated their nursing home, residents waited for assistance in New Orleans in 2005. Federal officials are trying to avoid these types of situations with new requirements for health care providers ahead of emergencies. Credit Mario Tama/Getty Images

nytimes.com - by Sheri Fink - March 11, 2014

Federal officials are proposing sweeping new requirements for American health care facilities — from large hospitals to small group homes for the mentally disabled — intended to ensure their readiness to care for patients during disasters.

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House Passes U.S. Flood-Insurance Rate Bill Backed by Realtors

      

Manuel Sanchez takes in the view of his flooded home and property on September 14, 2013 in La Salle, Colorado. Photographer: Marc Piscotty/Getty Images

businessweek.com- by James Rowley - March 4, 2014

The U.S. House passed legislation trimming premiums for government-sponsored flood insurance

The measure would limit premium increases to 18 percent per policy or 15 percent of an average of premiums in a particular flood zone.

The House bill, H.R. 3370, must be reconciled with legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate that House Republican leaders said would roll back too many of the 2012 law’s changes. The Senate bill is S. 1926.

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Sequence of Assistance - Disaster Human Services Programs

      

submitted by Seth Golbey - January 21, 2014
Voluntary Agencies Group Supervisor
FEMA-4085-DR-NY

(TO DOWNLOAD FLYER - CLICK ON ATTACHMENT BELOW)

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FEMA Enlists Designers to Rethink Disaster Relief

      

wired.com - by Kyle VanHemert - February 6, 2014

One of the bigger themes in Frog’s workshops following Sandy was thinking about ways for FEMA to empower the community relief efforts that spring up organically after disasters strike.

“One thing that we noticed during our research during Sandy is that communities help themselves.”  One of Frog’s proposals was to formalize this process with “Franchise DRCs."  The idea is that FEMA could create partnerships with national chains, like Starbucks, Ikea, Home Depot or Verizon, whose outposts would get kits with setup instructions, signage and supplies. These locations would act as semi-official, community-run DRCs, which FEMA could build upon once they had people on the ground.

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