As Hurricane Irma bears down on the U.S., the MIT Urban Risk Lab has launched a free, open-source platform that will help residents and government officials track flooding in Broward County, Florida. The platform, RiskMap.us, is being piloted to enable both residents and emergency managers to obtain better information on flooding conditions in near-real time...
Hurricane Irma
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How Do Hospitals Know What To Do When Hurricanes Approach?
By Daniel B. Hess | September 1, 2019
We all expect hospitals to be open and operating when we need them, but extreme weather events like hurricanes are a strain on resources and pose significant challenges for hospitals. Closing a hospital is an extreme action, but several hospitals in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina did just that before the arrival of Hurricane Irma in 2017.With more than 300 hospitals and a higher share of older adults than any other state, emergency plans for Florida’s hospitals were a critical issue facing emergency planners during those storms. This is true now as well as Hurricane Dorian approaches the state.
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How Open Government Is Helping With Hurricane Relief in Puerto Rico
By Daniel Rubinstein | November 1, 2017
Just weeks after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, two more "unprecedented" hurricanes made their way to the southeastern United States. Although changes in Hurricane Irma's path spared Florida from the bulk of the damage, both Irma and Maria directly hit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Maria was particularly devastating for the more than 3.5 million American citizens living in these U.S. Caribbean territories. The CEO of Puerto Rico's sole electric company indicated that the grid had been "basically destroyed." Without electricity, communications were severely limited. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, embracing open government principles—such as open data, collaboration between citizens and government, and transparency—can save lives.
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Hurricane Irma Just Made a Digital Walkie-Talkie the No. 1 App Online
Peter Holley | Houston Chronicle | September 6, 2017
As Hurricane Harvey dropped anchor over Southeast Texas last week, Zello became the go-to app for rescuers working to save thousands of people trapped by floodwaters. Within days of Harvey's arrival, the app saw a 20-fold increase in usage in Houston, according to Bill Moore, the Austin based startup's the chief executive. As Hurricane Irma hurtles across the Caribbean toward the coast of Florida, Zello continues to boom in popularity. The free Internet "walkie-talkie" app - which relies on cellphone data plans or WiFi and is designed to operate in places where signals are weak - became the top app on iTunes and Google Play Wednesday...
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MIT Map Offers Real-Time, Crowd-Sourced Flood Reporting during Hurricane Irma
Press Release |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
September 8, 2017
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Public Health Threats Emerging in Houston in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey
By Julie M. Smyth | September 22, 2017
Although Hurricane Harvey's floodwaters have largely receded, public health threats are emerging over polluted floodwater and contaminated drinking water. Chemical pollution from damaged industrial sites, flooded toxic waste site, and contamination by infection-causing bacteria have been the main causes of concern. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned residents and cleanup workers who might be exposed to floodwaters to take precautions due to hazards such as dangerous debris, bacteria, and other contaminants. This article will review some of those public health threats.
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Puerto Rico’s Double Whammy: Irma and Hedge Funds
David Dayen | The American Prospect | September 8, 2017
Irma, the largest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, has proven cruelly fickle as it surges through the Caribbean. The Category Five storm “hit like a bomb” on the small islands of Barbuda and St. Martin, destroying up to 95 percent of the structures and rendering the areas “barely habitable.” But Irma stayed north of Puerto Rico, sparing the island from the worst. That’s not to say that Puerto Rico didn’t sustain damage...
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The Storm Has Passed, But Puerto Rico’s Health Faces Prolonged Recovery
Carmen Heredia Rodriguez and Rachel Bluth | Kaiser Health News | October 16, 2017
As President Donald Trump signals impatience to wind down emergency aid to Puerto Rico, the challenges wrought by Hurricane Maria to the health of Puerto Ricans and the island’s fragile health system are in many ways just beginning. Three weeks after that direct hit, nearly four dozen deaths are associated with the storm. But the true toll on Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents is likely to involve sickness and loss of life that will only become apparent in the coming months and in indirect ways...
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VA's Hurricane Relief Efforts Extend Beyond Veterans
Johnathon Clinkscales | American Legion | October 5, 2017
The American Legion met with VA leadership on Sept. 29 to learn what humanitarian aid VA is, and has been, providing to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida and Texas..."There are 60 civilian hospitals in Puerto Rico, many of which are still inoperative, don't have power or have serious damage. There's only one hospital that is like the beacon in Puerto Rico and that is the VA medical center - seeing people, taking care of everybody we can and feeding everybody we can."..."We did a lot of preparing and started sending stuff down there before the hurricane. Now we're using these resources to take care of non-veterans and civilians until the hospitals - that are either damaged, incapable of operating or we don't know the condition of - come back into the system and then we'll transfer them. It is certainly necessary for a humanitarian effort like this," Loren said...
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What Harvey Is Teaching the Health Care Sector About Managing Disasters
Neil A. Gandhi and Ranu S. Dhillon | Harvard Business Review | September 12, 2017
The damage inflicted by Hurricane Harvey has posed enormous health challenges in Houston and neighboring areas hit hard by the storm. As regional medical director of emergency medicine for the Houston Methodist Hospital System, one of us (Neil) has been on the front lines of the medical response. The other (Ranu) has been involved in responses to such public health disasters as the Ebola crisis in Africa, Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The response to Harvey is ongoing, but there are early lessons that could help governments and health systems in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and other major catastrophes down the road...
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Why Social Media Apps Should Be in Your Disaster Kit
By Daniel P. Aldrich, and Courtney M. Page | November 15, 2017
With floodwaters at four feet and rising, a family in Houston, Texas abandoned their possessions and scrambled to their roof during Hurricane Harvey to sit with their pets and await rescue. Unable to reach first responders through 911 and with no one visible nearby, they used their cellphones to send out a call for help through a social media application called Nextdoor. Within an hour a neighbor arrived in an empty canoe large enough to carry the family and their pets to safety. Thanks to a collaboration with Nextdoor, we learned of this and hundreds of similar rescues across Harvey’s path...
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Disaster Crowdsourcing Exchange - FEMA's Disaster Hackathon
Disasters like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and the California Wildfires have unprecedented impacts on our Nation, but digital volunteers can be a powerful force in helping with the disaster response and recovery efforts! Come participate in FEMA's Disaster Crowdsourcing Exchange on Saturday, October 21. Learn about FEMA's current crowdsourcing coordination efforts, participate in building new projects, experiment with new tools, and shape the future of crowdsourcing in emergency management.
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TEDxAUCMed - Weathering the Storm
American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine presents TEDxAUCMed, our inaugural TEDx conference. TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. The theme of this year's event is "Weathering the Storm," and we are excited to present a diverse group of speakers whose insight and experiences will energize us to reflect on our world, our communities, and our own lives. The conference will be held in Lecture Hall 2. We are excited to bring the TEDx experience to AUC and the island of Sint Maarten and look forward to sharing in this experience with you.
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