Indian Ocean due huge quake 'in next 30 years'

Indian Ocean due huge quake 'in next 30 years'

JAKARTA] The Indian Ocean could be due another massive earthquake within the next 30 years — one that could rival the magnitude of the one that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

Researchers made the prediction after studying corals, which show rings of growth from which past sea levels can be inferred. Earthquakes push the land up, depressing the sea level in the area and preventing corals from growing upwards. Sea levels then rise as the land subsides, leaving the history of the earthquake imprinted in the coral growth patterns.

The scientists analysed coral growth over the last 700 years in the shallow reefs along the 700-kilometre 'Sunda megathrust' fault — a boundary between tectonic plates off the Mentawai islands in western Sumatra, Indonesia.

This section of the Sunda fault had been inactive for at least 50 years until a magnitude 8.4 earthquake in September 2007. Using the coral data the scientists found three previous sets of large earthquakes. If the cycles continue to be consistent — beginning every 200 years — the next earthquake is due within the next few decades.

Danny H. Natawidjaja, an author of the paper and a senior researcher at the Research Center for Geotechnology of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, told SciDev.Net the probability of a large earthquake in western Sumatra in the next 30 years is more than 70 per cent. MORE

WEATHER NOTE

Results Are In: Great Southern California ShakeOut Successful, Sets U.S. Record!

Los Angeles - It's working! On November 13, 2008 more than 5.47 million people in southern California participated in The Great Southern California ShakeOut, now officially the largest earthquake drill in the Nation's history - and according to some community leaders, a success that should be practiced every year.

"This is the best single effort in emergency preparedness in my nearly 20 years in the business," wrote Mike Martinet, Executive Director, South Bay Office of Disaster Management (Area G). "I hope that we can continue to use this scenario or some variations thereof for years to come."
The Great Southern California ShakeOut was a week of events, including the drill, all based on the 7.8 Magnitude San Andreas Fault earthquake scenario.

All the resources, tools and information are still readily available at http://www.shakeout.org/. Much of the concept and organization came out of the Earthquake Country Alliance, a public-private partnership, which includes the US Geological Survey, Southern California Earthquake Center, California Office of Emergency Services, Caltech, State Farm, City of Los Angeles, Art Center College of Design, and many other partners.

When organizers of The ShakeOut concluded the historic week of earthquake preparedness events, including millions taking part in the "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" drill, they convened a meeting of emergency managers and community leaders to examine value of the effort. When asked what could be done better, the participants overwhelmingly supported the idea of turning it into an annual day or week of disaster preparedness activities.

"We didn't know when we set out to do this, if anyone would participate," said Lucy Jones, Chief Scientist of the USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project. "They did, and we're now getting calls to do something annually."

The requests to continue the effort have been so constant over the past month that the Earthquake Country Alliance has agreed to look into expanding into a statewide organization. "We certainly have heard many ideas of how we can get more people involved - and we'd like to do just that!" said Mark Benthien, Executive Director of the Earthquake Country Alliance and Outreach Director for the Southern California Earthquake Center. "We hope that an annual ShakeOut-like drill will be part of an expanded statewide earthquake awareness program for many years." MORE

MARITIME NOTE

Abandoned Vessels: Threat to Nigeria’s Maritime

About 90 per cent of world trade is facilitated through seas and oceans. The case of Nigeria is not exceptional. However, incessant pirate attacks have constituted major threat to the country’s maritime trade and investment. Shipwrecks and abandoned vessels on the nation’s territorial waters have been identified as another risk to huge maritime investments.

Gboyega Akinsanmi writes Nigeria’s waters are replete with all manners of obstacles that threaten maritime investment. Aside from incessant pirate cases, her territorial waters are clogged and littered with shipwrecks and abandoned vessels. There was little or no effort geared at clearing the country’s waterways and maritime routes to ensure free movement of vessels and safe investment in the entire area.This, according to experts, has a lot of implications for maritime investment and trade.

It hinders free movement of vessels with potential to cause ship mishap, thus leading to loss of lives, cargoes and multi-billion investments. If continued, it portends unsafe and unsecured maritime routes against the best practice, and Nigeria will definitely so much incur loss in revenue.Also, shipwrecks on Nigeria’s waters provide hideouts for criminals in the country. For instance, abandoned vessels have constituted base for pirates, sea robbers and miscreants to attack legitimate vessel operators and fishing trawlers. This has threatened vessels, maritime trade and investment worth of several billions of dollars. Fishing trawlers have lost about N25 billion to piracy and sea robberies.

The clog on Nigeria’s maritime routes and waterways is increasing concerns and fears of investment in the maritime sector. Like other maritime actors and stakeholders, the management of Nigerdock Nigeria Plc expressed profound worries about heaps of shipwrecks and abandoned vessels on the maritime routes and waterways because they provide hideouts for pirates and sea robbers. MORE

RS

New Zealand Tries to Avoid a Rescue Bill

New Zealand Tries to Avoid a Rescue Bill

From the The Antarctica Blog

Tourism in Antarctica isn't like tourism in other extreme environments - in some ways, it's much more dangerous.

Take any indicator - temperature, ocean conditions, accessibility - and Antarctica in a sense wins because it is colder, icier, and more difficult to get to than anywhere else. So it makes sense that New Zealand would try to block an adventurous rower from his plans to row around Antarctica by himself.

Maritime New Zealand (MNZ), the branch of government responsible for marine safety, would be responsible for rescuing the rower, Oliver Hicks, in case of an accident. MNZ believes that an accident is almost inevitable because of the harsh conditions on the Southern Ocean. Hicks will be using a boat that is powered by rowing but has cabins in which he can sleep, prepare food, and store supplies.

The boat is also allegedly designed to withstand Southern Ocean conditions.MNZ has great reason to be skeptical of Hicks' plans, however.

Previous attempts have resulted in accidents requiring rescue, and in one case an adventurer drowned. Rescue missions are costly and put rescuers themselves in danger. Hicks' journey would take him 500 days and would cover 24,000 square kilometers, or just under 15,000 miles.

He plans to halt for a few months during the brutal Antarctic winter on the island of South Georgia.Hicks' response to New Zealand's refusal to let him set out on his journey was to travel to Australia.

Australian officials are hardly excited about the project, but unlike their New Zealand counterparts cannot stop him from leaving. If he needs rescuing, MNZ will still be on the hook.

Hicks has already accomplished some impressive feats of solo rowing - he is the only person to have rowed from America to the United Kingdom alone - and feels confident that he is capable of completing his mission and staying safe.This incident underscores the need for special tourism policies for Antarctica.

The human desire to undertake difficult and dangerous adventures is admirable, but is disregarding the wishes of those who would have to rescue you also admirable? It's not as if MNZ could just ignore Hicks in the event of an accident, even if he wanted them to do so. It seems a shame that governments are hamstrung in this way.

While this type of tourism doesn't represent the kind of environmental threat that we at ASOC are most concerned about, it does point to the overall lack of regulation for Antarctic tourism that would protect both people and the environment.

Laws and rules no doubt deaden the souls of expeditioners, but they keep people safe and prevent unnecessary crises.

Posted by Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition at 7:31 AM

WEATHER NOTE

Fight against historic flood protects city

Record flooding of the Stillaguamish River filled low-lying areas south of the Stanwood city limits, leaving Marine Drive under more than 3 feet of water last week.

“It was close,” said Stanwood Camano Fire and Rescue (SCFR) Chief Mike Ganz Friday morning. “We are finally out of the woods.”

River gauges showed the Stillaguamish to be at or near record depth by 6 p.m. Thursday. An emergency earthen wall along SR 532 held back the cresting flood, and with the cooperation of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), the city sandbagged the tracks and Marine Drive to keep east Stanwood dry.

By Thursday evening, the governor’s office had declared a state of emergency for most of Snohomish County.

On Friday morning, it seemed as if the worst had passed.

After consultation with BNSF officials, tracks were reopened by 10 a.m. On Monday, Fort Freberg, a 7-foot-tall emergency dike named for retired firefighter Jack Freberg, still stands as a reminder of the Herculean effort that saved the city.

Mike Simmons, SCFR emergency manager, said he is in no hurry to remove the fortification. “You really don’t want to pull these things down too quickly,” said Simmons. Ganz credits the volunteers who worked alongside city and emergency crews.

“These folks — they’re awesome,” he said. “They did a fantastic job.”

According to Ganz, many different agencies and individuals — some from other counties — worked hand-in-hand to prevent a tragedy.

In addition, inmate work crews from Monroe Correctional Complex worked with city crews filling sandbags and providing them to residents.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked alongside city and county crews to shore up temporary protective dikes and repair levees.

“They helped plug a break near 95th Avenue NW,” said Ganz. Rebecca Hover, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office public information officer, said rescue teams were deployed swiftly to prevent the loss of life.

“We responded to dozens of calls, but it’s impossible to say how many calls we went on or how many people we rescued — there’s really no way to keep count,” said Hover. “Rescuers would get a call to go to one house to help people out and then they’d find more people who needed help out of the area or neighborhood.”

Most of the calls involved people needing help out of their houses or businesses; they also helped people who got stuck in their vehicles as they tried to drive through the flood waters, she said.

Christian Davis, North County Fire/EMS public information officer, said their crews were kept busy with rescue operations.

“We had nine water rescue calls, with 14 victims removed from the flooded areas,” said Davis. “We (also) assisted with a sandbagging request by DEM (Department of Emergency Management) for the city of Stanwood.”

One unique moment, said Davis, was when a 100-gallon propane tank washed up on the shore in the Warm Beach area.

Crews secured the tank, stopped the leak and notified a company for its removal, he said. Stanwood’s emergency operations center went into action Wednesday morning and remained open until 4 p.m. Friday.

“The final damage estimates haven’t come in yet,” said Simmons. “Within the city limits, it will probably be very low.”

Most of the real damage happened to homes and farms south of Stanwood, he said. For many, the days and weeks ahead will mean clean-up and salvage operations. Claims for assistance should be started immediately, said Simmons. Only damage from the floods occurring on or after Jan. 6 should be reported.

“The primary focus now is to compile damage reports from Snohomish County residents and businesses to qualify for federal disaster aid and speed relief to our citizens,” he said.

“Do not wait for a professional estimate of cost or an insurance adjustor document to fill these forms out.”

Receding water has allowed for the reopening of Marine Drive, but several streets remained navigable only by boat at NEWS deadline.

Dianne White, Stanwood mayor, said she is filled with pride after witnessing the ‘flood fight’ play out.

“The flood was an event that showcased the quality of the citizens of Stanwood,” she said. The seamless response of emergency crews and the scope of volunteerism prevented disaster on a wider scale, she said.

“Without the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, we would have lost our waste water treatment plant,” said White.

Flood waters entered offices at the plant, though damages are reported as minimal. Water processing and quality were not affected.

“The fire department’s Support 99 group as well as the Salvation Army worked tirelessly to meet the needs of victims, volunteers and EOC workers throughout the event,” she said. White applauded the efforts of Red Cross volunteers, Stanwood/Camano School District personnel and staff from Josephine care facility whose residents were evacuated to Stanwood High School.

“What distinguishes Stanwood is the ‘can do’ attitude of our citizens and businesses,” said White. “We had over 400 sandbag volunteers, who filled bags at Index Sensors and Twin City Foods parking lots.”

White said she is grateful for food provided to volunteers by QFC, the family of Carolyn Lund, and numerous citizens.

Flood gates erected to help drain the flood performed better than expected. On Friday, the gates were draining at 1,500 cubic feet per second and lowered the flood water by 46 inches in one day.

“This new addition to our flood fighting arsenal is serving to get Marine Drive and the railroad tracks open much sooner than past years,” she said. “The Stillaguamish Flood District and Max Albert are to be commended for their persistence in getting this structure built.”

Chuck Hazleton, Stillaguamish Flood Control District commissioner, said he was overwhelmed by the success of the flood control gates in operation near Marine Drive.

“The flood gates are working better than we had expected,” said Hazelton. “The velocity of the discharge is more than we anticipated.”

Built in September 2007, the control system — a concrete structure — has 10 gates to create a nonporous channel back into the river.

The overall project cost $175,000, and the city subsidized $30,000 towards the construction of the gated system.

“It was definitely money well spent,” said Hazelton.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D), of Camano Island, said the legacy of this flood event will be how residents saved their city.

“One of the merits of living in a small community is how your neighbors reach out to help,” said Haugen. “I am so proud of the way people in the Stanwood area rallied to help each other.”

Haugen said she believes Stanwood was spared because of all the people who helped. “It's really tragic how many people in our state were affected,” she said. “You just can't imagine how bad this is until you've experienced it.”

The flooding was yet another blow to a region already hit hard by bad weather, said Haugen.

MARITIME NOTE

Coast Guard warns mariners be aware of ice conditions in Delaware Bay

PHILADELPHIA - The Coast Guard Captain of the Port Sector Delaware Bay in Philadelphia has set ice condition three Thursday and is warning mariners to be aware of ice in the Delaware Bay and River.

Ice condition three is set when weather conditions are favorable for the formation of ice in navigable waters. All masters, ship agents, and owners and operators of all vessels, marine facilities and marinas should review and adhere to the seasonal ice procedures listed below. These criteria were developed in partnership with the Mariners’ Advisory Committee for the Delaware Bay and River. Ship agents should generally act as liaison between the Coast Guard and their vessels.

When ice is present, but less than two inches, vessels must have a propulsion system with a minimum of 1000 horsepower, and be able to maneuver un-assisted through the ice without needing to stop, back off and ram the ice.

When ice is present in the C and D canal, only steel-hulled vessels whose propulsion systems are in excess of 1000 horsepower may transit the canal.

Vessel convoys will not be directed for ice or ice build of less than two inches, provided vessels can maintain headway. For ice conditions of two inches or greater, the Captain of the Port, in conjunction with the MAC, will consider implementing a plan that includes directing vessel convoys.

Vessel moorings should be checked frequently to ensure the vessel is adequately moored.

Vessels at anchor should maintain their engines on standby at all times.

Vessels at anchor should ensure that proper bridge watches are stood at all times.

Vessel sea chests should be checked regularly for ice buildup and precautions should be taken to ensure that the sea chests are kept clear.

The Captain of the Port Sector Delaware Bay may establish additional requirements for specific geographic areas of the Captain of the Port Zone if conditions warrant such restrictions.

Please refer to the Sector Delaware Bay website for additional information regarding ice operations within the Sector Delaware Bay zone at http://www.uscg.mil/d5/sectDelawarebay or by calling our Sector Delaware Bay ice line at (215)-271-4995.

If you have any questions regarding the contents of this bulletin or the expectations of the Captain of the Port, please contact the Waterways Management staff at (215) 271-4889 or the Situational Unit Controller at (215) 271-4807.

Marine Salvage Basics






RS

Chasing 'Thundersnow' Could Lead To More Accurate Forecasts

Chasing 'Thundersnow' Could Lead To More Accurate Forecasts

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2009) — The job of one University of Missouri researcher could chill to the bone, but his research could make weather predicting more accurate.

Patrick Market, associate professor of atmospheric science in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is chasing storms in the dead of winter in order to release weather balloons that will produce data about the little-known phenomenon of thundersnow.

"One of the things we don't understand is how the cloud becomes electrified," Market said. "We hope to determine how the atmosphere is becoming unstable."

Market and his storm-chasing students are searching for winter storms in order to release weather balloons into the storm every 90 minutes over a 24-hour period. The balloons carry boxes with a barometer to measure pressure, a thermometer to measure temperature, and a hydrometer to measure humidity.

Market uses a GPS to monitor wind speed and direction of the balloons. This information covers the five things that are most important for a meteorologist to know for accurate predictions, according to Market.

"It has been decades since a detailed study with modern weather balloons has been done to see how the atmosphere destabilizes for summer thunderstorms, much less the winter storms," Market said. "So we are taking this tried-and-true tool of the meteorology trade and applying it to the very specific instance of heavy snowfall in the winter."

Once the weather balloons are launched, they provide detailed readings of every layer of the atmosphere. More detailed readings and data provide better and more accurate forecasting."We get thunderstorms in all seasons. That means something is making the atmosphere unstable," Market said. "Thunderstorms are often associated with heavy rainfall or heavy snowfall. It's just as important to get it right in the spring, summer or winter."

The phenomenon known as thundersnow is not understood very well. It is defined as a snowstorm with thunder and lightning that can bring heavy snowfalls of 8 to 12 inches. Tracking such storms can be quite a challenge.

"Often, these winter storms cause us to travel through inclement weather in order to get to the area where the weather balloons should be launched," Market said. "During travel, the heater in the vehicle cannot be on because the instruments need to be kept cold."

WEATHER NOTE

Record Shows Disasters Kill Most

Freetown — Acting director of disaster management department in the office of national security (ONS) has said in Freetown that disasters amount to greater percentage of the causes of death of the world's population.

John V. Rogers told participants at the opening ceremony of the training of trainers' clinic on disaster risk reduction for schools that though they cannot stop disasters from happening yet they can with their knowledge on disaster risk reduction and early warning signals.

"Man's negative interaction with his environment has often produced harmful effects with devastating consequences on human existence," he said.

Rogers said this sad chapter can only be reversed through learning and implementation of best practices as demonstrated in other areas of the world.

"Some of the disaster related incidences in Sierra Leone are due to illiteracy and ignorance. It has often been stated that a well informed public is a protected one," he said.

He said it has been the ardent desire of government to enhance the capacity of teachers that have played tremendous role in the disaster management school outreach programmes in the country.

The acting director noted that children were among the most vulnerable population group during a disaster especially those attending school at the time of the crisis. "Therefore learning about disaster risk reduction in schools can put teachers and children in a better position to play important role in saving lives and protecting members of the community in time of disaster."

He added that the clinic would provide the necessary tools to teachers and students in educational institutions to prepared, mitigate and respond to disasters.

On behalf of the national security coordinator, ONS chief of staff Larry Bassie said increase number of gravity of disaster with grave consequences that undermines the survival and dignity of livelihood in communities was a concern.


MARITIME NOTE

New EPIRB processing practices to reduce false distress alerts
Coast Guard says response to actual emergencies to improve
The following is the text of a feature story submitted by the U.S. Coast Guard:

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Melissa Hauck(ALAMEDA, Calif.) -- The Coast Guard and other emergency personnel who respond to distress calls will soon see an improvement in their ability to locate people during search and rescue cases.

This improvement centers around an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB), a device that when activated can act as a virtual lifeline from people in distress to rescue crews by sending out a transmitted signal via air, sea or land.On Feb.1, 2009 Cospas-Sarsat, an international satellite-based search and rescue (SAR) system established by the U.S., Canada, Russia and France will cease satellite processing of 121.5/243 MHz analog EPIRBs and will begin processing only the 406 MHz digital radio beacon signals, making it illegal to use the obsolete 121.5/243 MHz beacons.

The newest 406 MHz beacons incorporate global positioning system (GPS) receivers that transmit highly accurate positions of distress almost instantly to SAR agencies via the Geostationary Earth Orbit Local User Terminals (GEOSAR) satellites.

The digital frequency has been designated internationally for use only for distress. Other communications and interference, such as on 121.5 MHz analog signals, is not allowed.The change is expected to result in a substantial reduction in wasted SAR resources on false alerts while simultaneously increasing the responsiveness of the system for real distress cases."

The 121.5 MHz analog beacons produce a high incidence of false alarms and a host of other limitations that include poor signal strength, search areas that can be as large as 12 to 15 miles in radius and unreliability," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Craig Mercier, an operations specialist stationed at the District 11 command center on Coast Guard Island here."

The distress signals from the 406 MHz beacon are much more accurate than the analog beacon. Each digital beacon has a unique ID encoded within its signal that can quickly confirm that the distress is real, who they are looking for and where they should look, which will ultimately save lives," he said.When a 406 MHz signal is received, SAR authorities can retrieve information from law-required registration data that includes beacon owner contact information, emergency contact information and identifying characteristics of the vessel."

Digital EPIRBS also provide position accuracy that narrows the vessel's position to less than two miles in radius and decreases the amount of time SAR teams must search. This results in quicker response times, and is a major advantage over the 121.5 MHz beacons," he said.

The decision to stop satellite processing of 121.5 / 243 MHz signals was announced by Cospas-Sarsat nearly two years ago stating problems in the frequency band which overwhelm search and rescue authorities with poor accuracy and numerous false alerts, negatively impacting the effectiveness of lifesaving services.

The Coast Guard strongly recommends mariners obtain the new 406 MHz EBIRB and file a float plan with a friend or family member on land, with an approximate time of return and location prior to getting underway.

A float plan template can be found at http://www.floatplancentral.org/.

EPIRB owners can register their equipment in the U.S. 406 MHz Beacon Registration Database at:http://www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov/ or by calling 1-888-212-SAVE.

Beacon registration is required to be updated with accurate information every two years or when emergency contact or other information changes.

For more information on EPIRBS and the Cospas-Sarsat program visit http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/.

Enjoy this Rollercoaster!





RS

NOAA Declares Buffalo Bills as First StormReady® Supporter Team in NFL

NOAA Declares Buffalo Bills as First StormReady® Supporter Team in NFL

NOAA is proud to announce the Buffalo Bills as the first National Football League team to become a StormReady® Supporter. With this designation the Bills are better prepared for severe weather and to make fans and spectators at Ralph Wilson Stadium aware of such events.

To achieve this status, the Bills organization met rigorous guidelines, which include developing severe weather safety plans, actively promoting severe weather safety through awareness activities and conducting safety training.

“The StormReady Supporter program was designed to help non-government organizations improve communications and safety skills needed to save lives while strengthening partnerships with NOAA's National Weather Service and local emergency management,” said Mickey Brown, deputy director of the National Weather Service Eastern Region. “The Buffalo Bills really scored a touchdown by being the first National Football League team in the country to be a StormReady® Supporter and creating a safer environment for all Buffalo Bill fans.”

StormReady® Supporter is a component of the nationwide StormReady® preparedness program that helps communities develop severe weather and flooding response plans with NOAA's National Weather Service and local emergency managers. Since the StormReady® program began in 1999, more than 1,300 U.S. communities have become StormReady®.
Buffalo Bills' Ralph Wilson Stadium.

“The Buffalo Bills are honored to be the first NFL team to achieve the StormReady® status,” said Joe Frandina, vice president of stadium operations for the Bills. “We feel this is another important step in making our stadium as safe as possible for our fans.”

The StormReady® program is part of NOAA National Weather Service's working partnership with the International Association of Emergency Managers and the National Emergency Management Association. NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources

WEATHER NOTE

Red Cross offers tips to recover emotionally after disaster

SEATTLE - The American Red Cross is reminding people not to overlook the emotional aspect of recovery after the devastating floods.

The Red Cross says disasters are upsetting experiences for everyone involved, but children, senior citizens, people with disabilities and people for whom English is not their first language are especially at risk. Some elderly people may seem disoriented at first and children may be afraid.
"When disaster strikes, a child's view of the world as a safe and predictable place is temporarily lost," said Lyle O'Neel, Red Cross disaster mental health worker. "Children become afraid that the event will happen again. How a parent or other adult reacts to a child following any traumatic event can help children recover more quickly and more completely."

The Red Cross says it’s important to let children and elderly people know that they are safe and that you will help them find a safe place to stay.

Some basic steps you can take:

- Try to return to as many of your personal and family routines as possible.
- Get rest and drink plenty of water.
- Limit your exposure to the sights and sounds of disaster, especially on television, the radio and in the newspapers.
- Focus on the positive.
- Recognize your own feelings.
- Reach out and accept help from others.
- Do something you enjoy. Do something as a family that you have all enjoyed in the past.
- Stay connected with your family and/or other support systems.
- Realize that recovery can take time.

Take care of your pets

If you have pets, try to find and comfort them. A scared animal may react by biting or scratching. Handle animals carefully and calmly. Pets can become upset and react in unusual ways, such as spraying urine, defecating on floors or scratching/biting furnishings.
Since pets will need regular care and attention to help them calm down, try to leave pets with a family member, friend, veterinarian or boarding facility while you are cleaning up your home. Animals are naturally inquisitive and could get injured if they are brought back to a damaged home.

- Use toys, a blanket or favorite human's unsoiled clothing to comfort pets.
- Make sure pets are fed their usual diet, and have plenty of water.
- Visit your pets regularly, speak calmly and take some time out to play with them. Doing so can help you in your recovery, as well.

How you can help

To help residents who have been affected by the Washington State flooding please go to http://www.seattleredcross.org/show.aspx?mi=4861 to make a secure online donation or call 1-800-REDCROSS. Checks can be made payable to the American Red Cross Serving King & Kitsap Counties, P.O. Box 3097, Seattle, WA 98114.

NWS CHICAGO

January 19-20 Snowfall Reports

MARITIME NOTE

Coast Guard says rescues still key mission

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard says that it is not shirking rescues at sea despite a government report that found it was spending more effort on homeland security tasks.

The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said in a report issued last week that there had been "clear trend toward emphasizing homeland security missions" that could make it more difficult for the Coast Guard to carry out its traditional safety roles.

USA Today said Tuesday that Coast Guard commanders saw the conclusions as misleading and that its boats and aircraft still spend plenty of time on non-homeland security tasks.

"Our priority has always been and will continue to be saving lives," Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Christopher O'Neil told the newspaper.

A major finding of the disputed report was a decrease in the number of rescue operations from around 84,000 in 2001 to 60,000 in 2007 at a time the Coast Guard's ranks were growing. The report also noted the Coast Guard was spending more time patrolling U.S. fishing waters and intercepting boatloads of illegal immigrants.

From Holland and Knight

DHS OIG – review of USCG mission performance

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued it annual review of the US Coast Guard’s mission performance for fiscal year 2007. The report shows that performance is largely unchanged from the previous year. The agency met six of its eleven performance targets, the same as 2006. Non-homeland security mission resource hours decreased, while homeland security mission resource hours increased. OIG-09-13 (1/9/09).

Heavy Rolling and My Seesaw




RS

Major Southern California quake drill reveals significant gaps in preparations

Major Southern California quake drill reveals significant gaps in preparations

The Nov. 13 'shakeout' showed officials that in the event of a 7.8-magnitude temblor they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.

By Jia-Rui Chong December 27, 2008

The largest earthquake drill in U.S. history, held last month in Southern California, found some serious gaps in local earthquake planning, prompting utility companies, emergency managers and others to rethink their planning for a major temblor.The Great Southern California Shakeout was the first time so many agencies and earthquake officials teamed up to examine what would happen if a huge quake struck the region, in this case a 7.8 magnitude temblor. Many Shakeout participants said they have gone through earthquake drills before, but never with a scenario so detailed.

Based on the results of the Nov. 13 experiment, in which each agency estimated damage and emergency services requirements based on detailed quake scenarios developed by supercomputers, officials said they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.Fire protectionFor local fire officials, one of the most worrisome estimates from the drill was the 1,600 fires expected to ignite with lamps overturning, electrical wires shorting and natural gas lines bursting open. Many fires would grow out of control as firefighters struggle to get fire engines across damaged roads and water stopped coming out of their hoses, experts found.

An estimated 200 million square feet of property would be damaged in the blazes. The fires would cause more than 900 deaths -- about half of the total for the earthquake."To hear it quantified like that, it more than got my attention," said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman. "This was really the worst-case scenario for us. Today, if this were to happen, we would need outside assistance."Unfortunately, Freeman said, they probably would not get help for quite some time because neighboring fire agencies would be fighting fires in their own districts and departments from Northern California would have to make their way around damaged highways.

Because they can't afford to multiply their staffs, several fire agencies are looking into training more members of the community to be first responders, learning such skills as basic first aid and turning off gas lines.Freeman said the county is also looking into ways to better draw water from other sources during a disaster, such as pools or storm drains that are collecting runoff from broken pipes.Water suppliesBut the drill also raised troubling questions about how much water would be available after a major quake. Of all utilities, water would take the longest time to restore, experts found. Some communities might have to wait six months for taps to flow again.

The Shakeout helped officials at East Valley Water District in San Bernardino County estimate that they would see about 1,000 leaks in their 450 miles of pipe because about 40% of their pipes are made from a material that is particularly brittle in earthquakes, said Gary Sturdivan, the district's safety and regulatory manager. All 78,000 of its customers would lose water for some period because all of the agency's reservoirs are on one side of the fault and all of its wells and distribution systems are on the other.As a result, the district plans to stock more replacement pipe parts in repair sheds near those areas and store more bottled water for their employees, employees' families that might stay at their facilities and their customers who need water, Sturdivan said.

The water agencies are also retooling their mutual-aid agreements so they can figure out how to prioritize different agencies' needs and distribute replacement parts or water from other states fairly, he said."I think our agency, like a lot of water agencies, was pretty prepared, but it was glaring that we have a long way to go," Sturdivan said. "It was a little overwhelming."Electrical suppliesThe 7.8 temblor modeled by the test would leave large swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties without power, according to estimates by a working group that included utility companies representatives. Breaks in natural gas pipelines could add delays because many plants use gas to generate electricity.

It probably would take about 10 days to restore power to 90% of customers, the estimates found.But Jim Kelly, senior vice president of transmission and distribution for Southern California Edison, said even that is an optimistic forecast."The problem is harder than people initially think," he said. Although Edison already uses equipment designed to be safer in earthquakes, such as transformers with low centers of gravity, Kelly worried about other utilities and parts vendors that would probably be having problems at the same time.

"If we lose bridges or roadways, how are we going to get people or materials to the job site," Kelly asked. "We don't know if rail transit will be available if we don't have roadways."

When Kelly added these potential problems together, he estimated it would take two to four weeks to restore power to the vast majority of Edison's 12 million customers."The scenario's value to us was in identifying that we have to look broader than just our stuff," he said.

Lucile Jones, the U.S. Geological Survey seismologist who served as the chief scientist for the Shakeout, said she hopes the drill gave agencies concrete data that will help them better prepare."People don't need to be convinced an earthquake can happen," she said. "They need concrete statements so they know what to do about it."The effort to develop the scenario cost about $500,000, engaged some 300 experts and took two years to complete.

Geophysicists wanted to plot a plausible event, so they started the earthquake at a part of the San Andreas that has not moved for more than 300 years. They decided the energy stored in that part of the fault could cause a 200-mile rupture moving northwest from Bombay Beach, at the Salton Sea. Quakes of this size are possible, Jones explained, because they rocked San Francisco in 1906 and Fort Tejon in 1857.Seismologists used the supercomputers to calculate the shaking, generating data for 25,000 points of a grid laid out over Southern California.Geologists, engineers, utility managers and other experts used the data to estimate the damage, which included more than 10,000 landslides, more than 50 sewage spills and more than 100,000 addresses losing phone and Internet service for two or more days. Motorists would have to wait one to two weeks to use arterial roads in cities such as Los Angeles and seven months to use damaged highways.

Public health experts estimated some 1,800 people would die and 50,000 would be seriously injured. The economic costs of the disaster, including the business interruption, would total about $213 billion.

The scientists purposefully avoided a worst-case scenario but wanted to analyze an earthquake far more damaging than the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.7. "We wanted people to understand how bad it could be," Jones said. "Some people think, 'I've been through Northridge,' but getting through Northridge is not enough."

WEATHER NOTE

FEMA uses multimedia to document Ike response
By AMY MOORE
December, 23, 2008



The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is allowing access to footage of recovery efforts during Hurricane Ike while staying on the cutting edge of multimedia technology, offering online "webisodes" of the Ike response and recovery missions in Texas.

In step with several other federal agencies, the emergency agency is producing video shorts for its online multimedia site at www.fema.gov/media/multimedia/ to bring the efforts of the agency and recovery information directly to the public.

Using social media tools such as YouTube.com, FEMA is able to capture the various recovery efforts in the areas surrounding the upper Texas Gulf Coast and making it available on some of the most active Internet sites.

The agency has produced 14 videos that highlight urban search and rescue, mitigation efforts, volunteerism, community relations, debris management, private sector outreaching, temporary housing and other human interest stories.

These "webisodes" demonstrate the behind-the-scenes, real-life dramas occurring in the response and recovery efforts after Hurricane Ike.

Other online multimedia resources can be found at:
www.youtube.com/fema - includes vignettes about Hurricane Ike recovery efforts and FEMA programs.

www.twitter.com/femainfocus - lets users get the latest FEMA information and participate in forums addressing issues.

www.fema.gov/radio/index.jsp - features mp3 files of recent radio news and Public Service Announcements.

www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/index.jsp - includes FEMA's extensive collection of photos from current and previous disaster operation.

MARTIIME NOTE

Independent investigation into the lifeboat incident on board the
Hong Kong flag bulk carrier Ma Cho at Devonport, Tasmania
9 December 2002
Released

SUMMARY

On 8 December 2002, Ma Cho arrived in Devonport, Tasmania, to discharge a part cargo of fertiliser at number four berth on the western side of the river. On 9 December, the master made the decision to conduct an abandon ship drill before the vessel was due to depart for Geelong. The drill commenced at about 1540 and the starboard lifeboat was prepared for lowering to the water.

At approximately 1548 the mate reported that the crew inside the lifeboat were seated and had fastened their safety belts. Lowering of the boat then commenced with one of the crew operating the davit winch brake from the deck.When the boat had been lowered approximately two metres from the davit head the after on-load release hook suddenly opened, releasing the after fall. The lifeboat’s stern fell to leave the boat suspended vertically by the remaining forward fall with its stern swinging approximately five metres above the water. The boat crew were shaken by the incident but remained secured in their seats inside the now vertical lifeboat. The second mate had sustained a small cut over his left eye.

After the crew had disembarked, the lifeboat was lowered to the water to allow the onload release system to be inspected. It was found that the cable operating the after hook was not properly secured by the saddle clamp under the operating unit. Each time the actuating handle was operated, lost motion was induced by the cable sliding through the clamp and this meant that the after hook was not resetting fully. The cable clamp was temporary repaired and then the lifeboat was housed in its davit. MaCho was subsequently cleared to complete the voyage to Geelong.

The report conclusions include:

• The cable clamp securing the aft hook’s operating cable adjacent to the operating mechanism had been modified which resulted in lost motion within the cable.

• As a result of the lost motion in its operating cable, the after hook had not been fully reset when the previous lifeboat drill was conducted on 2 November 2002.• The design of the on-load release system was flawed with respect to the hook locking mechanism.

• The ship’s safety management system was deficient with respect to both the operating and maintenance instructions and to crew training on the on-load release system.

The report makes a general recommendation to ISM Code accreditation authorities regarding ship safety management systems as they relate to on-load release systems. The report also recommends that the lifeboat manufacturer and classification societies review the design of the on-load release system.

Have a really wonderful weekend!
RS

Computers Determine When To Stop Searches For Missing People At Sea

Computers Determine When To Stop Searches For Missing People At Sea

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008) — British researchers are developing a new computer model to predict how long someone will survive when lost at sea, which will in turn determine when a search and rescue operation may be stopped.

The Search and Rescue Survival Model is being developed by the University of Portsmouth’s Sports Science and Mathematics departments and the US Coast Guard.

It aims to support the US Coast Guard target of saving 93 per cent of victims annually - between 3000-6000 people - whose lives are in danger at sea.

“Using this new computer model will take pressure off humans making very emotional and sensitive decisions about when to end a search,” said Professor Mike Tipton, human and applied physiologist, from the University of Portsmouth.

“When the model predicts that a victim can no longer survive, the search and rescue team can stop or redeploy the search.

“It will ensure that Coast Guard personnel are not exposed to the high risks associated with search and rescue operations any longer than necessary and will also help to save time and resources,” he said.

The US Coast Guard currently uses a software system known as SAROPS (Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System) to calculate how far a person will have drifted and how large the search area should be.

Data such as wind speed, sea state and water temperature is entered into SAROPS along with information about the victim’s sex, height, weight and what they were wearing to determine exactly how the search should be conducted.

“Calculating survival time will add another layer to SAROPS; it will be able to predict not only where a search should be conducted but when it should be stopped,” said Professor Tipton.

Chris Turner, Ocean Engineer and Manager for the project for the US Coast Guard in Groton, Connecticut, sought the help of the university because of its international reputation for expertise in the area of survival in the sea.

“The University of Portsmouth has been able to tap into and analyze data held by the Institute of Naval Medicine and the Royal National Lifeboats Institution, both critical to the development of this survival model. To our knowledge no other similar repository of this information exists - even in the US.

“The development of this technology is very exciting. It will be trialled in American waters in late 2009 and once thoroughly tested, the aim is to roll it out to the whole of the US,” he said.

WEATHER NOTE

Weather disasters claimed 15,000 lives, report says

Stevie Emilia, The Jakarta Post, Poznan, Poland

More than 15,000 people across the world died last year from extreme weather, which also caused US$80 billion in damages, a report released Thursday at the ongoing UN climate change talks here revealed.

The Global Climate Risk Index 2009 by the environment and development group Germanwatch puts Bangladesh at the top of the list of countries most affected by weather-related disasters last year.

Bangladesh, which suffered heavily from cyclone Sidr that killed more than 4,000 people and caused $10 billion in damages, was followed by North Korea and Nicaragua.

Sven Harmeling, the group's senior advisor for climate and development, and author of the study, said many people had been severely affected by storms, floods and other weather extremes.

"People in less-developed countries have a far harder time coping with such events compared with their peers in industrialized countries," he said.

Hurricane Katrina caused $215 billion in damages when it devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast three years ago, making it the most expensive storm in history.

While no single weather disaster can be directly attributed to global warming, Harmeling warned the changing climate would most certainly lead to an increase in their frequency and intensity in many parts of the world.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier warned that climate change this year was likely to make extreme weather events more frequent and possibly more intense too.

Germanwatch, which first calculated the global climate risk in 2006, derived data for the present study from a database compiled by German insurance giant Munich Re.

The report analyzes how severely countries were affected in 2007 and in the past decade, or from 1998-2007, by weather-related events, including floods, heat waves and storms. It excluded droughts or sea-level rises -- long-term events that are harder to evaluate.

In the latest report, a total of 1,066 disasters were registered last year, causing 15,240 fatalities and economic losses of over $70.1 billion.

Indonesia came in at seventh place on the Down 10 list of countries with the highest death tolls, recording 470 deaths last year, and was ranked eight in the list of Down 10 countries with highest absolute losses, with a total of $3.09 billion.

"We're witnessing a strong increase in disasters, particularly the climate-related ones, in terms of the number of disasters, economic damage and people affected," said Maarten van Aalst, associated director of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Center in The Hague.

"This is partly due to rising vulnerability, partly already reflecting global climate change, a trend which is bound to continue."

Apart from providing assistance when disaster strikes, van Aalst said the most effective response was disaster mitigation, stressing that "reducing the impact of the increasing hazards is crucial. Practical risk reduction options include better early warning, drought resistant crops or reforestation to prevent floods."

The report, which aims to give pointers about a country's vulnerability to climate change, proposes the inclusion of insurance instruments in the post-2012 regime.

In the Bali conference last December, the Bali Action Plan called for the "consideration of risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance" to deal with loss and damage in developing countries particularly vulnerable to climate change.

The ongoing Poznan conference serves as a bridge to the next conference, in Copenhagen, Denmark, to agree on a new deal to replace the climate treaty Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"The Copenhagen treaty can introduce the necessary support mechanism with both prevention and insurance pillars," said Germanwatch executive director Christopher Bals.

"It is very positive that concrete proposals for risk management and insurance are today discussed in detail in Poznan."

Tornado confirmed in Palm Bay

BY KIMBERLY C. MOORE
FLORIDA TODAY

PALM BAY — National Weather Service meteorologists confirmed today that the windstorm that damaging more than a dozen homes in Palm Bay on Sunday was a tornado.

“It was kind of hopscotching,” National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Kelly said. “It did touch down, but it was very spotty. It was not a continuous track.”

Palm Bay residents spent Monday cleaning up their yards and dragging tree branches to the curb. Some homes had blue tarps on roofs. And contractors already were out, giving homeowners estimates to repair the damage.

Palm Bay officials did not yet have a dollar estimate of how much damage the tornado did.

No one was injured.

Keith Rittscher, 63, found the roof of his plastic shed near a neighbor’s home about 25 yards away from his Holiday Park house.

“That’s my roof,” he said, pointing to a tangled web of aluminum wedged into Australian pines behind his house.

Nearby, a collection of plastic pieces rested against his home’s back wall.

“This is my shed,” Rittscher said.

Rittscher estimated that damage to the home, which is uninsured for property damage, probably is about $20,000. He said he and his wife have enough to cover the cost.

“We’re OK,” he said.

The roof of one home on Emerson Drive at Consumer Street had several shingles ripped off.

Along Velvet and Ritter avenues on the east side of Interstate 95, residents picked up branches torn from trees and propped up trees knocked over by the powerful winds.

It was the same story east of Babcock Street, along Edith Street and Cambridge Avenue.

Kelly said Palm Bay got lucky. A stronger storm might have claimed lives.

“There could’ve been more chance for fatalities if trees had fallen on those homes,” he said.

In Holiday Park, a community of manufactured homes, Don Clark spent the morning with two contractors, getting bids for his roof.

A blue tarp now is tied in place to shield their home.

In the backyard, the doors of his shed remain, but the rest of the structured vanished in the whirlwind. In addition, the storm ripped off the slats of his hurricane shutters.

“They were all twisted up in knots,” he said.

But, he said, he is grateful.

“We’re doing good,” Clark said. “We’re just happy to be safe.”

MARITIME NOTE

Loading is first area to probe in ship sinking: experts

Updated Fri. Dec. 5 2008 1:50 PM ET

The Canadian Press

HALIFAX -- Experts say the loading of a cargo vessel that sank off Newfoundland, with the loss of four sailors, should be the first area investigators probe to unravel the mystery of its sudden capsizing.

The Cap Blanc stopped communicating with the coast guard at 8:30 p.m. local time on Monday as it crossed Placentia Bay.

Ten hours later, aircraft discovered a portion of the sinking hull of the vessel from the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon.

None of the four sailors on board was found, and the joint rescue co-ordination centre declared the active sea search over late Thursday.

In St-Pierre-Miquelon, the father-in-law of the captain says a full inquiry is needed into the sinking of the ship, which was carrying a load of road salt.

Eric Snow, who spent 30 years doing marine investigations for Canadian government agencies, says "the first thing you have to do" is go to the companies involved and ask how the vessel was loaded, and how the cargo was secured.

The lead investigator in the accident is a French transportation safety agency, which is being assisted by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

Floods knock out Port of Itajaí

The Brazilian port has been devastated by flash floods. Ironically, the controversial PortoNave container terminal, on the other side of the river, has been the least affected facility

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has visited the flood stricken port of Itajaí to see for himself the damage caused by floods that have now taken the lives of 99 people in the state of Santa Catarina (and the numbers and extent of the damage are rising almost by the hour).

Reports suggest that 12 people have perished in the floods in the port city itself, and the raging torrent of the River Itajaí -Acu – flowing at more than 24 kmh when the average is normallya round 2 kmh – have destroyed much of the infrastructure of the country’s number two port for containers.

Lula has declared Itajaí and the state of Santa Catarina a disaster zone and met the president of Itajaí Port Authority (API) Arnaldo Schmitt to discuss rescue and various reconstruction plans, and how best to divert federal resources to the port.

Ports Minister Pedro Brito has sent a special task force of military and civilian engineers to Itaja to work out the best way to repair damages and get the port open as soon as possible. Latest news is that Lula has promised at least US$150M to reconstruct the port.

Two of the port’s three berths have been completely destroyed and the port is now shut to all commercial traffic. In the state of Santa Catarina some 76,000 people are homeless and 160,000 homes are still without power supplies, according to the state energy company Celesc.

API spokeswoman Patrícia Barcelos told WorldCargo News: “We had 90% of the city of Itajaí under 2m of water, it’s an absolute catastrophe. It has barely stopped raining for two months and we are supposed to be entering the summer period.

“The number one Berth has been washed away by the river, as has half of number three berth. We think number four berth is intact but cant get the divers down to inspect until the water flow reduces.”

The APM Terminals’ container terminal in Itajaí, Teconvi, has suffered very heavy damage with Pier One mostly disappearing into the river torrent. However, no personnel were hurt.

Teconvi’s commercial manager Patrício Júnior said: “The port of Itajaí will receive emergency funding for dredging and that will allow us to clear the river and hopefully start dredging berth zero. Dredging is of the utmost priority and works are expected to be finished only by mid December.” Berth zero is a new berth that had almost entered into service for Teconvi.

With many quay and paved back-up areas at the port seriously damaged, carriers such as Maersk Line, CMA CGM and Hamburg Süd are seeking alternative ports of call, including Santos, Rio Grande and Paranaguá. However, many of these “alternatives”are already seriously congested. The port of São Francisco do Sul – some 60 km away from Itajaí- has also been closed due to the weather but may open within the next few days, according to API officials.

Ironically, the controversial Portonave facility – just a short hop across the river from Itajaí in Navegantes – has escaped from the calamity relatively unscathed and could open for business within a week or two once the strong currents recede and a link road to the terminal is re-opened.

Henrik Simon, the director of reefer services for Hamburg Süd, ECSA trades, said: “The whole shipping community of Brazil is in a state of shock. Our 10 employees in Itajaí are safe but are homeless. I have never seen anything like this in 20 years of working in Brazil.

"With so much silting up, it will take at least three weeks to get dredging arranged. In the meantime we are diverting to Paranaguá.”

Bathometric tests carried out on 28th November show that the quantity of sand has reduced the depth of the channel from 10 metres down to just 7m.

RS

The Lightning Flash Before The Flood

The Lightning Flash Before The Flood

ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — Flash floods are the most common natural disaster in the United States, and because of their unpredictability they’re the leading weather-related cause of death for Americans. They usually arrive with little or no warning, but a Tel Aviv University researcher is trying to predict where and when they will occur ― using lightning.

Prof. Colin Price, coordinator of the international “Flash Project” and head of the Geophysics and Planetary Physics Department at Tel Aviv University, is studying the link between lightning and subsequent flash floods. The three-year study includes scientists from five European countries, and its results are expected to be adopted by weather forecasting agencies around the world.

The goal is to develop an early warning system for people in the path of a flood. “Flash floods are different from normal floods, which are often the product of melting snow. Flash floods are short-lived and dump a lot of rain,” says Prof. Price, a climate change specialist. “Using the radiation emitted from lightning flashes, we’ve developed a system that can give adequate warning to the public ― and save lives.”

Eventually, the Flash system may be used to send messages to cell phones, RSS feeds, GPS units and other devices to warn people in the path of a flash flood and avert disaster.

“Nowcasting” for Flood Warnings

Unlike normal floods which arrive slowly and with more warning, flash floods are particularly dangerous because they happen so quickly, developing from thunderstorms that form in a matter of hours. By measuring the radiation emitted by lightning, researchers can pinpoint the most intense thunderstorms, and the resulting rainfall can be located and tracked.

This data has been used to predict both the path of a storm and where heavy rainfall will appear ― crucial predictions, since the impact of flash floods depends on ground topography, slope and vegetation cover. “Nowcasting,” which predicts what conditions will be in the next few hours, versus “forecasting” a day or two in advance of expected weather conditions, is critical.

Looking at real-time lightning data, Tel Aviv University researchers can see where storms will travel over a period of a few hours, and can warn people in the path of the flood of impending danger. Such a tool will become even more relevant as erratic weather patterns, predicted by climate-change scientists today, become a reality tomorrow.

A Flood of Warnings Delivered in a Flash

The research from the Flash program can be extrapolated for use anywhere in the world, including the flash flood-prone regions of the U.S. For example, the U.S. National Lightning Detection Network could easily apply the results of the Flash research.

“This is a tool for the future,” says Prof. Price. “And it will be even more exciting in the next decade, when we’ll have continuous real-time detection of lightning activity from satellites. That data will be used to predict floods anywhere.” The U.S. will also have geostationary satellites with lightning trackers that will take a picture every 15 minutes from 36,000 kilometers above the earth.

WEATHER NOTE

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION ANNOUNCES AGENDA FOR SUMMIT ON LESSONS LEARNED: HURRICANE SEASON 2008

Washington, D.C. – The Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) today announced that it will host a Summit on Lessons Learned: Hurricane Season 2008 to be held on Thursday, December 11, 2008, 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room (TW-C305).

The Summit will focus on communications and coordination between state, local and federal governments, healthcare and industry in preparation for and response to the 2008 storms. The panel discussions will also highlight ways that communications may be expanded and enhanced in preparing for future storms or other disasters (see detailed agenda below).

The Summit will be open to the public; admittance however will be limited to the seating available. Those individuals who are interested in attending the summit may pre-register on-line at: http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/summits. Those who pre-register will be asked to provide their name, title, organization affiliation, and contact information. Individuals may also contact Stephanie Caccomo at 202-418-1812 regarding pre-registration. The deadline for pre-registration is Friday, December 5, 2008. Audio/Video coverage of the meeting will be broadcast live with open captioning over the Internet from the FCC's web page at www.fcc.gov/realaudio. The FCC’s web cast is free to the public and does not require pre-registration.

Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities are available upon request. Please include a description of the accommodation you will need. Individuals making such requests must include their contact information should FCC staff need to contact them for more information. Requests should be made as early as possible. Please send an e-mail to fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau: 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY).

For additional information about the meeting, please contact Susan McLean at (202) 418-7868 or by email: susan.mclean@fcc.gov .

For full (agenda)

Mechanical problems hamper mock disaster exercise

2008-11-21 18:21:00.000

Mississauga's Pearson International Airport was supposed to be the launch point from where emergency personnel and resources would be deployed to a mock ice storm disaster today.

That plan wouldn't fly, though. Literally.

Originally, a C-17 Globemaster was to arrive at Pearson 11 a.m. as part of Trillium Response – a multi-jurisdictional disaster response effort developed by the Emergency Management Ontario, the Office of the Fire Marshal and the Canadian Forces. The C-17 – the military's newest aircraft which can carry a payload of 160,000 lbs. – was to be employed to transport personnel and resources to a mock emergency in Thunder Bay.

Due to mechanical problems, however, the plane was grounded. Instead, a C-130 was flown in at 2 p.m.

The mission was a response to a desperate plea for help from the Iain Angus the acting mayor of Thunder Bay, who had contacted the Provincial Emergency Operational Centre at about 8 p.m. last night. She was asking for help after a grain elevator had collapsed because of heavy snow and ice. The collapse injured 30 people and trapped another 80.

Still, members of Trillium Response refused to see the malfunctioning aircraft as a setback. Instead, they told the press that patrt of reacting to a disaster is dealing with the unpredictable.
.
"The only thing predictable in an emergency is the unpredictable," said Rick Bartolucci, Ontario's minister of community safety and correctional services. "The team had to strategize and come up with another alternative because the reality is this exercise has to go on because we're responding to an emergency."

By 8:30 p.m., the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team (HUSAR) had been deployed. The team consists of 70 people from Toronto fire and police servives medical staff and specialists in structural engineering, hazardous materials, heavy rigging, search and logistics.

They flew out of Pearson to the disaster scene, albeit delayed by three hours until the replacement ride arrived.

"We will, at the end of the day, have learned from this exercise so that in the event of a real emergency here in the province of Ontario we will be equipped with not only the human not only the physical resources that are necessary but also having had the experience of reacting to a very serious situation," said Bartolucci.

The Thunder Bay mock disaster was one of several taking place simultaneously in other areas across northwestern Ontario, including in Kenora and Dryden.

The entire operation involved over 40 government and non-government organizations including 11 ministries of Ontario, four federal government departments and nine First Nations communities.

"This is going to be the largest exercise, peace-time joint exercise that has taken place in the province of Ontario," said Brigadier General Gary Stafford.

MARITIME NOTE

Reports released in November analyze three deaths at sea in ‘06

November saw the release of two separate incident reports in response to loss of life at sea. Both incidents occurred in heavy weather conditions. The first was investigated by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), which investigates accidents involving UK ships and ships in UK territorial waters. The second was done by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

Both bodies investigate accidents to determine circumstances and causes with the mission of improving the safety of life at sea and to help avoid future accidents. Neither group is charged with assigning fault or determining civil or criminal liability.

In the first report, the training tall ship Picton Castle of Nova Scotia, Canada, lost a crew member while sailing in the North Atlantic Ocean.

"On the afternoon of 05 December 2006, the barque Picton Castle departed Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, bound for St. George’s, Grenada, in the eastern Caribbean Sea," a summary of the incident from the report states. "On board were 12 crew and 16 other persons who had signed on as trainees. On the evening of Dec. 8, shortly before 2235, while in heavy weather, a deckhand was swept overboard from the leeward side of the vessel. An air and sea search ensued, but it was unsuccessful."

The near 12,000-word report found seven "causes and contributing factors" and five "findings as to risk." These include that the safety of the vessel was adversely affected by the decision to sail, given the limited training of the crew in emergencies and the limited experience of the trainees. Issues regarding training, communications, fatigue, safety drills and record keeping were also addressed in the report as factors in the incident.

According to the ship’s Web site, Capt. Daniel Moreland accepts recommendations of the investigators and has responded to the report with an intense review and scrutiny of safety equipment and all practices and procedures aboard, including an in-depth independent Extraordinary Safety Audit and Transport Canada inspections.

For the full report see The Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s Web site, www.tsb.gc.ca.

In the other incident, in a 2006 incident that claimed the lives of two crew members, a MAIB report says the ship’s master with FR8 Ship Management PTE of Singapore, should have never left the harbor and should have delayed sailing.

"At about 1220 on 11 November 2006, while outbound from Scapa Flow and transiting the Pentland Firth, the 74,065 dwt Singaporean registered tanker, FR8 Venture, shipped two large waves over her bow," the report states. "This resulted in the death of two able seamen (ABs) and serious injuries to an ordinary seaman (OS), all of whom were working on the forward mooring deck. The waves also caused minor damage to the ship."

According to the UK Coast Guard, weather conditions were "horrendous" including strong winds, heavy seas and huge swells. Safety issues addressed by the report, say waves of the size that killed two men and injured a third should have been anticipated and the foredeck should have been secured.

It was recommended that the master should revise the securing schedule, depending on weather and if the vessel is arriving or leaving port to ensure crew are on deck, exposed to the elements, for the least amount of time. Also, the report stated it would be "prudent to concentrate the manpower in one locale rather than spreading them out and trying to secure all over as a concentrated effort will mean a quicker securing [sic]."

The company should have had effective safety measures in place with an effective plan of action. Named Navig8 Ship Management Pte, Ltd. since 2007, the shipping company has reviewed all recommendations and has now set policy for all its ships.

Also, the MCA issued a Safety Alert, which gives a brief outline of the accident and draws attention to the contents of Chapter 3 of the Admiralty Sailing Directions North Coast of Scotland Pilot that warns mariners of strong tides, with large waves that frequently occur in the area of Pentland Firth. In light of the actions taken as a result of this accident, the MAIB has issued no safety recommendations.

To see details of this report see MAIB’s Web site: www.maib.gov.uk.

On This Day, December 4 1872

Ghost Ship Mary Celeste Found Near Strait of Gibraltar

An engraving of the Mary Celeste as she was found.

DECEMBER 4 1872, ATLANTIC OCEAN - The Mary Celeste was sighted by the Dei Gratia, commanded by Captain David Reed Morehouse, who knew Captain Benjamin Briggs, the commander of the Mary Celeste. According to the account given by the crew of the Dei Gratia, the ship was observed for two hours, under full sail and heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. They concluded that she was drifting, though she was flying no distress signals.

On November 5, 1872, the Mary Celeste picked up a cargo of commercial alcohol shipped by Meissner Ackermann & Co. and set sail from Staten Island, New York to Genoa, Italy. In addition to the captain and a crew of seven, she carried two passengers, the captain’s wife, Sarah E. Briggs (maiden name Cobb), and their two-year-old daughter, Sophia Matilda, making 10 people in total.

Oliver Deveau, the chief mate of the Dei Gratia, led a party in a small boat to board the Mary Celeste. He found the ship in generally good condition, though he reported that “the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess”. There was only one operational pump, with a lot of water between decks and three and a half feet of water in the hold. The forehatch and the lazarette were both open, the clock was not functioning and the compass was destroyed. The sextant and marine chronometer were missing, and the only lifeboat appeared to have been intentionally launched rather than torn away, suggesting the ship had been deliberately abandoned. Popular stories of untouched breakfasts with cups of tea on the cabin table, washing hung out to dry, a cat found asleep on top of the gallery locker and a bowl of a half-eaten apple pie are wholly without substance.

The cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol was intact, although when it was eventually unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels were found to be empty. A six-month supply of food and water was aboard. All of the ship’s papers, except the captain’s logbook, were missing. The last log entry was dated November 24 and placed her 100 miles west of the Portuguese islands of the Azores. The last entry on the ship’s slate showed her as having reached the island of Santa Maria in the Azores on November 25.

Crewmen from the Dei Gratia sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar where, during a sitting of the Vice Admiralty Court hearing a claim against the owners of the ship for salvage, the judge praised them for their courage and skill. However, the Attorney General of Gibraltar, Frederick Solly Flood QC in his role as Queen’s Proctor to the court, turned the hearing from a straightforward salvage claim into a de facto trial of the men of the Dei Gratia, whom Flood suspected of foul play. In the end, the court did award prize money to the crew, but the sum was much less than it should have been, as “punishment” for suspected, but unproved, wrongdoing. Captain Morehouse was awarded one fifth of the ship and cargo.

None of the Mary Celeste’s crew or passengers were found, and it is unlikely that the events leading to their disappearance will ever be known with certainty.

Many theories have been proposed to explain the mystery.

The first theory proposed during the admiralty court proceedings, was that the Mary Celeste was the victim of an act of piracy and the crew was murdered.

The crew of the Dei Gratia was suspected as culprits, who murdered those on board and then fabricated the story of the ghost ship with the aim of securing the salvage rights.

Of the theories consistent with the account given by the crew of the Dei Gratia, the most plausible are based on the barrels of alcohol. Briggs had never hauled such a dangerous cargo before and did not trust it. Nine leaking barrels would have caused a buildup of vapor in the hold. Historian Conrad Byers believed that Captain Briggs ordered the hold to be opened, resulting in a violent rush of fumes and then steam. Believing the ship was about to explode, Briggs ordered everyone into the lifeboat, failing, in his haste, to properly secure it to the ship with a strong towline. The wind picked up and blew the ship away from them. The occupants of the lifeboat either drowned or drifted out to sea to die of hunger, thirst and exposure.

During the admiralty court proceeding, Solly Flood proposed that the crew, after consuming the alcohol from the kegs that were recovered empty, murdered the Briggs’ in a drunken mutiny. The mutinous crew are then presumed to escaped in the missing lifeboat. However, the captain was a believer in abstinence and unlikely to tolerate drinking on board, or a crew inclined to drink alcohol on board.

Another theory has suggested there was a mutiny among the crew who murdered a tyrannical Briggs and his family, then escaped in the lifeboat. However, Briggs had no history to suggest he was the type of captain to provoke his crew to mutiny. First Mate Albert Richardson and the rest of the crew also had excellent reputations.

An alternate scenario has the ship encountering a waterspout, a tornado-like storm with a funnel cloud that occurs at sea. In such a case, it is suggested, the water surrounding the ship may, in being sucked upwards, have given the impression that the Mary Celeste was sinking. It would explain why the Mary Celeste was soaking wet when discovered by the crew of the Dei Gratia, and a mass panic among the crew during such an occasion would probably explain the scratched railing and the broken compass, as well as the missing lifeboat. A further theory offered by Captain David Williams is that a seaquake erupted below the ship and jarred open nine barrels of alcohol (~450 gallons), which leaked into the bilge. The earthquake also dislodged the flue for the hot stove on deck and caused embers from the fire to drift into the rigging. Smelling the alcohol in full view of the burning embers caused the crew to panic and abandon the ship. The ship sailed on without the crew. The crew then decided to try to catch the ship and sail off after her in the small sailing dingy, but they never caught up with the Mary Celeste and died at sea.

Yet another theory claims that ergotamine from contaminated flour aboard the ship which could have led all its occupants to throw themselves overboard. However, the sailors from the Dei Gratia were not affected.

19 days til Christmas!
Have one really great weekend!

RS

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2008) — Setting sail on the Pacific, a University of Delaware-led research team has embarked on an extreme adventure that will find several of its members plunging deep into the sea to study hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

The team, which will be conducting research in environments that include scalding heat, high pressure, toxic chemicals and total darkness, is part of the National Science Foundation-funded "Extreme 2008: A Deep-Sea Adventure."

The scientists are being joined by students from around the world on dry land who have signed up for an exciting virtual field trip. More than 20,000 students from 350 schools in the United States, Aruba, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Great Britain and New Zealand are participating.

The expedition, led by Craig Cary, professor of marine biosciences in the University of Delaware's College of Marine and Earth Studies, left Monday, Nov. 10, aboard the research ship Atlantis from a port in Manzanillo, Mexico, with an expected return date of Dec. 1.*

Team members – researchers and graduate students – are from the University of Delaware, the University of Colorado, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, J. Craig Venter Institute, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

The team is heading to destinations at two hydrothermal hot spots: Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California and a group of vents in the eastern Pacific Ocean about nine degrees north of the equator.

Once above the vents, the researchers will take the submersible Alvin down from one to nearly two miles below the surface. Built to withstand crushing pressures and to pierce the utter blackness of the deep, Alvin will let the scientists observe life around the steaming vents and collect samples for analysis. Both Atlantis and Alvin are owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The scientists' focus will be marine viruses and other tiny life called protists. These organisms prey on bacteria, the primary food for vent dwellers ranging from ghost-white vent crabs to bizarre-looking tubeworms.

"For many years, the vents have been explored with little to no attention to viruses and protists," Cary says. "Yet because these organisms eat bacteria, they have the most dramatic effect on the bacterial communities that support the vent system. Our research programs are among the first to focus on these remarkable scavengers."

Eric Wommack, an associate professor with joint appointments in both the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Marine and Earth Studies, will join Cary in leading the UD contingent.

Wommack, who is based at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, is an expert on marine viruses and will be deploying specialized equipment to capture them for analysis in the shipboard lab.

Wommack says hydrothermal vents, although characterized by caustic chemistry, hot temperatures and high pressure, are oases of life in the deep sea. The vents provide an ecosystem for ancient and unusual microbes that are capable of extracting energy from volcanic rather than solar energy, and are home to viruses.

"As a group, viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and contain its largest reservoir of unknown genes," Wommack says. "We know that bacteria at the deep-sea hydrothermal vents are intimately associated with relatively abundant populations of viruses. Our goal is to explore the wilderness of viral genes existing at the vents."

David Caron, professor of biological sciences in the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California, will be studying protozoa, a class of protists that feed on other organisms and that may form a crucial bridge between bacteria and animal life.

If Caron is correct, the samples from the deep will show that protozoa feed on bacteria or on the products of bacterial activity and are in turn eaten by larger life forms. The most surprising thing about the theory may be the lack of evidence for it. While other studies have found a protozoan-animal link in surface waters, the analogous middle step in the deep ocean has been overlooked.

"Protozoa are everywhere and they're in virtually every environment. They play this intermediate food web role in a number of these environments, and there's no reason to believe that they aren't doing the same thing in the vents. It simply hasn't been looked at to any degree," Caron said.

As the scientists work at sea, they will be connected to students via an interactive Web site, where blogs, dive logs, video clips, photos and interviews will be posted daily. Students also will be able to write to the scientists, design experiments and participate in a virtual science fair.

A capstone experience for selected schools will be a "Phone Call to the Deep," linking classrooms with researchers working live in the submersible Alvin on the seafloor.

The University of Delaware and the National Science Foundation are sponsoring the expedition. Additional support is being provided by Olympus and by MO BIO Laboratories.

* For those interested in following the scientists, they will blog regularly about the voyage at the Extreme 2008 Web site . The program, coordinated by the Office of Communications & Marketing, is the sixth in UD's popular "Extreme" series, which has won state and national awards for public education.

WEATHER NOTE

Indiana Department Of Homeland Security Implements GIS-Based Disaster Response System

November 8, 2008

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) recently embarked on an ambitious campaign that provides a communication network built using ESRI geographic information system (GIS) software. The system takes advantage of a Web portal for linking local resources with state and federal stakeholders in the event of a large-scale emergency. This two-way stream of information flow is vital to disaster response. "We wanted to leverage resources already in place with other state agencies and in the universities across the state," says Roger Koelpin, GIS/critical infrastructure planner, Indiana Department of Homeland Security. "We are able to work with those partners as resources for our internal disaster recovery strategy and continuity of operations planning. Ultimately, we hope to turn this into a viable process for bottom-up reporting of data to meet federal data calls and to keep our federal partners informed as part of our routine, authoritative, common operating picture."

IDHS selected ESRI for its GIS software and services. ESRI Professional Services staff worked with IDHS staff to incorporate ESRI software, including ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo, into its disaster response system. The system's technology framework involves ESRI business partner ESi and its WebEOC Web-enabled crisis management system. In addition, FME from Safe Software, Inc, was selected to help extract data from stakeholders' Web feature services and transform the data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security data model.

The enterprise disaster response system provides several functions. First, it is used for mitigation, with state agencies identifying high-risk populations, infrastructure, natural resources, and other assets. Second, it provides instant-response capabilities. When a disaster strikes, real-time situational awareness occurs. Commanders make quick decisions on where to send law enforcement, fire personnel, emergency medical services staff, and other responders. They can instantly see available resources, prioritize activities, and monitor events in real time as they unfold. This capability also helps with long-term recovery.

A major component of the system comes from Indiana university partners who are already using GIS and related technologies to publish IndianaMap: a single, statewide geospatial resource for Indiana that includes a wide variety of information in a format that is accessible to both expert GIS users and the general public. IDHS is currently working with county stakeholders to more fully integrate their GIS efforts with its own. Presently, 23 counties offer data in support of the IDHS disaster response system. Roughly one-third of Indiana's 92 counties host their own GIS software and databases. Another third of the counties have vendors hosting their data in proprietary 911 call-center applications. Some of these counties are working with their vendors so that they may help maintain the IDHS common operating picture. Some of the counties in the remaining third are using grants to bolster GIS operations, either with vendor support or on their own.

IDHS is also working to extend the system with more applications and data than are currently available.

About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.

SOURCE: ESRI

MARITIME NOTE

Poor communication cited in tall ship training fatality

By Canadian OH&S News

FEDERAL (Canadian OH&S News) -- A Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) investigation into the sailing death of Laura Gainey has determined that insufficient crew communication and inadequate ship safety features were among the factors that lead to her death.

Gainey, the daughter of Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey, was swept off the deck of the Picton Castle tall ship by a large wave during a fierce storm on December 8, 2006. The foreign-registered ship had departed Lunenburg, Nova Scotia three days earlier and was en route to Grenada in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The body of Gainey, a deckhand on the vessel, was never recovered despite search and rescue efforts.

Gainey was carrying out a ship check — likely at the port breezeway section of the ship — when the wave struck. She was probably unaware of a temporary order to steer clear of the breezeway, which had been implemented because of the rough seas, the TSB notes in a final report released on October 30.

“A number of [past] TSB investigations have highlighted the fact that accidents are often the product of ineffective, incomplete, untimely, or misunderstood communications,” board investigators write.

The TSB also notes that important safety equipment was either missing or was not properly used on the Picton Castle.

“Despite the large amount of water being shipped on deck, safety nets were not rigged above the bulwarks of the main deck and breezeway,” the board states. It adds that “safety lines had been rigged inboard on the main deck, but their effectiveness was diminished because safety harnesses were not worn. The absence of established fastening points to which safety harnesses could be attached also negated the effectiveness of wearing a harness.”

Given unfavourable long-range weather forecasts, the ship’s departure from Nova Scotia should have been delayed, the TSB suggests. Heeding the forecasts would have been particularly advisable considering the “limited training of the crew in emergencies and the limited experience of the trainees.” The report says that time and financial considerations contributed to the decision to set sail.

Fatigue among Picton Castle crew members was another issue identified by the TSB. It notes that under the storm conditions, the crew — including Gainey — was unable to rely on the 16 trainees onboard. “Consequently, the crewing level became inadequate — with the result that crew members had to rely on each other to perform duties during off-watch periods.”

A general concern noted by the board is that neither Canada northe Cook Islands (where the Picton Castle is registered) require tall ship operators to have safety management systems in place. “Effective safety management requires all organizations, large or small, to be cognizant of the risks involved in their operation, to be competent to manage those risks, and to be committed to operating safely,” the TSB states.

New volunteer standards may be ineffective: TSB

Though the federal transportation department, Transport Canada, is in the process of updating voluntary safety standards related to tall ship construction and operation, this “may not result in the adoption of effective safety management systems,” the board worries.

Maryse Durette, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, notes that the department has 90 days to review and respond to the TSB findings. The department, she adds, is already developing “a policy with respect to registration, crew training/certification, and requirements for foreign-registered sail training vessels entering and operating in Canada.”

Simon Fuller, president of Ottawa-based Bytown Brigantine Inc, a charitable organization that operates two tall ships, says that although Canadian-registered ships are not required by regulation to have formal crew training and safety programs, they typically do.

Nonetheless, Fuller, who is also secretary of the Canadian Sail Training Association, says he would support the formalization of crew training and safety program requirements through the creation of a legislated standard. “Let’s define once and for all what a responsible sail training program should look like and what it should comprise,” he says.

RS