A harbinger of things to come is that last item above, “artificial intelligence models capable of summarizing news.” Yes, AI is coming for all us us! It can write a disaster plan!

Sometimes I hate being right, but…I was right on this one.

Tropical Storm Debby is certainly going to be a “downer” for the East Coast in the coming days. It is currently projected to drench most of the seaboard with rain, lots of rain. It is a slow-moving storm with the opportunity to soak many low lying areas. As predicted days ago, it is the type of “hurricane” that is fed by warmer ocean temperatures that allows for much higher precipitation as it moves overland.

The latest Disaster Zone Podcast: Post Earthquake: Managing the Situation in Christchurch NZ is posted and has some terrific lessons learned on all the policy and operational concerns to be addressed in a post earthquake environment.

A very dangerous tropical storm is approaching. One that could drop copious amounts of rain and significant storm surge on ocean beaches. The State of Florida is in the bullseye.

It is to be expected that with every event, be it real or an exercise, communications between the players seems to always be the issue.

By now most people following technical issues in the internet and cybersecurity have followed the impacts of the CrowdStrike SNAFU.

There is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to building codes.

Recent events in France and the United States highlight the vulnerability of our nation’s critical infrastructure systems. While much attention has been directed, appropriately so, to cybersecurity of the electrical grid, there are other physical threats to a multitude of infrastructure systems.

As we know, even the President of the United States is not immune from contracting COVID. We have heard in the popular press about the increase of cases occurring—even during the summer.

Power companies are looking at different solutions to reduce their wildfire vulnerabilities associate with being blamed for fire ignition. In Hawaii, there is this, Cameras With AI Shoot for Early Fire Detection in Hawaii.

There is a new Disaster Zone Podcast: Business Continuity Vs. Emergency Management.

Every emergency management program, at every level of government and business has to hire new people to replace those that leave for other opportunities or for expansion purposes. The typical terms used in hiring are Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA).

We are “blessed” to live in interesting and historic time. Many a book will be written about the first 25 years of the 21st century. In disaster terms there will certainly be a chapter or two written about climate change and its impact on the size, frequency and duration of natural disasters.

have no facts, only a few educated guesses about what might have happened a week ago at the rally where former President Trump was speaking. Thus, I will call it pure “conjecture” on my part, without an ounce of actual information. No, it is not a conspiracy theory!

Wildfires in this era of heat are hard to put out and then they can be everywhere at once. Now there is another category of wildfires, those that will not die.

The old goat is still learning! Today I learned a new term for “Dust Storm” which in today’s parlance is called a “Haboob.”

Summer is here and heat waves are sure to come.

There is a timely movie release coming to theaters this summer. Given all the tornado activity we have had in 2024, there will likely be significant interest in Twisters.