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Reflections on the Turkish-Syrian Earthquakes of 6th February 2023: Building Collapse and its Consequences

Emergency Planning

How much simpler to attribute it all to anonymous forces within the ground! It was notable that, in many buildings that pancaked in Turkey and Syria, the collapses left almost no voids at all, thanks to the complete fragmentation of the entire structure. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 15: 931-945. Mosalam 2003.

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Disaster Risk Reduction is not a Paradigm

Emergency Planning

It lacks the spatial dimension of the 1960s work of the geographers Torsten Hägerstrand (1968) and his colleagues, but it has all the other components. Sadly, a follow-the-herd mentality all too easily develops among researchers. Natural Hazards 86: 969-988. In reality it was a fad. Forging a paradigm shift in disaster science.

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State of the Nation - a UK Perspective on Covid-19

Emergency Planning

The scenario for this pandemic (excluding the recovery) was fully formulated over the period 2003-2009. Since 2008, pandemics have been top of the list of 96 threats and hazards in the UK National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies in all editions. I have taught it every year since then.

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A level of Safety – NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem

National Fire Protection Association

For those of you who are not familiar with the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem™, it is “a framework that identifies the components that must work together to minimize risk and help prevent loss, injuries and death from fire, electrical and other hazards.” Each component is depicted as a cog, each of which connect to form a circle.

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A Closer Look at Some Assembly Occupancy Requirements

National Fire Protection Association

The fire at a Thai nightclub in early August 2022 was all too familiar. Many of the details emerging are eerily similar to The Station nightclub fire which claimed the lives of 100 people and injured 230 more in February of 2003. The smoke developed index is the same range for all three classifications.

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NCDP 20th Anniversary Reflections and Impacts

National Center for Disaster Prepardness

In 2003, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), Columbia University, was founded to provide an academically based, interdisciplinary center focused on the capacity to prevent, respond to, and recover from disasters. residents since the Civil War. The memories of working on these projects stay with me to this day, as the U.S.

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Using Budget Principles to Prepare for Future Pandemics and Other Disasters

National Center for Disaster Prepardness

Preparedness funding has ebbed and flowed over the years, peaking a few years after 9/11 and gradually decreasing with health security grant programs decreasing by a third to as much as half from their peaks, with similar reductions across all-hazards emergency management grant programs. For all other bills (i.e.