Supplemental General Security & Resilience Highlights – March 5, 2024

The following posts are useful for general awareness of current physical security threats, natural disaster resilience, preparedness resources, mitigation guidance, and other security-related news or updates. These resources have been curated by the WaterISAC analyst team as items of broad relevance and benefit that do not need supplemental analysis at this time.

Natural Hazards/Climate Change

• South faces repeated rounds of rain, risk of severe weather – Accu Weather
• Texas hopes for relief from devastating wildfires as rain and snow is forecast – Guardian
• Key Northern California highway closed as snow continues to fall in the blizzard-hit Sierra Nevada – AP
• Winter is warming almost everywhere. See how it’s changed in your town. – Washington Post
• Where does lightning strike? New maps pinpoint 36.8 million yearly ground strike points in unprecedented detail – The Conversation
• What we know about last year’s top 10 wild Australian climatic events – from fire and flood combos to cyclone-driven extreme rain – The Conversation
• Fifty years of getting ENSO predictions *mostly* correct – Climate.gov
• U.S. climate outlook for March 2024 – Climate.gov
• CDC announces new respiratory virus guidance, ends COVID isolation policy – University of Minnesota

Operational Resilience

• MEMA chief: Weather delivering more ‘gap disasters’ – NBC 10
• There’s Hype Around Machine Learning And AI For Flood Mitigation — What’s Really Involved If A City Or County Wants To Dive In? – Water Online
• Arizona’s Senate has passed a plan to manage rural groundwater, but final success is uncertain – AP
• Mining company can’t tap water needed for Okefenokee wildlife refuge, US says – AP
• Hurricanes and power grids: Eliminating large-scale outages with a new approach – ScienceDaily
• UAlbany Climate Scientist Awarded Federal Grant to Improve Resiliency of Coastal Power Grids – University of Albany
• Climate change could shorten the life span of U.S. bridges – Yale Climate Connections
• Red Sea cables have been damaged, disrupting internet traffic – CNN

Extremism/Terrorism

• Tesla’s Berlin plant halts production after suspected arson attack at nearby substation – CNBC
• Belgium: Police arrest 4 teens over alleged jihadi plot – DW
• Ohio man sentenced for mass shooting plot targeting women at university – WHIO 7
• Eight arrested as climate activists break into chemicals plant in France – Reuters
• White supremacist fitness clubs are fat-shaming Trump supporters and plotting a race war – Business Insider