An article from the New York Times discusses FEMA’s measured support to state and local officials in California as they have addressed a series of large, deadly and destructive wildires. Since President Trump issued a major disaster declaration earlier this month, the agency has approved more than $12.7 million in federal assistance for survivors affected by wildfires in three California counties.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has confirmed that Hurricane Florence’s rainfalls brought record flooding to the Carolinas. Data from 18 USGS streamgages in North Carolina and 10 in South Carolina registered record-setting water levels, called peaks of record. The information comes from a report that focused on peak streamflow and water level data measured at 84 USGS streamgages in the Carolinas.
An article from the Sydney Morning Herald describes the backgrounds of four men who planned to attack Melbourne, Australia’s most populated places with bombs and knives on or around Christmas in 2016. It discusses how they became radicalized and worked together to develop their plot. Police arrested the men before they could actually execute their plot, which likely would have resulted in Melbourne’s most deadly terror attack. At least two of the men attempted to join the Islamic State, but they were stopped by Australian authorities who refused their departure.
Earlier this month, multiple pro-Islamic State media outlets released the second issus of the “Youth of the Caliphate” magazine. The issue featured articles, posters, and infographics praising the mujahideen, encouraging Muslims to carry out jihadi operations against “Crusaders,” and highlighting the role of online jihadis in supporting the Islamic State.
WaterISAC and the National Association of Water Companies cohosted a webinar on November 14, 2018 on how utilities can develop plans to have adequate fuel supplies after disaster strikes.
FEMA has just released its 2018 National Preparedness Report, which is intended to summarize the nation's progress toward becoming a more secure and resilient nation. Now in its seventh annual edition, the report is intended to offer practical insights into preparedness to support decisions about program priorities, resource allocation, and community actions. The current report includes a “2017 Year in Review,” which highlights notable real-world incidents from last year and ongoing recovery efforts.
In its latest weekly report regarding flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that flu activity across the nation remains low, although small increases in activity have been reported. Eight states and Guam are now reporting regional or local flu activity (Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, and Texas). That means those states are seeing outbreaks of flu and laboratory-confirmed flu in at least one or less than half of the regions of the state, respectively.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta writes about how a highly lethal pandemic flu would differ from the normal seasonal flu viruses, noting it would likely affect every human on Earth. He comments that pandemic flu is apolitical and does not discriminate between rich and poor. Geographical boundaries are also meaningless, and it could circle the globe within hours. The Spanish Flu of 1918 was an example of a flu pandemic, which is estimated to have caused illnesses in 20 to 40% of the world’s population and resulted in more than 50 million deaths. With pandemic flu, Dr.
The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee has published its Terror Threat Snapshot for November 2018. It indicates there have been 161 cases of homegrown jihadist cases in the U.S. since 2013 (an increase of two cases since last month). One of the new cases involved an Arizon-based man purportedly distributing instructions on how to make explosives, which led to his arrest by U.S. authorities in Las Vegas, Nevada.
November 5 was World Tsunami Awareness Day, an effort by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction to increase understanding of and reduce vulnerabilities to these rare but extremely deadly disasters. In December 2004, when a tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in 11 countries around the Indian Ocean, other areas of the world were also reminded of their own tsunami risks. According to the U.S.
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