Posted by: Elizabeth Zimmerman, Deputy Associate Administrator, Response and Recovery
Disasters not only affect community infrastructure and public works, but they often overcome family finances, making recovery difficult and sometimes impossible. Before, during and after disasters strike, we work with a number of non-profit, voluntary and faith-based groups who specialize in getting disaster survivors financially back on their feet.
As we often say, FEMA is just one part of the emergency management team that helps individuals and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In this light, we’ve renewed our partnership with Operation HOPE, a non-profit public benefit corporation, to enhance financial counseling services available before, during and after disasters.
Our partnership with Operation HOPE will result in greater access to free financial counseling and information for disaster survivors, including:
- debt counseling,
- case management services, and
- workshops, seminars and manuals for those seeking help at disaster recovery centers.
In conjunction with National Financial Literacy Month and the agreement signing held on April 27, we also will be co-hosting a webinar with Operation HOPE on Emergency Financial Preparedness. This webinar, scheduled for May 3, will emphasize the importance of what it means to be financially prepared. We will also touch on why, in the face of disaster, failing to be financially prepared can create even more stress and anxiety than the disaster itself.
So, what can you do to be financially prepared for emergencies?
- Start by completing an Emergency Financial First Aid Kit. This document can help you keep track of important documentation, like insurance policy information, so you have clear financial records that will help maintain stability in the event of an emergency.
Find additional resources on financial preparedness, more on our partnership with Operation HOPE, and information on helping your community prepare for a disaster at www.CitizenCorps.gov
Posted by: Public Affairs
Our thoughts are with the families and communities in Alabama and Georgia that have been affected by the severe storms and tornados that have ripped through the region this evening and continue to impact the southern states.
Through our regional office in Atlanta, GA we have been in close contact and coordination with state emergency management officials, as they work tirelessly to meet the immediate needs of disaster survivors.
When natural disasters, such as severe storms and tornados, strike, the first responders are local emergency and public works personnel, volunteers, humanitarian organizations, and numerous private interest groups who provide emergency assistance required to protect the public’s health and safety and to meet immediate human needs.
This evening, President Obama signed an emergency declaration for Alabama, providing federal support to state and local response efforts.
- The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all federal disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 67 counties in the State of Alabama.
- Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Emergency protective measures, limited to direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
- At the request of the state of Alabama, FEMA is deploying a liaison officer to the state emergency operations center to assist in coordination efforts as the state continues to respond and begins to recover from this devastating storm outbreak.
More severe weather is forecasted throughout the south, so make sure you’re taking steps to stay safe before, during, and after the storm:
- Follow the instructions of state and local officials,
- Listen to local radio or TV stations for updated emergency information,
- Make sure you have a safe place to go in case severe weather approaches,
- Familiarize yourself with severe weather watch/warning terms
- Severe Thunderstorm Watch: Tells you when and where severe thunderstorms are likely to occur. Watch the sky and stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
- Severe Thunderstorm Warning: Issued when severe weather has been reported by spotters or indicated by radar. Warnings indicate imminent danger to life and property to those in the path of the storm.
- Tornado Watch: Tornadoes are possible. Remain alert for approaching storms. Watch the sky and stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio, or television for information.
- Tornado Warning: A tornado has been sighted or indicated by weather radar. Take shelter immediately.
For complete tips on getting prepared for a tornado, severe storm, or flooding, visit Ready.gov or our mobile site (m.fema.gov).
Related blog posts: Our role in severe storms and tornadoes
As we continue to keep all of our stakeholders informed about our response and support efforts with the recent disasters, we wanted to make sure all of our stakeholders know there are three ways disaster survivors can apply for assistance:
- Register online at www.disasterassistance.gov
- Register through a web enabled mobile device at m.fema.gov
- Call 1-800-621-FEMA(3362) or 1-800-462-7585 (TTY) for the hearing and speech impaired. The toll-free telephone numbers will operate from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (local time) seven days a week until further notice.
Individuals and business owners who sustained losses in designated counties can apply for assistance. For a full list of the designated counties, visit the state disasater page: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma.
If you know someone in the affected area and you’re communicating with them, please share this information with them. And if you have a website, please embed this widget on your site.
Here’s the code for the English widget:
<iframe width=”250″ height=”420″ scrolling=”no” marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ frameborder=”0″ src=”http://www.fema.gov/help/widgets/da_main.html” title=”Are you a disaster survivor?”></iframe>
Here’s the code for the Spanish widget:
<iframe width=”250″ height=”460″ scrolling=”no” marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ frameborder=”0″ src=”http://www.fema.gov/help/widgets/da_main_esp.html” title=”¿Es sobreviviente de un desastre?”></iframe>
It’s hard to believe that, in this day and age, we don’t have a way to measure sea-level air pressure during hurricanes. NASA researchers, however, are working on a system that will improve forecasting of severe ocean weather by doing just that. The device measures sea-level air pressure, a critical component of hurricane formation – and one that has been extremely difficult to capture.
The Differential Absorption Barometric Radar (DIABAR) prototype is scheduled to make its second flight early this year.
DIABAR remotely senses barometric pressure at sea level, which is important in the prediction and forecasting of severe weather, especially hurricanes, over oceans.
But the ability to measure sea-level air pressure is a major missing link in storm observation, says Dr. Bing Lin, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
“Air pressure is a driving force of weather systems, especially under severe weather conditions like hurricanes,” he said. “For severe storms, the forecasts of the intensity and track can be significantly improved by pressure measurements.”
A Hurricane’s Life
A hurricane begins as a tropical wave, a westward-moving area of low air pressure. As warm, moist air over the ocean rises in the low air-pressure area, surrounding air replaces it, and circulation forms. This produces strong gusty winds, heavy rain and thunderclouds – a tropical disturbance.
As air pressure drops and winds sustain at 38 mph or more, the disturbance becomes a tropical depression, then a tropical storm, and finally a hurricane with sustained winds of over 73 mph.
Lin hopes eventually to be able to measure sea-level air pressure from aircraft flyovers and space-based satellites. The local coverage provide by flyovers, combined with a broad perspective from space, will provide enough information to significantly improve the ability of forecasters to determine how intense a hurricane is and where it’s headed.
“Large and frequent sea surface measurements are critically needed,” he said. “These measurements cannot be made from buoys and aircraft dropsondes. The only hope is from remote sensing using aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites.”
An effort to remotely sense barometric pressure at sea-surface level using microwaves was undertaken at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in the 1980s. “JPL has extensive experience on spaceborne microwave sensors,” said Lin.
First Flight
DIABAR was first deployed on a Navy MH-60S helicopter in 2009 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
“We flew it, got the results, and it looks great,” said Lin.
The next step is testing this year on a blimp called the Bullet™ Class 580, the world’s largest airship. E-Green Technologies Inc. in Alabama makes the aircraft.
The 235-foot long, 65-foot diameter lighter-than-air vehicle is designed to fly on algae-based biofuel at speeds up to 74 mph and altitudes up to 20,000 feet. It will be stationed in a hanger at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA Ames Research Center in California.
DIABAR is a partnership between NASA Langley, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and the State University of New York at Albany.
If you are a global trade manager for a large company, interpreting and utilizing the Harmonized Tariff System code, or harmonized system (HS), is a tedious but necessary part of the daily work in your organization. These six-digit numbers, which may be extended to 12 numbers based on the coding of the specific countries involved, [...]
InternationalCallingCodes.net
March 25, 2011
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The GOES-11 satellite captured an infrared image of Cyclone Bune on March 25, 2011 at 1500 UTC as it moves through the Southern Pacific Ocean. The black area to the left is space as the image shows the curvature of the Earth. Credit: NOAA/NASA GOES ProjectGOES-11 Satellite Sees Bune Strengthen to a Cyclone
Tropical Storm Bune strengthened into a Cyclone on March 25 and the GOES-11 satellite captured a stunning infrared view of it from space.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-11 is in a geostationary orbit and provides weather imagery for the western U.S. but its view reaches into the western and southern Pacific Ocean. An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers. The infrared image the GOES-11 satellite captured on March 25 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) showed a well-organized Tropical Cyclone Bune moving through the southern Pacific Ocean.
GOES satellites are operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and images and animations of GOES data are created by NASA’s GOES Project, located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
At 0600 UTC (2 a.m. EDT) on March 25, Cyclone Bune had maximum sustained winds near 75 knots (86 mph/138 kmh). It was located about 340 nautical miles southeast of Nadi, Fiji near 22.5 South latitude and 179.2 West longitude. It was moving toward the south-southeast near 5 knots (6 mph/9 kmh) and toward northeastern New Zealand.
Infrared satellite imagery, such as that from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) that flies on NASA’s Aqua satellite showed that there is strong convective (rapidly rising air forming thunderstorms) banding (bands of thunderstorms) west of the center of Bune’s circulation. However, those bands of thunderstorms are fragmented. To the east of the center, the bands of thunderstorms appear more organized. There’s even a small eye in the center of Bune.
Because a subtropical ridge (elongated area) of high pressure is building to the southwest of Cyclone Bune, it is expected to steer the storm in a more south-southwesterly direction over the weekend. After the weekend, Bune is forecast to move to the southeast. Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Bune to weaken after 72 hours because of increasing wind shear and cooler sea surface temperatures and should become extratropical next week northeast of New Zealand.
Text Credit: Rob Gutro, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
for Friday, 22 October 2010 [7:30 PM PhT] <<
Bushman’s Typhoon Blog