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How do we survive surviving? By Ann SanCartier for Firestorm

Imagine.  You head to pick up your child from school and abruptly, the only thing separating you, your daughter and your sister from 200 mile per hour winds are two collapsed walls supporting each other in a triangular formation. You hold your daughter with adrenaline-induced strength while you scream and pray as the realistic fear of being sucked up into a monster overwhelms you. That’s what happened to a family I spoke with who survived the Moore, Oklahoma Tornado. As they cowered for protection at Briarwood Elementary, what we now know to be an E5 tornado, whipped them with flying debris leaving their feet, arms, and heads lacerated by its ferocity. As this mother shared her traumatic experience with me, she related that her sister was waiting in their van parked outside the school. When the school advised her that a...

 

 


 

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Crisis Management and Business Continuity – Firestorm

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Satterfield speaks to SEFF conference
By Jim Satterfield, Firestorm President In the aftermath of severe tornado activity in North Texas on May 15, Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) staff will be on-site in Granbury, Millsap, Mineral Wells, and Cleburne to help insurance consumers. “People who suffered property damage as a result of the recent tornadoes should contact their insurance company or agent to file a claim as soon as possible,” said Eleanor Kitzman, Texas Insurance Commissioner. “Starting this process is the first step toward getting money to make repairs.” Homeowners insurance policies generally provide coverage for losses from wind and hail, and in certain situations, might cover losses from wind-blown rain. The following tips will help make the claims process go smoother: Contact your insurance agent or company promptly. Keep a record of all contacts you have with your company.  Be prepared to answer...
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Peter Marghella
Firestorm is pleased to announce a new webinar from Pietro (Peter) D. Marghella, DHSc., MSc., MA, CEM, FACCP on October 24 2-3 PM EDT - Crisis Health Care: Enhancing Surge Capacity - A Non-Traditional Approach to a New Paradigm Demand - for those interested in learning more about Community Resiliency. "If you don't prepare in advance of a disaster, your chance of an adequate response and recovery diminish in equal (but inverse) proportion to the magnitude and impact of the event."   https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/320403114 October 24 2-3 PM EDT The common denominator to all disasters is casualties. In as much, no other portion of our Nation's critical infrastructure and key resource (CI/KR) sectors will bear a more preponderant weight in adjudicating the success--or failure--of our incident management efforts. That said, it could be argued that the healthcare infras...
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Sustainability and Community Resilience II. The Importance of Perceived Self-Interest By Dr. John Plodinec, Firestorm Expert Council Member.  John is the Associate Director for the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this role, he is responsible for identifying and evaluating technologies useful for enhancing community resilience. He also is playing a leading role in development of CARRI’s Community Resilience System. He has been heavily involved with CARRI’s engagement with the Charleston, SC, region. Read more about Dr. Plodinec here In the last post, I talked about the importance of time in trying to understand the relationship between sustainability and community resilience. Another definition is useful in this discussion – community. We can define a community as a group of individuals and organizations bound together by...
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Disasters have Direction On Community Resilience by Dr John Plodinec Our friends at CARRI – The Community and Regional Resilience Institute  -have posed an interesting concept to think about:  Disasters Have Direction – What Does That Mean for Community Resilience? This guest article is by Dr. John Plodinec.  John is the Associate Director for the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this role, he is responsible for identifying and evaluating technologies useful for enhancing community resilience. He also is playing a leading role in development of CARRI's Community Resilience System. He has been heavily involved with CARRI's engagement with the Charleston, SC, region. Read more about Dr. Plodinec here Disasters Have Direction – What Does That Mean for Community Resilience? For a few years, FEMA and DHS have champion...
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Learning with Learni.st - A Great Visual Learning Experience   Social Learning  By Karen Masullo EVP, Social Media for Firestorm Oh those fabulous folks at Grockit. If you're not familiar with Grockit: "Grockit is the social learning company that makes products that help people learn from other people."  Grockit makes Test Prep products for the GMAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GRE and other university admissions tests. Grockit was founded in 2007 by Farb (Farbood) Nivi, a former Teacher of the Year for The Princeton Review and academic director at Kaplan. "Over 1M people worldwide have used Grockit to successfully prepare for tests. And more people have used Grockit through private network partner deployments for K-12 schools, online universities and virtual schools." Today, it would appear that Mr. Nivi and team gave us Learni.st, and I thank them. Read the official announceme...
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Disaster Preparedness for Small Business Owners   Sponsored by Verizon Small Business Webinars   Hurry! Today May 23, 2012 at 2PM! Register now! Sponsored by Verizon Small Business Webinars: Disaster Preparedness for Small Business Owners     
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Natural Disaster   Report: Nursing homes unprepared for natural disasters SUMMARY:  Tornado, hurricane, or flood, nursing homes are woefully unprepared to protect frail residents in a natural disaster.  Investigators from the inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services noted that nearly 7 years after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation exposed the vulnerability of nursing homes, shortcomings still persist. Emergency plans required by the government often lack specific steps such as coordinating with local authorities, notifying relatives, or even pinning name tags and medication lists to residents during an evacuation, according to findings. The report recommended that Medicare and Medicaid add specific emergency planning and training steps to the existing federal requirement that nursing homes have a disaster plan. Many such steps are in nonb...
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Putting on your Helmet Before Disaster Strikes  By Kenneth O’Dell, S.E. M.ASCE, Principal, Firestorm MHP With the onset of an early tornado season occurring near the one year anniversary of the great Tohoku Earthquake in northern Honshu, Japan, as well as one year after some of the most devastating tornado sequences in recent history, we were surprised to see that the state of Alabama and its residents were struggling with questions regarding "red tape" on the implementation of requirements for approving storm shelters. Our surprise was further compounded by recent dialogue in Disaster Recovery Journal's LinkedIn group questioning the applicability and timing of national adoption of the certification process under the PS-Prep program initiated following the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission. These two sets of questions highlight a continuing disconnect between the need for ...
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Press Release   Firestorm Announces Strategic Partnership with Nexis Preparedness Systems Atlanta, Georgia, (Business Wire) March 6, 2012 Firestorm Announces Strategic Partnership with Nexis Preparedness Systems Firestorm, a national leader in business continuity, vulnerability analysis, risk mitigation and crisis management, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Nexis Preparedness Systems, a market leader in the Preparedness and Emergency Supply industry. The partnership will facilitate a cohesive access point for forward-thinking companies to more efficiently order and manage preparedness supplies and inventory.  Nexis Preparedness Systems (NPS) offers custom-designed Emergency Survival Caches to specifically fit the needs of any size organization. Utilizing proprietary supply management computer applications, Nexis Preparedness Systems...
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Business Continuity   Crisis Risk Management   2011 worst year ever for catastrophic economic losses from disasters "Resilient businesses survive disasters… and, of all the disasters you have seen, the worst will be the one that happens to your company" Jim Satterfield, Firestorm COO So, how did your business fare in 2011? As detailed by a preliminary report from reinsurance company Swiss Re, 2011 will be the year with the highest catastrophe-related economic losses in history, at USD 350 billion 2011 would have been the costliest year ever for the insurance industry if Japan had been more fully insured The US was the worst hit, as the country posted six of the top 10 most costly insured disasters in 2011. According to preliminary estimates from Swiss Re’s sigma team, total insured losses for the global insurance industry from natural catastrophes and man-m...
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