disaster response News

After Huge Wildfires, Greece Creates Climate Crisis Ministry

Greece’s center-right government has created a new ministry to address the impact of climate change and named former European Union commissioner Christos Stylianides as minister. Stylianides, 63, who served as commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management between 2014 and …

How Family-Work-Neighbor Networks May Make Things Worse in Disaster Response

Faced with a common peril, people delay making decisions that might save lives, fail to alert each other to danger and spread misinformation. Those may sound like behaviors associated with the current pandemic, but they actually surfaced in experiments on …

FEMA Tackles COVID-19 While Also Facing Past Disasters, Spring Flood Season

It wasn’t until Wednesday, five days after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was “leading the federal coordination” to the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. While the disaster-response agency is better …

Men and Women Respond Differently When Natural Disasters Strike, Researchers Say

Women are quicker to take cover or prepare to evacuate during an emergency, but often have trouble convincing the men in their life to do so, suggests a new University of Colorado Boulder study of how gender influences natural disaster …

FEMA Chief Long to Leave Agency

Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Brock Long is leaving the agency he led through a record period of natural disasters — including a widely panned response to a storm that devastated Puerto Rico. “While this has been the opportunity of …

Delaware DOI Working With FEMA to Fine-Tune Disaster Response

The Delaware Department of Insurance (DOI) is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during the next two weeks as part of a National Level Exercise designed to help FEMA and other federal partners, state and local governments, as …

Disasters Affected 8% of U.S. Population in 2017, FEMA Notes in Review of Historic Year

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supported 59 major disaster declarations and 16 emergency declarations in 2017, a year during which unprecedented disasters affected more than 25 million Americans, almost eight percent of the U.S. population. In its year-end review, …

Willis Re Joins with Tech Firm, Measure, to Raise Drone Usage for Insurers

Willis Re, the reinsurance business of Willis Towers Watson, announced a strategic partnership with technology company Measure to advance the use of drones within the insurance industry and bring the latest drone technology to Willis Re clients. The integration of …

Insurance Council of Australia Declares Sydney Storms a Catastrophe

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has declared a catastrophe after storms struck New South Wales, in particular Sydney’s eastern and southern suburbs. The ICA’s bulletin notes that the “storms brought wind in excess of 200kmh [124 mph], heavy rain …

State Farm Seeks to Test Drone Use for Damage Response in Illinois

State Farm insurance company is seeking federal approval to test drones in evaluating property damage and responding to natural disasters. The (Bloomington) Pantagraph reported that the Bloomington-based company has filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation. It asks …