Breaking News: Natural Disasters

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In the wake of Hurricane Maria, radiation oncologists from the mainland United States and Puerto Rico prepared a set of crisis-planning tips for radiation therapy clinics to minimize gaps in cancer treatment after a catastrophic event. Their emergency preparedness suggestions were published online April 15 in Practical Radiation Oncology.

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The Chelyabinsk meteor caused extensive ground damage and numerous injuries when it exploded on impact with Earth’s atmosphere in February 2013; to prevent another such impact, Amy Mainzer and colleagues use a simple yet ingenious way to spot these tiny near-Earth objects as they hurtle toward the planet. She will outline the work of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office this week at the APS April Meeting in Denver -- including her team’s NEO recognition method and how it will aid the efforts to prevent future Earth impacts.

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A new, free, open-source software reliably predicts how damage from hurricanes, ice storms, earthquakes, and other extreme events will restrict power delivery from utility grids. The Severe Contingency Solver for Electric Power Transmission is the only software available—commercially or open-source—that reliably supports analysis of extreme events that cause widespread damage.

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According to the Notre Dame study, 62 percent of coastal homeowners are not considering taking any action to reduce the vulnerabilities of their homes or enhance protections against future hurricanes.

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Artificial intelligence may soon help transportation agencies and first responders determine the best evacuation routes during floods such as those affecting portions of Missouri and the Midwest, thanks to the work of researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Drs. Suzanna Long and Steve Corns of Missouri S&T’s engineering management and systems engineering department are using a form of AI known as deep learning to develop forecasting tools to integrate water level rate of change as part of evacuation routing planning in flood-prone areas.

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Cornell University postdoctoral researcher Kevin Reath has merged 17 years of satellite data on volcanoes with ground-based detail to form a model for state-of-the-art volcanic eruption prediction.

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The devastation of the Peruvian floods of March 2017 caused native and University of Oklahoma Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor, Salazar-Cerreno, to look for ways to apply his expertise to help improve weather decision making and warnings.

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For the fourth year in a row, the United States has ranked 15th in the University of Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Country Index.

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False alarm text message made residents of Hawaii check what others were doing to verify risk

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Funded by FEMA, the three-year project will allow Matt Crawford, a landslide researcher, to work with local officials in eastern Kentucky to adopt strategies for reducing landslide risks to infrastructure and improving response for landslide events.

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Florida State researchers have been awarded $8 million to restore Apalachicola Bay and revive the region's imperiled oyster industry thanks to money the state recovered from the BP oil spill.

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“Canada to Key West,” a 2,350-mile walk to raise awareness about the impact of increasingly frequent extreme weather events will start on June 21, 2019, the day of the summer solstice.

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A first-of-its-kind study on Twitter use during 5 of the costliest U.S. natural disasters offers potentially life-saving insights. The research, in PLOS ONE, finds that Twitter users with small networks (100-200 followers) increase activity more than those with larger networks in these situations. It also finds that each disaster type (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods) has a unique pattern of social media use.

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HARC released a special report today for public and private sector leaders that addresses how to fund critical infrastructure required to maintain the safety and well-being of cities and communities. The Green Paper is entitled “Funding Resilience in the Greater Houston Region: Synopsis from a Public-Private Sector Workshop.”

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Hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease rose precipitously in Orleans and Jefferson parishes after Hurricane Katrina. The increase in rates lasted for more than one month after landfall and rates were higher among the older black population, compared to the older white population.

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Brookhaven Lab recently deployed a mobile atmospheric laboratory in urban and coastal areas to improve microclimate forecasting.

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An earthquake and subsequent tsunami led to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan in 2011. This observational study examined associations between the earthquake and power plant disaster with birth rates in Fukushima City, the capital of the prefecture.

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Around 56 million years ago, global temperatures spiked. Researchers at Uppsala University and in the UK now show that a major explosive eruption from the Red Hills on the Isle of Skye may have been a contributing factor to the massive climate disturbance. Their findings have been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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The Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), the world’s leading authority on risk and risk analysis, will host the Fifth World Congress on Risk, in partnership with the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC).

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The federal response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma was faster and more generous than the help sent to Puerto Rico in preparation and in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, according to University of Michigan researchers

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In April 2015, Nepal - and especially the region around the capital city, Kathmandu - was struck by a powerful tremor. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 destroyed entire villages, traffic routes and cultural monuments, with a death toll of some 9,000.

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A Mississippi State civil engineering faculty member who researches resilience against extreme events and natural hazards is responding to lessons learned from California’s deadly Camp Fire by outlining how to utilize the power of data to improve disaster response and minimize economic loss and human harm in similar events.

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Saint Louis University has established a new relationship with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) that will allow the organizations to collaborate on geospatial research, training, and innovation initiatives.

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Founded by the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, the Cascadia Lifelines Program seeks solutions to improve the performance of critical infrastructure during earthquakes. Through the program, Oregon State graduate student Vishvas Chalishazar is working with PGE to preemptively make local power grids more resilient.

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The recent eruption of Anak Krakatau – which means “son of Krakatau” – is providing URI researchers Stephan Grilli and Steven Carey with a new opportunity to gain additional insights and create models that they hope will help the United States better prepare for future tsunamis.

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See expert analysis and research from our members related to natural disasters

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Climate change could have devastating effects on vulnerable residents in the Andes mountains and the Tibetan plateau, according to researchers at The Ohio State University who have been studying glaciers in those areas for decades. Their findings—that glaciers in both parts of the world are melting more rapidly than at any point in the last 10,000 years—mean the water supply in parts of Peru, Pakistan, China, India and Nepal will decline, soon.

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Wichita State University nursing instructor Richard Nold spent two weeks in North Carolina providing medical assistance to victims of Hurricane Florence. He describes the experience as tough but rewarding.

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A study of hurricane-hit areas of the United States has revealed a trend of larger homes being built to replace smaller ones in the years following a storm.

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The most equitable recoveries following a natural disaster where in places that saw an increase in organizations that have a broad, crosscutting presence. In order to encourage a wide economic recovery, communities should think about activating advocacy organizations, such as environmental groups, political organizations and human-rights groups.

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A dormant volcano in Antarctica helped researchers at Sandia National Laboratories improve sensor data readings to better detect earthquakes and explosions and tune out everyday sounds such as traffic and footsteps. Finding the ideal settings for each sensor in a network to detect vibrations in the ground, or seismic activity, can be a painstaking and manual process. Researchers at Sandia are working to change that by using software that automatically adjusts the seismic activity detection levels for each sensor. Sandia tested the new software with seismic data from the Mt. Erebus volcano in Antarctica and achieved 18 percent fewer false detections and 11 percent fewer missed detections than the original performance of the sensors on Mt. Erebus.

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Increased rainfall from climate change is making the ocean less salty. The areas with the biggest decreases in salinity also experienced increasingly strong storms.

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Several Panhandle counties are facing similar circumstances to that found in Jackson County, said Judy Biss, director of UF/IFAS Extension Calhoun County.

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A disaster researcher at Iowa State University is examining how the tornado that hit Marshalltown this summer affected housing and different types of households – particularly immigrant households and renters – in order to understand what can be done in the future to address disaster recovery needs in the United States.

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While temperatures in the tropical forests of northeastern Puerto Rico have climbed two degrees Celsius since the mid-1970s, the biomass of arthropods – invertebrate animals such as insects, millipedes, and sowbugs – has declined by as much as 60-fold, according to new findings published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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