It’s been nearly three years now since the Cologne Archives building collapsed on March 3, 2009.  Below is a firsthand account of the collapse from Bettina Schmidt-Czaia, director of the municipal depository, who was in the building at the time.  The article is from The Guardian Weekly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/27/germany-cologne

Here’s NOAA’s time-lapse video of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. Although an active season, only two storms, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, had a direct impact on the mainland United States, causing flooding in the Mid-Atlantic and New England. Puerto Rico was spared Lee, but was impacted by Irene and Tropical Storm Emily.

Here are some of the disaster information outlets offered by DIMRC:

The National Library of Medicine(NLM) Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) provides tools & resources around disaster medicine & public health. For daily news bytes, follow DIMRC on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/NLM_DIMRC. If you are looking for a more in-depth review of items, subscribe to the DISASTR-OUTREACH-LIB listserv http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/dimrclistserv.html

You can find a listing of NLM social media tools on the “Follow, Fan and Connect with NLM” page http://www.nlm.nih.gov/socialmedia/index.html

I don’t think of New Mexico as a disaster-prone state, so last week’s FEMA announcement of disaster aid for flash flooding in August caught my attention.   Flash flooding, which is defined as a flood developing within 6 hours, is particularly dangerous in desert areas where there is poorly absorbent, clay-like soil (Wikipedia).  Here’s some raw video of flooding near Cochiti, New Mexico.

This year we are emphasizing the importance of having a 72-hour kit & plan for all library staff who are part of a service continuity team, because without a plan, staff are more likely to be focused on their needs, or their family’s needs, and not be able to take part in assuring that the library’s core resources and services remain available to your community following a disaster.  Earlier this week, I sent a message to our local American Red Cross (ARC) chapter about 72-hour preparedness training opportunities.  Here are some of the ARC resources referred to me by Mike Peoples, Preparedness Officer:

• Community Disaster Education (CDE) courses through any local chapter.  Our CDE training isn’t really based on a pre-disaster count-down as much as the training being centered around working towards being prepared “whenever” a disaster occurs…the training includes discussion of the importance of making a family (or business) communication plan (so that family members have “designated rally points” when something goes wrong – either around the home, community, or wider world.   The training consists of a “series” of topics ranging from generic preparedness to event specific topics such as tornados, spring/winter storms, floods, hurricanes, home fires, wild fires, earthquakes, etc.
• The “home page” for preparedness information can be found by clicking here.
• If there are groups of folks (based on age, location, employment, etc.), someone from that group can contact their local chapter for additional information as well as to set up an actual CDE seminar based on the group’s interest (we’ve done them for businesses, seniors, boy scouts, schools, etc.!)

NOAA has released a new winter precipitation forecast product.  Officially called the HPC Winter Weather Desk, the product creates 24-hour forecasts of snowfall and freezing rain for up to three days in the future.  Click the following URL to view the product: http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf/wwd_accum_probs.php?fpd=24&ptype=snow.

PJ Grier, EP&R liaison at SE/A, sent along this earthquake response guide from the University of Maryland. I think it is very well written, providing all pertinent information on one page.

http://um.umaryland.edu/comm/email/2011/october/earthquake-reference/