by admin | Oct 8, 2021 | Books, Chicago, Climate, Disaster, Geography, Hazard Mitigation, History, Journalism, Natural Hazards, Public safety, Resilience, Science, Weather, Wildfire
Back on August 11, during a family vacation that involved circumnavigating the shores of Lake Michigan, my wife and I and two grandsons visited the small town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and spent an afternoon at the Peshtigo Fire Museum. It is housed in a former church...
by admin | May 12, 2021 | Activism, Disaster, Disaster policy, Hazard Mitigation, Natural Hazards, Public safety, Wildfire
It is evident with each increasingly serious and increasingly long wildfire season in the West and South that American still has serious public policy work to do in confronting this hazard. Recently, the National Fire Protection Association unveiled its new policy...
by admin | Sep 20, 2020 | Activism, Art, Climate, Coronavirus, History, Literature, Politics, Racism, Wildfire, Writing
I might have thought by now you would have found the exit from the hall of mirrors. But no. You are mesmerized by its dreamy distortions, imprisoned by its illusions. Perception arises from wave lengths and shadows, reflections against a shifting surface. Tall becomes...
by admin | Aug 20, 2020 | Climate, Coastal Management, Disaster policy, Earthquake, Emergency Management, Environment, Floodplain management, Government, Infrastructure, Natural Hazards, Nature, Public policy, Resilience, Wildfire
One of the long-standing questions concerning national disaster policy is why a state or community needs to suffer a presidentially declared disaster in order to be eligible for federal hazard mitigation grants to help improve its resilience against storms, floods,...
by admin | Dec 2, 2019 | Climate, Disaster, Disaster policy, Economics, Environment, Floodplain management, Natural Hazards, Parks, Politics, Public policy, Public safety, Resilience, Water, Wildfire
Warning to readers: This is not my usual single-focus essay. It is a collage of news from two coastal states with an assortment of serious natural hazards challenges—Florida and California. In recent years, their politics has tended to diverge widely, but perhaps we...
by admin | Nov 29, 2018 | Books, Climate, Disaster, Disaster policy, Emergency Management, Geography, Natural Hazards, Public health, Public safety, Weather, Wildfire
Summarizing the major points from a densely factual book like Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future, by Edward Struzik (Island Press, 2018), is about as challenging as understanding precisely what is happening in the midst of a rapidly moving massive...
