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Click below for details on these current job announcements.
As of December 2019 / January 2020:
Two-Year_Post-Doctoral_Fellowship-Oregon State University(Fall-2020) – Apply by: March 1, 2020
Two-Year Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship in Environmental Studies – The College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA – Deadline: January 18, 2020
Assistant Professor – Urban Fish and Wildlife Conservation – Virginia Tech – Deadline: January 24, 2020
Click here to view the 2020 National Earthquake Conference Announcement as a PDF.
Advancing State Earthquake Programs to Reduce Seismic Risk and Save Lives
March 4-6 in San Diego, California
Click here to register today and take advantage of the early-bird rate
The NEC is a quadrennial event providing a unique opportunity for engagement and sharing amongst academia, building code experts, engineers, businesses, design/build professionals, FEMA Directorates, first responders, geologists, local emergency managers, insurance and reinsurance professionals, local and tribal governments, private sector practitioners, U.S. State and Territorial Earthquake Managers, NEHRP Agencies, and volunteers.
Click here to view the 2020 at-a-glance schedule, here to view the 2016 NEC conference outcomes, and here to read the 2016 media impact report.
Sponsorship opportunities are still available! Join Presenting Sponsor California Earthquake Authority, Visionary Sponsors Computers & Structures, and Kinemetrics, Strategic Sponsor International Code Council, and Tabletop Sponsors Applied Technology Council, BRACELOK, Cal OES, FEMA, Maurer USA, Nanometrics, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Quake Kare/Emergency Ready by clicking here.
The Resilient Nation Roundup – Call for Content
The Resilient Nation Partnership Network is currently accepting content for its partner outreach newsletter, “The Resilient Nation Roundup.”
The newsletter is designed to provide an opportunity for partners and FEMA to highlight recent initiatives, news, updates, and events centered on resilience. If you or your organization would like to submit content, please email it to Sam Tatham (Samuel.tatham@ogilvy.com) by 10 a.m. on Friday, January 17.
Submission guidelines:
Thank you to all of the partners who submitted content for our previous issue, which featured updates and articles from The Environmental and Energy Study Institute, The Union of Concerned Scientists, The International Code Council, and more.
Best,
The RNPN Team
Click here to view CREATE Resilience Webinar Series January/February 2020 as a PDF.
Register for the webinars by e-mailing: ksemmens@nurturenature.org
CREATE Resilience will be hosting two educational webinars (see flyer for full details). The first is on January 21 and is an introduction to the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit and Climate Explorer with LuAnn Dahlman, 4 – 5:30 p.m. ET. The second is on February 18, and is on the role of the American Society of Civil Engineers in Hazard Mitigation, with David Wieller, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
CREATE Resilience will host an in-person presentation also from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on March 5 with Lafayette Professor and CREATE advisor David Brandes, who will talk about flash floods, development in floodplains, and precipitation changes.
The next large public events will be creative hazard mapping + preparedness events that CREATE Resilience will host in Bangor and Easton/Wilson. These will be held on May 7 (Easton/Wilson) and 14 (Bangor) and will invite residents to engage in a hands-on mapping activity to identify hazard spots and link mitigation strategies back to community needs. These maps will help inform the Visions of Resilience created by the artists starting in the fall of this year.
CREATE Resilience will also be scheduling a resiliency tour in May for the students, which will feature various locations where mitigation strategies have helped alleviate hazards. The students will research places that we can visit, but we also would love to hear any suggestions you may have and will plan to have speakers at each stop so that the students can learn more about each project.
On June 16 from 10:30 to 12:30 p.m. CREATE Resilience advisors will host an in-person meeting, during which they will engage with local municipal leaders to review the mitigation strategies they have identified in Year Two, to find out how they see these approaches as fitting their needs. CREATE Resilience will use this meeting to update the advisory team and municipal partners alike on the project’s progress and next steps, as well as plan for the discussion forums in each community.
In September, CREATE Resilience will host forums in each of their communities to conclude this year’s review of mitigation strategies. They will seek suggestions from for speakers and content for this forum during their meeting on June 16.
Click here to view Building Science Releases FEMA P-2055 as a PDF.
Building Science Releases FEMA P-2055: Post-disaster Building Safety Evaluation Guide
FEMA Building Science Branch has released FEMA P-2055: Post-disaster Building Safety Evaluation Guidance, Report on the Current State of Practice including Recommendations Related to Structural and Nonstructural Safety and Habitability.
This Guide was developed as required by the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, Section 1241: Post-disaster Building Safety Assessment and targets three main stakeholder groups.
FEMA P-2055 summarizes and references best practice guideline documents, identifies recommended improvements and needs, and provides interim recommendations for issues without best practice guidance. It also offers considerations for program planning prior to an incident and program management and implementation after an incident, including a primer for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments that have the authority to set standards or policy related to the implementation of post-disaster building evaluations for safety and habitability.
The Guide covers earthquakes; hurricanes; floods; tornadoes; tsunamis; landslides and other land instabilities; volcanoes; snow, hail, and ice storms, fire; and explosions. It can be a reference for any post-incident evaluation process and is not limited by scale or official declaration of a disaster.
As shown above, this Guide covers a very specific need to identify which buildings are safe or unsafe to occupy after an incident. This evaluation helps reduce the overwhelming sheltering demands a community may face when impacted by a catastrophic disaster. The concept of shelters or sheltering, before, during and after disasters are subjects that FEMA, and the emergency management community as a whole, have and will continue to be actively engaged in as the work to Build a Culture of Preparedness and Ready the Nation for Catastrophic Disasters continues.
Post-disaster building safety evaluations have traditionally focused on the key question being whether any building damage has made the building sufficiently less safe than it was before the damage to warrant limitations being placed on occupancy. This evaluation most commonly results in the placarding of buildings as Inspected, Restricted Use, and Unsafe.
To download FEMA P-2055 click here.
For more information of FEMA Building Science Branch click here
Click here to view FEMA Building Science Releases P-2054 as a PDF.
FEMA Building Science releases P-2054, Mitigation Assessment Team Compendium Report
FEMA’s Building Science Branch is pleased to announce that FEMA P-2054, Mitigation Assessment Team Compendium Report: 2017 Hurricane Season, is now available online at https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/184600. To assess the impacts of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria on the built environment, FEMA’s Building Science Branch deployed Mitigation Assessment Teams (MATs) to Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI), Puerto Rico, and Florida. This Compendium Report summarizes the observations, conclusions, and recommendations from the four MAT reports developed for the 2017 hurricane season:
To learn more about FEMA’s Mitigation Assessment Team Program, click here.
To learn more about FEMA’s Building Science Branch, visit our website.
Contact the Building Science helpline at FEMA-BuildingScienceHelp@fema.dhs.gov or 866-927-2104.
Click here to view FEMA Releases Additional $50 Million in Funds for 2019 Mitigation Grant as a PDF.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs Division
Intergovernmental Affairs Branch
Telephone: 202-646-3444
FEMA Releases Inaugural DRRA Implementation Report
November 25, 2019
On Oct. 30, FEMA released the first annual report on Agency implementation of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 (DRRA). This report provides an overview of the DRRA, highlights how FEMA’s strategic goals align to the act, and describes FEMA implementation efforts and achievements since 2018.
FEMA has already implemented more than half of the provisions identified in the law. As a direct result of this implementation, FEMA expanded support for mitigation, to include provision of $86 million in funding for wildfire mitigation projects to protect nearly 2,500 more properties.
Additionally, FEMA increased the amount of assistance available to individuals following a disaster, providing more than $61 million in additional assistance to over 11,000 individuals, and more than $12 million in additional disaster unemployment assistance to applicants in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. FEMA has also published guidance on the prioritization of assistance during power outages, the identification of evacuation routes, and the coordination of emergency response plans for hazardous materials.
The DRRA contains 56 provisions that require policy or regulation changes that amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to strengthen national capabilities to prepare for, mitigate against, and recover from major disasters. These reforms acknowledge the shared responsibility for disaster response and recovery, aim to reduce the complexity of FEMA, and build the nation’s capacity for the next catastrophic event.
To view the DRRA Annual Report, visit the FEMA website.
If you have any questions, please contact FEMA Intergovernmental Affairs at (202) 646-3444 or at FEMA-IGA@fema.dhs.gov.
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