by Charlie Edwards | Oct 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
Every year, between October and February the Santa Ana winds flow down the valleys and canyons of California picking up speed. As the winds increase so does the likelihood of fire. Electrical/power lines have caused four out of 20 of the worst fires in Californian history. Fires like the Sesnon fire which is, by all accounts now 100% contained, happen with tragic regularity, they are almost predictable but the system still doesn’t seem to be able to respond to such seasonal regularity, until recently:
It wasn’t until last year’s siege of flames that regulators and lawmakers began seriously considering a coordinated response to the problem. A 2001 report (pdf) by state fire officials and utilities called for greater information sharing and a database containing tree inventories and historic fire hazard zones, yet it was never developed.
Complicating matters is that there’s no single agency in charge of regulating power lines or enforcing fire codes. The line that caused the Sesnon fire is owned by Southern California Gas Co. — which isn’t an electrical utility, so its lines aren’t regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, and PUC rules that govern brush clearance and other precautions don’t apply. It’s unclear whether any government agency had oversight over the line.
Not that government regulations guarantee safety. A PUC report released last month on the 2007 San Diego County blazes found that San Diego Gas & Electric violated regulations for safety and maintenance on lines that caused the devastating Witch and Rice fires. It also concluded that the Guejito fire was caused by a Cox Communications wire that came into contact with an SDG&E conductor during strong Santa Ana winds; Cox, too, was deemed in violation of state rules. The findings have yet to be confirmed by the PUC board, which also must decide whether to fine those responsible.
Most troubling of all: The PUC’s Consumer Protection and Safety Division found that there are other power poles in San Diego County with broken communication wires similar to the one that caused the Guejito fire. More strong Santa Ana winds are expected to gust through the area in coming weeks. Sleep well, San Diego.
So why has this problem been ignored for so long?
The best solution — burying the lines — is so expensive as to be wildly impractical, costing an estimated $1 million a mile. But there are other responses. State lawmakers could start by demanding the creation of the fire database that was recommended in 2001. It’s also outrageous that owners of private power lines like the one that sparked the Sesnon fire are being left unmonitored.
Not all is lost however. There have been some brilliant innovations. Like the following from the LA Fire Department. Yup, you’ve guessed it – using social media: In complex emergencies – feedback is key – and using social media is a fantastic way of getting it quickly – so have a look at some of the comments.
by David Steven | Oct 10, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Influence and networks
I’m just back from RUSI, where I spoke about the future of resilience. Full text is below the jump, or you can download the PDF.
The talk complements one from April, at RUSI’s Critical National Infrastructure conference. Alex and I also have a paper on the subject in a future edition of Renewal.
Brief pitch: in turbulent times, we need to build on the work done by emergency planners, and take a broader look at how to make global, national and local systems more resilient to risk. (more…)
by Charlie Edwards | Oct 9, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, Off topic
I’ve just spent a day and half at a RUSI conference on resilience. Most of the sessions included some discussion about communication; either there still wasn’t much of it going on between key organisations or institutions were not making enough of new social media services in their effort to share information, collaborate and provide up-to-date briefs on unfolding emergencies. Twitter, is one of those new social media services – in a nutshell it’s a social networking and micro-blogging services. As far as I could tell David and I were the only people using Twitter during the conference (unlike the recent ODNI conference David went to, for example).
For those interested, here’s a short video explaining the power of twitter.
by David Steven | Oct 9, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
Climate change policy is bedevilled by two ugly terms: mitigation and adaptation.
(For those who have managed to avoid this jargon, forget the dictionary definitions. The first is used to mean any response that aims to cut carbon; the second, any response that aims to help people cope with a changing climate).
But there’s a big problem with adaptation, once it’s practiced in the real world.
The UK government (through UKCIP) provides an ‘adaptation wizard‘ that is designed to “help determine your vulnerability to climate change, identify your key climate risks, and enable you to develop a climate change adaptation strategy.”
One of its guiding principles is to “identify key climate risks and opportunities and focus on actions to manage these.” Decision makers are enjoined to consider the potential impact of a changing climate on all the major decisions they make.
But this is where it gets difficult. If you’re making a major and long-term investment today, you may have exposure to rising sea levels and temperatures, or growing numbers of extreme weather events.
But none of these are likely to be your greatest source of climate-related vulnerability.
By far your greatest risk will be your exposure to the vagaries of climate policy. The UK is currently committed to a 60% emissions reduction by 2050; 26% by 2020 (all against a 1990 baseline). It seems likely that more stringent targets will have to be taken on (80% by 2050).
This, of course, means that we are in for a complete social and economic revolution – massive changes in the way we live, work and use energy. But no-one knows how this will happen, or how quickly.
So it makes no sense at all to pretend that adaptation is solely, or even mostly, about responding to the vagaries of future weather conditions. But that’s what we do when we shove adaptation and mitigation into different silos.
Resilience, as I argued in a talk at RUSI yesterday (to be published here in the next 24 hours), is about the ability to ‘reorganise while undergoing change.’ If we don’t have shared awareness of the nature of the changes to come, then the chances that we’ll reorganise in the right way must, surely, be minimal.
by David Steven | Oct 8, 2008 | Conflict and security
Michael Brown is speaking on resilience here at RUSI – it’s the first time he’s spoken outside the US about the Katrina debacle.
From his conference biog, “During Mr Brown’s tenure, he led FEMA through its greatest period of activity in its 26 year history.” It’s the only mention of his ignominious firing…
- He starts with war stories about Oklahoma, 9/11, 7/7 etc. Tough to communicate under pressure – as responders suck up bandwidth, resources aren’t where they need to be, and lines of communication are not clear.
- He spent days thumbing through the Pitt Review – “amazed and fascinated”. Problems are all identified. “I challenge you not just in the UK, but in the rest of the EU, but not just to study it, but to implement it.”
- Heard about technology, processes, standards etc – but he’s heard no discussion of citizens and media. “If you don’t think citizens and media are involved in every single disaster, I don’t know what you’re smoking.”
- Media will make or break your response to your disaster. If they understand what is going on, they will deliberately undermine the rescue attempt. Media must therefore be educated beforehand. “If media are not an integral part of resilience, you have no resilience.”
- Talks about his personal resilience. Response was not good. Family told him to turn his television off – to avoid the publicity, as we the butt of all jokes.
- Could not convince Mayor of New Orleans to do a mandatory evacuation (had to be done 72 hours in advance), even after call from President.
- Role of citizens is vital. What do you do when you have citizens who can’t or won’t evacuate? If you fail to educate people about risk, then a response becomes hugely more difficult.
- It is possible to educate the public about risks – but at the moment too many people believe they can use their cell phones, cash cards, microwaves when it all goes wrong.
- Tells story of expert assessors taking fire extinguishers out of the Avon Building (in the UK I think), because residents were not trained to use them. Derides stripping out individual initiative.
- ‘Lesson observed’ from Katrina: explain the risk better to citizens and then make sure people can get out.
- But that’s not the same as a ‘lesson learned’. For Ike, the message was “if you do not leave, you suffer certain death.” What does that do for the credibility of first responders? And, in case, over 15,000 people ignored the warning, and only 15 people died. “We’ve been through worse.” “The government always lies to us.”
- He describes himself as ‘the guy who the media dragged through the mud, and now puts on a pedestal.” Is that right?
- Urges the audience to become personal ambassadors for resilience out in their communities. “Be passionate… convince the media and the citizens that they have a role to play too.”
- And that’s it. Questions off the record unfortunately.
Update: It’s hard to sum up Michael Brown’s performance. He’s an oddly compelling speaker, and interesting when he speaks about the role of the media and the responsibilities of citizens in a disaster.
But his main purpose in coming to the UK seems to be to speak in defence of Michael Brown – a man he claims was victimised by the media, but is now placed on a ‘pedestal’ for his disaster management expertise.
Listening to ‘Heckuva Job’, you’d think that Katrina had only one victim: the man who Bush backed and then sacked – and who became emblematic of Republican incompetence.
