Sesame Street explains the hurricane to kids in an episode originally created for Hurricane Katrina and set to air again this weekend in the aftermath of Sandy.
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From the things-we-wish-we-knew-about-before-Sandy department: Hand-crank-powered USB charger, with bonus points for the sleek design.
I STILL LOVE NY, a clever and wonderful take on the iconic Milton Glaser logo celebrating hurricane recovery, with 100% of proceeds going towards Sandy relief.
(↬ Swiss Miss)
In disaster situations like this, by far the most important aspect of the operation is organization and delineation of duty. This takes leadership. And grassroots, spontaneous operations like the ones we saw today, although they mean well, need clear leadership. It’s less about available resources and people, and more about operationalizing the help to deliver the right services and goods to the right people at the right time.
Jay Parkinson shares insights on leadership in emergency after visiting the Sandy-devastated Rockaways. The situation there is dire – here’s how you can help, wherever you are.
It is generally accepted among environmental geographers that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. In every phase and aspect of a disaster – causes, vulnerability, preparedness, results and response, and reconstruction – the contours of disaster and the difference between who lives and who dies is to a greater or lesser extent a social calculus.
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The denial of the naturalness of disasters is in no way a denial of natural process. Earthquakes, tsunamis, blizzards, droughts and hurricanes are certainly events of nature that require a knowledge of geophysics, physical geography or climatology to comprehend. Whether a natural event is a disaster or not depends ultimately, however, on its location.
There’s No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster – fantastic 2006 essay written by Neil Smith in the wake of Katrina, all the more relevant today as we contemplate the aftermath of Sandy.
On this day in 1906, the twentieth century’s most infamous earthquake and fire struck San Francisco. This is a compilation of rare footage capturing the devastation and its aftermath. HistoryPin also has a collection of archival images.
