Tsunami Landslide Storm

Tsunami Landslide Storm

Friday, January 16, 2015

Making sure neighbors and community members are safe - one way CERT teams can help

CERT teams have many functions. One is residential and community checks, making sure neighbors and family members are safe and well following disasters.


CERT team members entering a building for a check

CERT team members searching in the dark, hazy room with lights

CERT team members radio results of a search back into the command

CERT team members clearing overturned furniture to search for residents

CERT team members checking for residents safety following an earthquake



Sounds helpful, right? If you'd like to get involved in assisting your community, jump right in - Monterey County CERT teams are always looking for new members!

To find your local team, or for more info on CERT programs, please visit FEMA's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) page.




Thursday, January 15, 2015

This week's "Drought Update", along with an outlook through April

This week's Drought Monitor keeps all of Monterey County in the Extreme and Exceptional Drought categories (the two highest of the five). The drought across the state has generally worsened over the past three years. The one bright spot for our region is the drought category went from D3 (extreme) down to D2 (severe) for an area stretching from Northern San Mateo County up through Marin County. 


California's version of the US Drought Monitor

Drought conditions have gotten progressively worse since 2012; There is no extreme or exceptional drought coloring in 2012 and nearly all of the state is severe drought status or worse in 2015


In addition, the latest forecast out to the end of the month keeps substantial rainfall well outside of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Region. It is possible that we will see a few chances for light rain or showers in the next two weeks, although all expectations are for light amounts.




The longer range outlook for February shows an equal chance for above normal, near normal, or below normal precipitation. The 90 day outlook for February through April shows equal chances for above normal, near normal, or below normal rainfall for most of our area.  Only Monterey and San Benito Counties are favoring above normal rainfall.

If you haven't already, you can also visit www.co.monterey.ca.us/drought for more on the California Drought in Monterey County.



Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Cigarettes are Causing Fewer Wildfires, but Why?

(Via USFS)

Cigarettes are Causing Fewer Wildfires, but Why?

The number of wildfires caused by cigarettes declined sharply over recent years, although most wildfires are still – whether accidentally or intentionally – caused by people.
The number of wildfires caused by cigarettes has fallen drastically. “Since 1980, smoking-caused wildfires fell by 90 percent,” says U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientist Jeffrey Prestemon. “Until recently, little has been known about why, and other causes of wildfire have not experienced this level of decline.”
Prestemon, project leader of the SRS Forest Economics and Policy unit, recently coauthored a modeling study on smoking-caused wildfires. The study was led by David Butry, an economist at theNational Institute of Standards and Technology, and published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. The scientists evaluated three possible reasons for the decline in smoking-caused wildfires: national requirements for less fire-prone cigarettes, better methods of identifying the causes of wildfires, and a decline in the number of smokers.
“We found that 10 percent of the decline – a small but meaningful factor – is because fewer people smoke,” says Prestemon. Since the 1980s, the number of adults who smoke cigarettes has fallen from 33 percent to 19 percent, and teen smoking rates have fallen as well.
Starting in 2004, states began requiring cigarettes to be self-extinguishing, so less prone to cause fires. The advent of self-extinguishing cigarettes led to a 23 percent decrease in the number of cigarette-caused wildfires. “The size of this effect was surprising,” says Butry. “Less fire-prone cigarettes were designed to reduce smoking fatalities in homes, but clearly they have had other, unexpected benefits.”
Billions of cigarettes are discarded outdoors each year, and before the widespread use of less fire-prone cigarettes, they were more likely to smolder, sometimes igniting nearby vegetation. Under laboratory conditions, less fire-prone cigarettes self-extinguish over 75 percent of the time. When discarded by roadsides or outdoors, they usually do not continue to burn, although scientists are not sure how many discarded cigarettes self-extinguish. Nevertheless, the likelihood of a discarded cigarette starting a wildfire has always been small compared to other causes of wildfire.
The most significant reason for the decline is that investigators now have better ways to tell how a wildfire began. “As many as half of wildfires once considered smoking-caused were actually started by something else,” says Prestemon. And while understanding the causes of wildfire ignition does not reduce the actual number of fires, there are other benefits.  “Better investigations and fire classification mean that wildfire prevention specialists can better target their messages at the causes most likely to yield the biggest gains in preventing unwanted fires on our public and private lands,” says Prestemon.
The cumulative impacts from reduced smoking, less fire-prone cigarettes, and improved fire investigation methods include economic benefits. Across national forests and grasslands of the 12 states studied (which included Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas), $3.5 million in fire-fighting and rebuilding costs were avoided due to the decline in smoking-caused wildfires. “We contend that these benefits are accruing nationwide, not just in the public lands of states analyzed in our study,” says Prestemon.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

FEMA Introduces New Data Visualization Tool


3,305 Federally declared disasters since 1953


As part of the commitment to increasing the transparency and accessibility of data, FEMA introduced a new interactive tool to allow the public to explore currently available FEMA grant data. The tool, available at www.fema.gov/data-visualization, allows the public to see a visual representation of the agency's federal grant data as it relates to fire, preparedness, mitigation and public assistance. The tool also visualizes disaster declarations by state, hazard and county.


The tool is in BETA because FEMA is seeking comments on how it can be improved, so comments and suggestions are welcome. FEMA will continue to add data and update the visual based on feedback in the coming months.

‘Community Paramedicine’ Programs Define New Role for Paramedics as Mobile Caregivers

Programs proliferating around the country treat patients who would otherwise end up in an emergency room.


Paramedics’ traditional role is to rush to the aid of an accident victim or someone in need of urgent care and sometimes transport to a hospital. 

That role has changed for some as communities embark on new ways to deliver health care. Whether it’s called “community paramedicine” like the program in Montgomery County, Texas, or “mobile integrated health care,” a program in Harris County, Texas, some paramedics around the country are seeing themselves increasingly as longer-term caregivers, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.  

Teams of paramedics in programs like the two mentioned above aid patients who frequently find themselves in an emergency room when in-home care may be better for all involved. In these programs, groups of “adaptable” paramedics ensure the needs of ill patients who may otherwise end up calling 911. 

For example, a 77-year-old man was being tended to weekly by a team of two paramedics who helped him sort through about 10 different types of medicine for various ailments and took the man to the doctor when they thought it was necessary. It’s a far different call than the traditional 15 minutes with a patient. 

It’s an alternative to 911 services as health-care organizations seek ways to reduce reliance on the emergency response system, which is so costly. The traditional response system is great for those suffering from trauma, heart attacks and strokes but some patients need other options. 

There are about 230 community paramedicine programs in the country, according to Matt Zavadsky, a spokesman for MedStar in Fort Worth, Texas, one of the early paramedicine program adopters. He said there were just three such programs in the country when Fort Worth started its program in 2009. 

Patients in the programs receive more intimate care, rather than being treated by several different doctors in an emergency room and thus have better outcomes. That’s what is driving the proliferation of the programs. Also factoring in is the Affordable Care Act because it penalizes hospitals for readmissions. 

The programs benefit patients who struggle to read or have little education and can’t understand medical instructions when they get home from the hospital. Some are uninsured and their only means of getting care is calling 911. The 77-year-old man would repeatedly end up in the emergency room after fainting because of low blood sugar from not taking his insulin. The paramedicine team saved him the trips. 

(via Emergency Management, http://www.emergencymgmt.com/health/Community-Paramedicine-Programs-Paramedics-Mobile-Caregivers.html)

Friday, January 2, 2015

Cold temps and Freeze Warning continue through Saturday morning



Overview
Although a slight moderation of temperatures is expected tonight, conditions will be colder than normal across the entire San Francisco and Monterey Bay Region tonight into Saturday morning. Many interior locations will drop to near freezing or even below freezing for a period of time. Temperatures will continue to moderate into next week.

Freeze Warning and Frost Advisory in effect for Friday night into Saturday morning

Map showing morning lows in the 30s and 40s in Monterey County



CONFIDENCE

·  High: Low temperatures tonight

UPDATED INFORMATION

·  This is the first issuance of this product for Friday Night into Saturday Morning.

TIMING

·  Temperatures will drop to near or below freezing after midnight tonight with the coldest temperatures in the hours around sunrise. 

LOCATIONS

·  Coldest temperatures tonight will be in the interior valleys, with lows in the 20s to mid 30s. 
·  Temperatures tonight along the immediate Pacific coastline will remain in the upper 30s to lower 40s degrees. 

·  URBAN AREA DETAILS TONIGHT

o Lows of 42 to 45 degrees in San Francisco. 
o Lows 33-38 degrees tonight in Oakland and San Jose.

IMPACTS

*Hazards:

·  Freeze Warning in Effect Tonight for the North Bay, the East Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains plus the Salinas Valley, Santa Lucia and Interior Monterey County, and San Benito County: http://1.usa.gov/1Brj7DO
·  Frost Advisory in Effect for Urban Bay Shore areas plus the Santa Clara Valley: http://1.usa.gov/1AjmKwh
·  NO advisory in effect for San Francisco or Pacific coast.
·  See All Advisories and Warnings here: http://1.usa.gov/1boSTTW

*Impact 1 (Cold Temperatures) :

·  Low temperatures can be dangerous for vulnerable and at-risk populations in major urban areas. 
·  Cold temperatures can damage sensitive vegetation and crops. 
·  Pets and livestock can be at risk for stress from cold temperatures. 

NWS will continue to provide email updates if the forecast changes.

Monitor NWS Monterey Facebook and Twitter for further updates.