Tag Archives: complex emergencies
Unplugged
For a few weeks, I have left British Columbia and visiting my home state of South Carolina. Along with reconnecting with family, I am checking on two properties in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina that have been in our family for decades: our family’s vacation cabin and my cabin, to which I hope […]
The Power is Off!
The electricity is off today at the farm. Only for the day and due to a couple of power pole replacements on our rural road. This is not an emergency, but only an inconvenience. But it is a reminder of the incredible dependency we have for this energy source. There are all the lights, cooking, […]
Help! My car isn’t starting!
The other day, my trusty dusty Honda SUV suddenly wouldn’t start. Actually, it wasn’t so sudden, because it had been making a grinding noise for several weeks. Then, it simply locked up. I was stuck, with having to park on a slope and push it for several days, until time allowed to install a new […]
The latest potential bio-terrorist weapon
I live in Canada, and perhaps like your location, ours a privileged society. Like most of the developed world, we have incredible freedoms. However, our liberal culture also has its dark side. Living in Victoria, British Columbia, are a disproportionate number of disenfranchised people — unemployed or under employed, disabled, and/or addicted. I used to […]
A Brief Observation of Development
Although I now focus primarily on emergency mitigation and preparedness, I ‘backed into’ working in disaster settings while serving overseas as a volunteer in ‘rural development’. This was following a couple of degrees in agriculture, both teaching it in high school after a Batchelor’s at Clemson, and co-oping as an irrigation engineer while finishing a Masters […]
The Great Foreign Aid Debate
You may recall that I’ve worked in a dozen developing countries. During that time, I witnessed the complex world of foreign aid. In fact, my very presence in Africa or Asia was a form of ‘foreign aid.’ Now that’s a bit scary! On one level, we applaud aid as an attempt to relief suffering and […]
What a Traffic Jam…A Livestock Rollover Accident!
All of us have seen auto accidents, and many of us have been involved in a collision – hopefully nothing more than a fender bender. However, we know that some accidents are a tragic — involving police, ambulances, lane closures, and tying up traffic for hours. Although not very common, an example of this is […]
2014: The Year in Review
A popular media segment at the end of every year is ‘most important news’, especially on radio, which is my favorite means of receiving news clips. I thought I’d look back at some of worthwhile stories (i.e., those beyond the local politics and teapot tempests of Vancouver Island, BC) Although I am a huge advocate […]
Human-induced Disasters
When a natural disaster occurs, the story is splashed for days in the media. As reporters say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” However, in a random walk through human history, by far the most devastating disasters have been ‘human-induced’. We used to call them ‘man-made’. In other words, caused by us humans. Countless people have […]
Drought – The Silent Disaster
A drought is an extended period of deficiency in water — either surface or underground. Drought is a normal, recurrent feature or climate. It occurs almost everywhere, although the features vary, depending on location. Defining drought is therefore difficult. It depends on differences in regions, needs, and perspective. A lack of water in Vietnam is […]
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