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Saturday, October 13, 2018
Hurricane Michael Impact is Catastrophic. Here's How You Can Help. October 2018
FEMA Announces the Release of the New NFIP Flood Insurance Manual. October 2018
October 2018
Subject:
FEMA Announces the Release of the New NFIP Flood Insurance Manual
Today, FEMA released
a new, easy to use Flood Insurance Manual (FIM), which supersedes the previous FIM.
FEMA designed the FIM
with the insurance professional in mind. The newly redesigned manual aims to
make flood insurance issues and NFIP processes more understandable.
There are three
program changes announced in the new manual:
- The expanded Newly
Mapped rating eligibility (effective October 1, 2018), appears in the How
to Write section.
- FEMA added Cancellation
Reason Code 26 to the How to Cancel section of the FIM to allow
cancellation of an NFIP policy when a policyholder has obtained a
duplicate policy from sources other than the NFIP.
- Notification requirements of Preferred Risk Policy
Eligibility for certain cancellation reasons appears in the appropriate
cancellation reasons within the How to Cancel section of the FIM.
Our goal is to
facilitate the understanding of our processes and product from the points of
view of the agent, insurer, and policyholder in order to enhance reliability of
service from insurance professionals to their policyholders.
This new edition of
the FIM does not change flood insurance coverage or supersede the terms and
conditions of the Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP).
The FIM is a resource
for insurance professionals as they work with FEMA to close the insurance gap.
Thank you for your participation in the NFIP and for helping us to provide
world class service to our policyholders.
Together we are
making America more flood resilient and building a culture of preparedness.Friday, October 12, 2018
Let's address this issue head on. Natural disasters widen racial wealth gap
Let’s
address these issues head on
Address not only the wide wealth gap that natural
disasters bring to the forefront, but address the issue of the vulnerable
population and the mental health issues of long-term sheltering, returning individuals
back to their community, addressing the helplessness, and hopelessness
associated with disasters that are not only in the U.S. but globally.
Can social issues: such as homelessness, fear of evacuating
homes in times of known dangers, physical & mental health, land ownership,
and other issues be addressed as we rebuild our communities.
We can make the changes. Not later but now.
Charles D. Sharp
CEO
BEMA International
AMY MCCAIG. AUGUST 20, 2018
Rice U., University of Pittsburgh study also
finds FEMA aid increased inequality
Damage caused by natural disasters and recovery efforts launched in
their aftermaths have increased wealth inequality between races in the United
States, according to new research from Rice University and
the University of Pittsburgh.
“Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impacts of
Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States” will
appear in an upcoming edition of Social Problems.
A supplement to the paper highlights the
wealth gap between whites and blacks attributable to natural disaster damage
from 1999 through 2013 in 20 U.S. counties.
Researchers Junia Howell, a scholar at Rice’s
Kinder Institute for Urban Research and an assistant professor of sociology
at the University of Pittsburgh and Jim Elliott, a professor of sociology at
Rice and fellow at Rice’s Kinder Institute combined longitudinal data from
nearly 3,500 families across the U.S. with governmental data on local natural
disaster damages, Federal Emergency Management Aid (FEMA) and demographics.
They followed these people from 1999 through 2013 as disaster damage of
varying scale struck counties where they lived, and examined how their
personal wealth was impacted.
“Last year the United States suffered more than
$260 billion in direct damages from natural disasters –mainly from hurricanes
Harvey, Irma and Maria,” said Howell, who was the study’s lead author. “And
there were also numerous wildfires, floods and tornadoes. Data show that
since
Supplement highlighting wealth gap between whites and
blacks attributable to natural disaster damage from
1999 through 2013 in 20 U.S. counties.
2000, approximately 99 percent of counties in
the U.S. have experienced significant damage from some type of natural
disaster, with costs expected to increase significantly over coming years. We
wanted to investigate how these damages impact wealth inequality and
accumulation.”
Whites who lived in counties with only $100,000
in damage from 1999 to 2013 gained an average of approximately $26,000 in
wealth. However, those who lived in counties with at least $10 billion in
damage during the same time period gained nearly $126,000, the paper said.
“In other words, whites living in counties
with considerable damage from natural disasters accumulate more wealth than
their white counterparts living in counties without major natural disaster
damage,” Howell said.
However, among blacks, Latinos and Asians, the
results went the other direction. Blacks who lived in counties with just
$100,000 in damage gained an estimated $19,000 in wealth on average, while
those living in counties with at least $10 billion in damage lost an
estimated $27,000. Latinos in counties with $100,000 in damage gained $72,000
on average, and those in areas with at least $10 billion in damage lost an
estimated $29,000. And Asians gained $21,000 on average and lost $10,000,
respectively. These differences occurred even after the researchers
controlled for a wide range of factors including age, education,
homeownership, family status, residential mobility, neighborhood status and
county population.
“Put another way, whites accumulate more wealth
after natural disasters while residents of color accumulate less,” Elliott
said. “What this means is wealth inequality is increasing in counties that
are hit by more disasters.”
The researchers were able to estimate by county
how much of the inequality is attributed to natural disasters. In Harris
County, Texas, the disaster-related increase in the black-white wealth gap,
on average, was $87,000.
The story does not stop there, Howell and
Elliott said. Counties that received more aid from the FEMA saw additional
increases in wealth inequality beyond that attributed to the natural
disasters themselves. For example, whites living in counties that received at
least $900 million in FEMA aid from 1999 to 2013 accumulated $55,000 more
wealth on average than otherwise similar whites living in counties that
received only $1,000 in aid. Conversely, blacks living in counties that
received at least $900 million in FEMA aid accumulated $82,000 less wealth on
average than otherwise similar blacks living in counties that received only
$1,000 in FEMA aid. Similarly, Latinos accumulated $65,000 less on average,
and other races (majority Asians) accumulated $51,000 less.
“It’s unclear why more FEMA aid is exacerbating
inequality,” Howell said. “More research is clearly needed. However, based on
previous work on disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, we know
FEMA aid is not equitably distributed across communities. This is
particularly true when it comes to infrastructural redevelopment, which often
has profound effects on residents’ property appreciation and business
vitality.
When certain areas receive more redevelopment
aid and those neighborhoods also are primarily white, racial inequality is
going to be amplified.”
In addition to exacerbating racial wealth gaps,
the researchers found that after natural disasters wealth inequality also
increases based on home ownership. Individuals who
owned homes in counties that
experienced high levels of natural disaster damage accumulated $72,000 more
wealth on average than their counterparts in counties with few disasters. Renters, on the
other hand, lost $61,000 in wealth on average relative to renters in counties
with few natural disasters.
“Put another way, natural disasters were
responsible for a $133,000 increase in inequality between homeowners and
renters in the hardest hit counties,” Elliott said.
Similarly, college-educated residents
accumulated $111,000 more on average if they lived in a county that
experienced extreme disasters compared to their counterparts who did not live
through disasters. Conversely, those with only a 10th-grade education who
lived in counties that experienced extreme disasters lost $48,000 from
natural disaster damages on average when compared to counterparts who did not
live through disasters.
“In other words, in the counties with the most
damage, natural disasters are responsible for a $159,000 increase in the
educational wealth gap,” Howell said.
Howell and Elliott said the results indicate
that two major social challenges of our age – wealth inequality and rising
costs of natural disasters – are increasingly and dynamically connected. They
hope the research will encourage further examination of wealth inequality in
the U.S. and development of solutions to address the problem.
“The good news is that if we develop more
equitable approaches to disaster recovery, we can not only better tackle that
problem but also help build a more just and resilient society,” Howell and
Elliott concluded.
The researchers are now building on this work
by examining how local for-profit and nonprofit organizations influence
social inequality after natural disaster
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Charles
D. Sharp
Chief
Executive Officer
Black
Emergency Managers Association
International
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1231
Good Hope Road S.E.
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Washington,
D.C. 20020
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Office:
202-618-9097
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bEMA International
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Change without Sacrifice is an Illusion. Lisa Ellis
Thursday, October 11, 2018
POSTPONED..........Wednesday, October 17, 2018 3PM. EMI e-Forum 'Diversity and Inclusion'
POSTPONED 10/11/2018 9:00AM
Postponed due to recovery efforts in Florida from Hurricane Michael, and continued recovery from Hurricane\Storm Florence.
Postponed due to recovery efforts in Florida from Hurricane Michael, and continued recovery from Hurricane\Storm Florence.
Mark your calendar for Wednesday, October 17,
2018 at 3:00PM to listen & participate in the upcoming FEMA EMI e-Forum on ‘Diversity
and Inclusion’.
Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Time: 3:00PM-4:00PM
Moderator(s):
Dr. Hakim B. Allah, MPA, D.M..
Chief, Integrated Emergency Management
Branch
FEMA Emergency Management Institute
Doug Kuhn.
DHS\FEMA EMI. Training Program Manager
Panelist:
Charles
D. Sharp
CEO.
Black Emergency Managers Association International
Chauncia Willis
Emergency Coordinator at City of Tampa.
IAEM Region 4 President.
Curtis Brown
Chief
Deputy State Coordinator,
Virginia
Department of Emergency Management (VDEM)
e-Forum
Call-in and Login Information
EMI e-Forums are 1-hour, moderated, webinar discussion forums
that provide an opportunity for EMI and the emergency management community to
discuss matters of interest on national preparedness training.
EMI e-Forums facilitate a discussion of whole
community-presented best practices.
The panel members are whole community, with topics relevant to whole
community. These exchangesof ideas are
free of charge and available to anyone who wishes to participate.
Date: Topic:
10/17 Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency
Management
10/24 The Advanced
Professional Series (APS) and the States
10/31 Red Cross Emergency
Management Programs
Login link:
Our Adobe
Connect EMI e-Forums (http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect/apps/adobeconnectmobile.html)
are accessible for those on the go.
Conference call-in:
800-320-4330, PIN 107622
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Black Emergency Managers Association
International
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1231 Good Hope Road S.E.
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Washington, D.C. 20020
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Office: 202-618-9097
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bEMA International
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Change without Sacrifice is
an Illusion. Lisa Ellis
After-Actions: Migrant Workers Called 911 During Hurricane Florence. But No One Came To Their Rescue.
These
Migrant Workers Called 911 During Hurricane Florence. But No One Came To
Their Rescue.
The owner of the farm they worked on reportedly told
county officials the workers "had everything they needed."
BuzzFeed News
Reporter
Reporting From
Kinston, North Carolina
Posted on October 1,
2018, at 9:35 p.m. ET
Provided to BuzzFeed
News
Farmworkers in
Kinston, North Carolina, woke up to find their camp flooded on Sept. 15,
2018.
KINSTON, North Carolina — Hours after
Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina last month, battering the
state with heavy rains and flooding, a group of migrant farmworkers woke up
to find themselves in waist-deep water.
Isolated in a migrant labor camp in rural
Jones County, far from the view of paved roads, the workers called 911 and
told emergency officials they needed to be rescued. Then they waited for
hours, watching as their mattresses, refrigerators, and other belongings
floated by in the rising floodwaters.
But unbeknownst to the workers at the time,
a county emergency management team had canceled an effort to extract them,
after the owner of the farm where the men were working called county
officials to say the laborers at the camp were “fine.”
“We were there in the rain and didn’t know
what to do,” a worker who was among those stranded at the camp, and who asked
to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions, told BuzzFeed News.
“The water started coming in, but we hoped
that it would keep flowing and go down,” he said. “Once it got higher than a
meter, we had to get out.”
Located deep in eastern North Carolina's
farming country, Jones County was among the areas hardest hit by Florence.
Bracing for the hurricane's impact, the county had declared a state of
emergency on Sept. 11, four days before Florence made landfall, and ordered
mandatory evacuations for its roughly 10,000 residents.
Men at the camp were told a hurricane was
approaching, the worker told BuzzFeed News, but many of them — including
himself — had never experienced one before. He said he was not aware of any
evacuation order.
Eric Merritt, Jones County’s emergency
management director, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the county received the
workers' 911 calls on the morning of Sept. 15, and said that first
responders, including a swift-water rescue team, were initially dispatched to
the camp in response.
The rescue crews had trouble reaching the
location because of a road that had been blocked off by rising water, Merritt
said. In the meantime, he said, the owner of the farm where the workers were
located contacted the county to say that the group of roughly 35 to 40 men
were fine.
“We contacted a swift-water team, and by
that time the farm owner stated he made contact with [the workers] and they
were fine, that they were just in an isolated area,” Merritt said. “That they
had everything they needed as far as food and water.”
It was not clear why the farm owner, Randy
Riggs, of Riggs Brothers Farm, called off the county's rescue efforts, or why
workers at the camp stayed behind four days after the mandatory evacuation
had been issued. Riggs did not respond to multiple messages from BuzzFeed
News.
Asked why an emergency rescue would be
called off on the word of the property owner, despite firsthand requests from
the stranded workers, Merritt said he was not sure.
“He’s the actual owner and representative of
the property,” Merritt said. “In that situation we’ll use the information
from the most reliable case.”
Pressed on whether those asking to be
rescued should be considered the most reliable source, Merritt conceded, “I
guess in this case, yes."
The farmworkers weren't the only ones who
tried to arrange rescues at the camp. As they waited for help to arrive,
workers had reached out to advocates who work with the migrant community in
eastern North Carolina, and asked them to relay the situation at the camp to
officials.
Two migrant worker advocates told BuzzFeed
News they were contacted by people at the camp on the morning of Sept. 15,
and began to reach out to emergency services and other agencies, including
the North Carolina Growers Association and the US Department of Labor, in the
hopes of finding someone who could intervene to rescue the workers from the
floods.
Melissa Bailey, an outreach director for the
Kinston Community Health Center, which provides medical services to migrant
workers in the region, told BuzzFeed News she received a call from one of the
farmworkers sometime after 7 a.m. that morning. She said she then made
multiple calls to 911 between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., telling officials the
workers at Riggs Brothers Farm needed to be rescued.
Caitlin Ryland, supervising attorney at
Legal Aid of North Carolina, said her organization was also contacted about
the situation at the flooded camp and asked to help reach county officials
who could get rescue teams to the workers.
With emergency services in Jones County
apparently unresponsive to the situation, Ryland said, she contacted the
Labor Department to see if federal authorities might be able to intervene.
In the end, it was an employee with the
North Carolina Growers Association — a trade group that contracts with farms
to provide migrant labor to North Carolina farms — who eventually picked up
the workers from the site late Saturday afternoon, and took them to a shelter
set up at a community college in a neighboring county.
Both the worker BuzzFeed News spoke to and
the NCGA said that the workers appeared to be unharmed at the time of the
rescue.
Composed of about 700 farm owners in the
state — including Riggs Brothers Farms — the NCGA coordinates the hiring of
more than 9,000 seasonal migrant workers in the state annually, and
is the biggest labor contractor in the country for the H-2A temporary agricultural
visa program, according to the Department of
Labor's Employment and Training Administration.
Before the hurricane hit, NCGA Deputy
Director Lee Wicker said, the association had reached out to farm owners to
remind them to take steps to protect their employees. “Our message to our
growers was they needed to take the necessary steps to take care of these
workers like they’re your own family,” he said.
Upon hearing about the stranded workers in
Jones County, Wicker said, the group “immediately dispatched our field reps”
to pick up the men.
“I think the grower should have done better
than he did, but thankfully we were able to get them out of there,” Wicker
told BuzzFeed News. “We’re really sorry it happened how it happened, and we
wish the grower would have taken additional steps.”
The incident underscores the perilous
position that many migrant workers across North Carolina found themselves in
as Florence battered the state last month. Despite playing a vital role in
the state's large agricultural sector, migrant workers have been largely
ignored in the aftermath of the disaster.
Many of the workers BuzzFeed News spoke to
last month said they have now found
themselves out of work and running low on money. As seasonal
workers, they are sometimes dismissed as only temporary guests, not residents
of the communities where they can spend up to 10 months a year. Relying on
the daily work provided by a temporary visa, many are also hesitant to ask
for assistance, out of fear that doing so could affect their employment or
immigration status.
Despite being encouraged to evacuate if they
were in danger, Ryland said, many laborers feared they could be retaliated
against if they left on their own, without the direction or help of a farm
owner or labor contractor. As a result, many failed to evacuate before the
storm hit, leaving themselves vulnerable to the rising floodwaters and other
weather hazards as Florence unleashed torrents of rain and wind on the state.
“A lot of migrant workers, their lives are
very dependent to their employer,” she said, including services like
transportation to church, stores, or medical attention. “Most of them have no
independent means of transportation and that can be very scary.”
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