Recovery of a region after disaster is measured by the return to normalization, and that is reliant, in large part, on the business community re-establishing itself.

It’s not always easy after a disaster, and many small businesses never recover. Dun & Bradstreet is well-quipped to use data and analysis to help cities and states develop resilience as demonstrated with its recent economic analysis after Hurricane Matthew.

The firm was approached by Michael Sprayberry, North Carolina’s director of emergency management, to conduct an economic impact analysis after the hurricane hit the region in 2016.

In this installment of the Innovation of the Month series (see last month's story here), we explore the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Urban Spatial Analytics (MUSA) Practicum and how the graduate students in the program work with city officials to develop data science tools that their clients can use to determine how best to use their resources. The program is led by Professor Ken Steif along with Karl Dailey and Michael Fichman.

MetroLab’s Executive Director Ben Levine sat down with Professor Steif and some of the program’s graduate students to learn more.

As campus security industry professionals have seen, particularly in the last few months, there isn’t just one thing schools can do to keep their students and faculty safe. School safety is a multi-layered approach that involves participation from all members of a school’s community.

Last month, Campus Safety hosted a webinar led by Gary Sigrist, a retired school district safety director and current CEO and president of Safeguard Risk Solutions, to discuss the different layers of security needed in schools to protect students and staff from violence.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2017 was the most expensive year on record for disasters in the U.S., estimating $306 billion in total damage. The FBI also reported 2017 as having the most incidents and the most people killed in any one year by active shooters.

With this rise in crises across the United States, data and technology have an increasingly important role in improving emergency management departments across the country. Approximately 240 million calls are made to 911 in the United States each year, with at least 80 percent coming from wireless devices, yet many emergency management systems still operate on legacy systems made for wireline phones. As a result, people in need are unable to easily share precise locations or send media messages to responders, making emergency communication and resource coordination more costly and difficult.

Researchers at Oregon State University say bridges and roads in the northwestern resort city of Seaside should be prioritized for improvement after a simulation discovered they would have higher mortality rates in an earthquake and tsunami.

Researchers found that the bridge on Broadway Street over Neawanna Creek would result in the most fatalities, The Daily Astorian reported.

San Francisco’s scooter revolution is officially on hiatus.

Lime, Bird, and Spin, startups that have delighted and infuriated San Franciscans with their scooter-sharing services, have pulled their vehicles from the streets while they apply for permits to operate. The process for allowing scooters was established soon after the companies began operating without explicit permission from city officials this spring. Lime told its users it hoped to be back on the streets within weeks.

A Southern California woman’s recent injury by a baseball bat has renewed attention to fan safety at games.

The Sun of San Bernardino reports Saturday that 27-year-old Cloey Heckendorn was hit in the head during the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes’ game on Mother’s Day.

The Central Pacific could see anywhere from three to six hurricanes over the next six months, forecasters predicted Wednesday. That would be an increase over the two named storms last year.

Storm activity is likely to be normal or a bit busier than normal this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

The consensus is that sea-level rise will occur in Southern California, but how much and when are questions that complicate developing mitigation plans.

Encinitas, a city of almost 60,000, 25 miles north of San Diego, is trying to get a grip on those questions to deliver a Coastal Vulnerability and Resiliency Plan. If only they had a crystal ball.
It is impossible to foresee the future 50 to 100 years from now, and that makes planning for eventualities that far in advance a crap shoot. So you do it incrementally.

WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday stressed the role of local governments in preparing the U.S. to better withstand natural disasters.

"I do believe that the key to resiliency is at the local level of government, not with FEMA," the agency's administrator, Brock Long, said at an event. "If you’re depending on FEMA to make your community resilient, well, that’s the wrong approach."