The Ford F-150 Lightning lived a short life. But for many people, it was a lifeline when the going got tough. When a hurricane took power out at a Florida veterinary clinic last year, the Lightning's giant battery powered it back up. After an elderly man was stranded in California because his electric wheelchair's battery ran out, a Lightning made it operational again. And during the devastating Kentucky floods in 2022, Ford deployed two Lightnings as mobile generators to support cleanup efforts.
Michael VanRooyen has spent decades responding to emergencies around the world, with no choice but to stare straight ahead at suffering, destruction, and death. These experiences have taught him how to ease pain amid chaos, forced him to navigate moments of intense fear and danger, and given him the technical and emotional depth to support war-torn communities in their efforts to heal and rebuild.
The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia's Sumatra island Friday rose to 164 on Friday with 79 people missing, authorities said. Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment. The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 116, while 25 people died in Aceh. Rescuers also retrieved 23 bodies in West Sumatra, National Disaster Mitigation Agency's Chief Suharyanto said.
At DHS, Evans quickly became known as the final gatekeeper' for all funding requests, Cohen wrote. She was given the nickname, Terminator, for her habit of terminating grants, terminating contracts, terminating people, according to CNN. She's the enforcer for DHS, one source told CNN. Her job was to effectively grind FEMA to a halt. Some sources told Cohen said Evans has been an effective force in DHS' push to improve efficiency, cut perceived waste and reshape FEMA to fit the president's priorities.
The white paper suggests that fiber broadband is the best overall solution for three reasons. The first is that it is more reliable, has greater capacity and lower latency than other communications platforms. Fiber is also more resistant to congestion, weather and line-of-sight limitations. And, finally, fiber is better positioned to support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and - though the white paper doesn't mention it - the Internet of Things.
Every year, regions of the world are hit by natural disasters such as hurricanes or floods. As a result of climate change, these phenomena have not only increased in number and severity, but it has also become more difficult to predict when they might occur. Although the areas most prone to these hazards try to take proactive measures, many sources of information are not timely enough or are of limited use.
NCTA-The Internet & Television Association has released "After the Storm," an eight-minute on-the-ground documentary about cable operators' contributions in the wake of emergencies and disasters. The presentation provides many quick shots of repair and emergency crews working to restore service. The NCTA documentary shows that the work of repairing broadband networks in the wake of a disaster is hard and potentially dangerous, and that cable operators are one of several entities who must rely upon each other.
At least one person has died while dozens were trapped after an Islamic boarding school building collapsed in Indonesia's East Java province, officials said Tuesday. Over 100 people, mostly children, have been rescued from the debris of the Al Khoziny school which collapsed on Monday afternoon, the disaster mitigation agency said in a statement. It was unclear how many people were still stuck under the rubble of the building, with reports varying between 38 and 65 missing. The building collapsed under the weight of the fourth floor which was being constructed. The building's expansion had not been authorized, according to provincial police spokesperson Jules Abraham Abast.
Wildfires that have raged through one of Africa's largest national parks were under control, Namibia's government has said, amid criticisms from citizen firefighters over the lack of a national disaster response mechanism and limited resources. Fire broke out in Etosha national park, in the arid desert nation's north, on 22 September. The government said it suspected charcoal production next to the park, which is home to 114 mammal species including the critically endangered black rhino, was to blame.
Namibia has deployed more than 500 soldiers to help fight a fire that has burned through a third of the vast Etosha National Park, one of Africa's largest wildlife reserves, Prime Minister Tjitunga Ngurare Manongo said in a social media post. Manongo said, starting Sunday, the troops would help firefighters, police, and volunteers who are already fighting the raging fire.
Taiwan premier Cho Jung-tai called on Wednesday for an inquiry into what went wrong with evacuation orders in an eastern county where flooding from a breached mountain lake during a strong typhoon killed 14, as fresh warnings spooked residents, reports Reuters. Sub-tropical Taiwan, frequently hit by typhoons, normally has a well-oiled disaster mechanism that averts mass casualties by moving people out of potential danger zones quickly.
Built to meet local and international building codes, they're very different from the cheap, toxic trailers that FEMA deployed 20 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Some of those trailers had formaldehyde levels that were 75 times greater than safe levels. They were poorly insulated and never meant for long-term housing, but some families were stuck in them for years.
