NHERI and How Groundbreaking Research Protects Us

Dan Zehner from NHERI (Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure) comes on the show with a fascinating update of what these eleven institutions are up to with disaster infrastructure studies. We also had Dan DePodwin and Becky DePodwin join us to chat about weather impacts in the coming week here in the U.S. including winter storms and severe weather warnings.

The team at NHERI’s UC San Diego campus are in the process of upgrading their giant shake table which is used to study the impacts of earthquakes on structures. Check out the San Diego shake table upgrade and their Tallwood Project here. Also on the subject of earthquakes, a group of universities are collaborating on the Center for Bio-mediated & Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG) to study the ways different soil types are affected by earth moving events and how to mitigate the negative impacts on buildings and infrastructure.

Perhaps the winner of the most interesting name for a disaster mitigation project is the “Emerald Tutu” project in Boston harbor. This is looking at different ways to use both man-made and vegetative barriers to lessen the impact of storm surge from the harbor during storm events. And don’t forget to check out Dan’s Design Safe Radio podcast where he talks with some of the excellent researchers that are part of NHERI.

Also on the show were our regular co-hosts, Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Paragon Brings “The Experience”

Paragon Medical Education Group specializes in bringing what they call “The Experience” to jurisdictions around the country. They bring together police, fire, EMS, and hospital teams to train together and learn what to expect from each diverse group in the response team so that each knows what to expect from the other and how to back the other groups up. Visit Paragon’s site at ParagonMedicalGroup.com for more information on how this can be brought into your system.