Severe Weather, December Storm, and Tornado Aftermath

Recent storms and tornadoes struck five states with loss of life and severe structural and infrastructure damage. Our Disaster Podcast team discussed it in our weather predictions for the coming week in the episode previous to this one. Dr. Joe Holley was dispatched with the federal Incident Support Team (IST) to western Kentucky to assist state and local assets access federal resources. His wife Kimberly and her search dogs were dispatched eighteen hours after he was to assist USAR teams.

Dan Zehner from NHERI (Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure) comes on the show this week as well to help us understand the structural components associated with storm damage. He also talks about the STEER teams on the ground to assess how the destroyed buildings failed in order to test new materials and building techniques within the NHERI research system. The STEER system is discussed in this article about these engineers who respond to disasters and help improve understanding of why structures fail.

Storm Shelter and FEMA Safe Room Requirements

We also had Kyle Nelson, Dan DePodwin, and Becky DePodwin join us to chat about weather impacts from the storm and in the coming week here in the U.S. including winter storms and more severe weather warnings.

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.