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In The
News
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1. Fire Victims Feel Burned by Lawmakers Tied to
Insurers
LA Times
February 27 2006
SACRAMENTO — Karen Reimus' San Diego house was obliterated by the 2003
wildfires, leaving nothing recognizable except a charred jogging stroller and
her daughter's burned bicycle.
Yet her insurer insisted that she catalog each of her family's destroyed
personal items — down to pens and tampons — if she wanted to be
reimbursed.
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2. Giving Frog Species a Leg Up for Survival
The
L.A. and San Diego zoos work with state and federal agencies to save the
mountain yellow-legged variety, ravaged by wildfires.
LA Times
February 24 2006
SAN DIEGO — Of the animal species hit by the firestorm that roared
through Southern California in the fall of 2003, the mountain yellow-legged frog
was among the most devastated.
Already on the endangered list, the yellow-legged population in the San
Bernardino Mountains is thought to have been nearly wiped out by the fire,
increasing the chances that Rana muscosa may soon go extinct like so many
amphibian species have done.
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3. Disaster study targets SoCal
Bush budgets $2.1
million
02/10/2006
Andrew Silva, SB Sun Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES - Earthquakes. Wildfires. Landslides.
Those events,
all too familiar to San Bernardino County residents, could be the focus of a new
coordinated effort by the U.S. Geological Survey to understand the way natural
hazards affect communities.
President Bush's proposed budget released this week includes $2.18 million
for a pilot project in Southern California to see how potential disasters relate
to each other and to encourage communities to work with scientists to reduce
dangers.
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4. We Could Use Volunteers
February 11, 2006
Disaster News Service
The devastating 2004 hurricanes are no longer headline news - but
long-term recovery is still quietly unfolding for thousands of
people.
[more
HERE]
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5. OH Flood Recovery Gets Boost
February 13, 2006
Disaster News Service
Despite completing the repairs and rebuilds of more than 1,000
flood-damaged homes in the past year, there is still plenty of work to be done
in southeast Ohio.
[more
HERE]
6. Interfaith Efforts Help Rita Survivors In TX
February 16, 2006
Disaster News Service
"One night in our back parking lot, I watched Methodist men pumping
charismatic gas into Baptist chainsaws, getting ready for the next day of work
cutting down Pentecostal trees - that's the way the church ought to be
working."
[more
HERE]
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7. What's Stalling Local Hurricane Recovery?
February
20, 2006
Disaster News Service
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8. Katrina Debacle Prompts L.A. to Prepare for Disasters,
Attacks
Mayor names 40 civic leaders to plan, among other
things, how to evacuate 10 million.
LA Times
February 17 2006
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday tapped a group of
high-profile people, including Disney head of security and former L.A. FBI chief
Ron Iden and former Mayor Richard Riordan, to help plan the city's response to a
terrorist attack or natural disaster, including a contingency for
evacuations.
The mayor and the 40 homeland security advisors, who also include Police
Chief William J. Bratton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and former Dist.
Atty. Ira Reiner, will break into working groups to tackle such issues as
counter-terrorism measures, evacuation planning and emergency preparedness, the
mayor said.
9. Focus on Levees Raises Hopes
Some residents are
optimistic that erosion spots will be fixed, while others play the
odds.
LA Times
February 26 2006
SACRAMENTO — The sun shone bright here Saturday. Short-sleeve weather,
not a rain puddle in sight. Hot or not, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had just
declared a state of emergency for neighborhoods like Amy Labson's, embraced by a
bend of the Sacramento River.
She couldn't have been happier.
Labson and lots of other homeowners who have long worried about the flood
risk along the Central Valley's chancy river levees greeted it as good news, if
long overdue.
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10. Unnatural Flames
Extremists use myths to oppose
measures that would help thwart fires
February 17, 2006
By THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN of the Riverside Press Enterprise
When a bipartisan group of nearly 100 congressmen proposed speeding up
restoration of forests after catastrophic wildfires, the idea drew widespread
support from those interested in giving future generations forests to enjoy.
The proposal would do two important things: quicken the removal of dead
trees that otherwise would provide fuel for future wildfires and accelerate the
planting of new trees to restore forests that burned.
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11. Fighting water, fire and pests
Associated Press
2/25/06
From ancient China and ancient Rome to the present, the building point
is the same: wood doesn't last unless it is properly protected.
So, if you want your home to last anywhere nearly as long as the
Coliseum in Rome or the Forbidden City in Beijing, then you will need to take a
few precautions.