Torrential rain hits fire-damaged Santa Barbara, causing deadly mudslides and flooding

On Tuesday, 21,000 people living near hillsides in Southern California had to be evacuated due to severe mudslides and flooding. These events were caused by torrential rain, with the Santa Barbara region experiencing rainfall in many areas at a rate of over an inch per hour. The most heavily impacted areas saw close to 1.5 inches per hour. This rainfall follows a record breaking fire season that left nearly two million acres of land burnt and barren, eliminating many trees and other vegetation that would usually absorb and slow the path of water. According to Robbie Monroe of the National Weather Service in Oxnard, half an inch of rain per hour is enough to trigger mudslides. With the rate of precipitation far exceeding that threshold and the increased vulnerability from the wildfires, the results have been devastating.

Tornado hits Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, damaging buildings and causing minor injuries

The National Weather Service (NWS) has confirmed that a tornado hit Pennsylvania's Wilkes-Barre Township on Wednesday night. This type of storm is unusual for the area. "A severe thunderstorm moved across Luzerne County between 9:30 and 10:30 pm on Wednesday June 13 2018, producing an EF2 tornado in Wilkes-Barre Township around 10:00 pm," The NWS wrote in a bulletin. "The tornado touched down near Mundy Street and Highland Park Boulevard by the Wyoming Valley Mall and traveled about a half mile southeast toward I-81 before dissipating. Numerous roofs were destroyed and windows blown out. Structures were sheared off near their foundation. Power poles were snapped with numerous lines down." The storm mainly damaged stores and restaurants in the township's 'business district'. Reports described "gutted" homes and businesses, flipped vehicles, and left debris throughout the area. Six people with minor injuries were reported by Thursday. However, this was likely the result of lucky timing; if the storm had hit a few hours earlier, the damaged area would have been heavily populated.

Tools for resilience practice: Crisis mapping

Crisis-Mapping technology uses data, reports, and other forms of information about individual locations and events to map them in real time. This information allows first responders and aid groups to identify people that need evacuations or resources and distribute those resources at locations to maximize their impact. Early examples of this include the Ushaidi platform that was used to create a live crisis map in the aftermath of 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 2011 Fukushima Earthquake, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012. These early platforms were often limited by the amount of information they could quickly process through human analysis, and became overwhelmed by social media data. During the Fukushima Earthquake there were over 300,000 tweets per minute and Hurricane Sandy caused over 20 million related tweets. This large amount data forced these platforms to begin using algorithms identify and categorize tweets, and to draw on the resources of larger organizations. Even with some of these early limitations, the Department of Homeland Security recognized the potential value of these systems during five different crises in their 2013 report “Innovative Uses of Social Media in Emergency Management.”

To replace SSN with something more resilient, model it on the internet | GRI Blog

Rob Joyce wants to get rid of the social security number. “Every time we use the Social Security number you put it at risk,” Joyce, the White House Cyber Coordinator told Washington Post Live recently. Joyce’s comments have led to no small amount of day dreaming by the technical community on the possibility of using a “modern cryptographic identifier” or (drum roll please) block chain. That’s all well and good. But the challenges with replacing the social security number as an identifier (with something more secure), aren’t technical -- they are everything else. And as Steve Bellovin points out, it would be really, really hard.