Category Archives: Environmental Risk

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Looking Back at the Big Flood: Time to Examine Your ‘Human Supply Chain’

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The devastation left behind after Hurricane Harvey is a reminder that people are a critical link in the effort to build community storm resilience. We often remind our customers that to prepare for a disaster, they need to consider their supply chain risk—will they be able to access goods and services in the aftermath of a storm.

One area that is often overlooked is what is often called the human supply chain, which consists of your employees, customers and others members of your community.

Beyond ensuring that your employees are safe, business owners may need to consider other concerns: Do you have a plan that will allow your employees to continue working during the recovery? Can they work remotely? Are your employees trained in disaster preparedness? If your business relies on local customers, are they able to access your goods and services? What about rescue personnel and other business owners that provide goods and services to support the community?
Think of the human supply chain as a network of individuals who help your business to survive and continue to thrive after a disaster, like Hurricane Harvey, which dumped trillions of gallons of water on Texas a year ago.

Ensuring that this living, breathing supply chain remains connected is one of the recommendations culled from 13 in-depth studies that Zurich has produced on the impacts of natural disasters around the world. The latest report, “Houston and Hurricane Harvey: a call to action,” was released at the start of the 2018 hurricane season.

Zurich has developed a methodology called the Post Event Review Capability (PERC), which is an approach to understanding why a hazard becomes a disaster, and then from that, identifying entry points for building resilience.

A report released earlier this month highlights some of the lessons learned from these PERC studies and encourages businesses and communities to focus on resilience to prepare for future storms.

The report identifies some common truths about major storms:

  • Every dollar spent on disaster preparedness saves four dollars in future losses;
  • Early warnings paired with contingency and emergency planning can save lives and protect businesses; and
  • Risk managers and communities must “build back better” to strengthen resilience after a disaster strikes.

The report also emphasizes the human element in storm preparation and recovery. For example, one of the central lessons that emerged from the PERC studies is that successful response operations are mostly reliant on institutions. Providing equipment, access to food and showers, assisting with cleanup and offering paid time off for employees can go a long way towards supporting a community and creating a culture of assistance.

Business leaders should provide employee readiness training, the report concludes. Some companies already do this, making preparedness a part of business as usual. One such company regularly schedules “disaster recovery days.” The company will randomly announce, “It’s flooding today, work from home,” to practice employee readiness for the real thing.

This recognition that humans play a critical role in the recovery process is partly why Zurich continues to support SBP, an organization that seeks to shorten the time between disaster and recovery.

Zurich has worked with SBP since 2009, helping the nonprofit bring hundreds of families back home after Hurricane Katrina. SBP has remained in Southeast Texas since Harvey to help aid in the recovery efforts there.

Recognizing the need for home and business owners to identify and mitigate their risks prior to disasters, Zurich in 2014 committed a $3 million grant to SBP through its Z-Zurich Foundation. The grant helped fund SBP’s Disaster Resilience & Recovery Lab, an initiative through which SBP trains home and business owners in 30 communities at risk for disasters across the United States over the course of three years.

In the future, hurricanes will continue to wreak havoc, destroying homes and lives, damaging critical infrastructure and shuttering businesses, but it’s important to remember that humans are the key to resilience. Keeping people safe, engaged and part of the recovery process can help ensure that communities remain resilient in the face of major storms.

Structures in Wildland Urban Interface Present Added Fire Risks

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The trend of building homes in isolated wooded areas has been increasing across the United States. This urbanization of woodlands has changed the way forests are managed. Small wildfires that were once allowed to burn out are now suppressed to protect homes and buildings. Added to this are drought conditions exacerbated by climate change. All of these factors have increased the likelihood of wildfires.

The United States Forest Service (USFS) notes that 32% of the housing units in the U.S. and one-tenth of all land with housing are situated in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). The largest cost driver for both Federal and State wildfire suppression operations is the protection of public and private property in the WUI, according to the USFS.

The “Wildland-Urban Interface Federal Risk Mitigation Executive Order 13728,” released in 2016 by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), reported that:

In 2015 alone, more than 10 million acres of wildlands burned, requiring the service of more than 27,000 firefighters and resulting in $2.1 billion spent by the USFS and the Department of the Interior (DOI) to suppress the fires—a record amount. Over the last decade, the fire season has become 2.5 months longer, and fires covering more than 10,000 acres increased, with the average area burned by wildland fires doubling in the last three decades to an estimated seven million acres per year.

This year, more records were broken. In California, the Mendocino Complex Fire became the largest wildfire ever recorded in the state, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

According to FEMA, 46 million homes in 70,000 communities are at risk of WUI fires, which have destroyed an average of 3,000 structures annually over the past decade. As more people move into the WUI, businesses follow, putting organizations and jobs at risk.

To protect structures from fire, especially those in the WUI, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) recommends that protection should take into account for a building’s materials and design features—as well as the selection, location and maintenance of landscape plants, including grasses, shrubs, bushes and trees.

According to IBHS, a defensible space should be maintained around a building to reduce wildfire threat and help a building to survive without assistance from firefighters. A vegetation management plan (VMP) also needs to be put in place, particularly in WUI areas. A VMP provides important information about the land, such as:

  • Topography (slope and aspect)
  • Location of building(s) on the land
  • Proposed fuel treatment details (suggested actions such as thinning and prescribed burning to minimize wildfire risks)
  • Environmental concerns (such as threatened and endangered species, state-listed sensitive species and wetlands)

The VMP also provides detailed information on how the three defensible space zones will be developed and maintained. When developing a VMP, IBHS recommends consulting a landscape professional such as a forester, range manager, or natural resource specialist.

IBHS recommends creating three defined areas around a building called defensible space zones. Each zone has specific recommendations for the types of plants used, including how they should be grouped and maintained.

Amid Wildfires, California’s Emergency Warning Systems Take Heat

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Overnight, the Mendocino Complex Fire in Northern California expanded far enough to oust the 2017 Thomas Fire as the largest wildfire in the state’s history. Comprising two joined fires, the Mendocino Complex Fire has burned through 443 square miles in the area north of San Francisco. As of Tuesday morning, the fires burned more than 140 structures, including at least 75 homes, and was 30% contained.

But California’s residents and businesses still should be on alert, as the incendiary activity doesn’t end there. An unprecedented 14,000 firefighters are combating between 12 and 16 wildfires in the state, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Particular emphasis is in Northern California, where the fires in Mariposa and Shasta counties continue to threaten residents, businesses, and emergency responders. For 26 days, the Ferguson Fire in Mariposa County has burned nearly 90,000 acres and caused two fatalities. The fire is having a huge impact on areas near and around Yosemite National Park, which alerted the public that it had closed all but two entrances and roads.

Redding, a city 150 miles north of Sacramento, is the site of the Carr Fire, which has been ablaze for two weeks. Weather.com reported that the fire has caused seven deaths and the destruction of nearly 1,600 structures, the majority of which are homes.

The city of Redding launched an interactive map that provides residents with images of neighborhoods so they can check the status of their homes. Reports indicate that more than 1,800 structures are still in the path of the fire.

Despite such technological advances, many residents have questioned the effectiveness of the state’s emergency notification system, which they rely on for evacuation notices.

The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services currently uses an integrated California Public Alert and Warning System (CalPAWS) Plan to warn the public of danger.

Affected residents in several areas have claimed that they did not receive the CalPAWS evacuation order – including the great-grandmother who perished in the Carr fire in July with her two great-grandchildren. On Aug. 4, California Gov. Jerry Brown held a press conference in Shasta County to discuss the damage. But California’s emergency notification systems—and its unreliability in certain areas of the state—were a central focus of the conference.

Gov. Brown said he would consider legislation to improve alert systems, acknowledging local lawmakers’ proposals in an effort to create a statewide system that requires registration from all residents.

“I think we do need the best alert system we can get, and that’s what I would help the Legislature achieve,” Brown said, according to the Sacramento Bee. “There’s a lot of things we can do, and we can always do more …

given the rising threats on the changing of the weather, the climate.”

The Bee reported that a bill with adoption plans for a uniform alert system has been drafted:

The bill, Senate Bill 833, would require counties to automatically sign up residents for a uniform cell phone alert system. It would also fund a standardized system equipped to push out alerts on all forms of media—radio, television, electronic highway billboards and landlines. County emergency managers would be required to undergo annual training on the latest alert technology.

Under such a plan, which would utilize the federal Wireless Emergency Alerts system, they’d have to opt out rather than sign up voluntarily.

Furthermore, the governor said he hopes to overhaul the state’s 911 system, which would de-centralize the calls and notifications to ensure more accurate messaging.

Also on Aug. 4, the White House approved California’s request for a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration to help with the impacts of the wildfire in Shasta County.

“This is part of a trend—a new normal—that we’ve got to deal with. We’re dealing with it humanly, financially and governmentally,” Gov. Brown said during a media briefing at the Carr Fire Incident Command Post in Anderson, California. “These kinds of horrible situations bring people together, regardless of the lesser kind of ideologies and partisan considerations.”

Calif. Carr Fire Claims 6 Lives

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Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse in California, the Carr wildfire ignited, claiming six lives so far. The fire in Northern California near the city of Redding has been burning since July 23 and is now one of the largest in the state.

Almost 90,000 acres have burned, destroying more than 500 homes and commercial buildings and damaging 135 structures. Firefighters, who are working 24- to 36-hour shifts with little rest in between, said they are making progress and are now on the offense rather than in a defensive mode.

“Although it’s too early for credible insured loss estimates, the current California wildfires could noticeably impact exposed insurers’ 3Q 2018 earnings,” KBW said in a statement today.

Wildfires are also burning in Mariposa County California. The Ferguson Wildfire has closed large parts of Yosemite National Park, the Risk Management Monitor reported. That fire began July 13 at about 8:30 p.

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m. and by July 15 had nearly doubled to 9,300 acres. By July 27 it had burned 45,000 acres and was contained 5%, according to NOAA.

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While authorities have not declared an official cause for that fire, Colin Gannon, senior data analyst at Four Twenty Seven, which studies the economic risk of climate change, said weather and environmental conditions are certainly contributing factors.

The Associated Press reported that hotter weather attributed to climate change dries out vegetation, allowing for more intense, faster-spreading wildfires. Another issue is expansion of subdivisions into previously undeveloped areas.

“There are just places were there should not be subdivisions,” Kurt Henke, a former fire chief in Sacramento who now serves as a consultant to fire organizations told the AP. “We’re not talking about a single family who wants to build a house in the woods.

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I’m talking about subdivisions encroaching into the wild land urban interface that put them in the path of these destructive fires.”

Henke said that more funding needs to come from the state legislature to position firefighters in areas where conditions are ripe for fast-moving fires—so they can be respond quickly if a blaze breaks out.

Gov. Jerry Brown said last year that drought and climate change mean California faces a “new reality” where lives and property are continually threatened by fire.

The state is experiencing longer periods of warm temperatures and dry conditions that are making major fires nearly a year-round possibility, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

On July 28 President Trump signed an emergency declaration for California and authorized federal aid for disaster relief.