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Flooding in South Africa

Disasters are happening everywhere.

We Americans have a tendency to fixate on what is happening only here in the United States.

Ask any emergency manager about disasters in other nations and their knowledge will be pretty slim. Here, where I live in the Northwest, we follow earthquakes pretty well. Japan, New Zealand are key events in the past that have caught our attention. After that, knowledge drops off precipitously.

South Africa has just suffered some significant losses in people and homes due to a big flood event. Substandard housing and having that housing located in the wrong areas are much of the cause for the amount of damage.

In reality, we have similar situations here in the United States. We have, by our standards, substandard housing that is constructed in the wrong places. Thus we have repetitive flood damage to the same properties. Fortunately we have not had the same level of deaths, 448, with about four dozen people unaccounted for in the South African flooding.

What can we expect in the coming summer months? Severe weather, more tornadoes, a hurricane or two, power outages, flooding, wildfires, possible heat emergencies, etc.

Business unfortunately is good.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.