November 2013

Got a House near the Coast? The Storm Surge Lessons we’re Learning from the Philippines Disaster and Hurricane Sandy…

Posted on November 16, 2013 3:53 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

You already know that the climate is getting progressively warmer, and sea levels around the world
are rising.

This new climate reality played out last week in the Philippines, an archipelago nation with over 7000 islands, as a giant typhoon smashed into the central Philippines districts and destroyed everything in its path, including housing for millions of people living near areas around the cities of Tacloban and Cebu and other islands.

With thousands already dead and thousands more in island areas that have not been reached yet,
the ultimate death toll may be weeks in coming, but some experts think it could top over 15,000 people.

If, like me, you live near an ocean coast anywhere, you have to wonder how future storms may affect your region.

The rising sea levels are already invading fresh water wells along Florida’s east coast, polluting the fresh water with salt, and forcing cities to find new fresh water sources. Saltwater seeping in from the ocean keeps spreading farther west, threatening to ruin the freshwater supplies that provide most of South Florida’s drinking water.

Even though the US doesn’t get typhoons, it does get hurricanes, and what we learned in this typhoon, just like we learned in Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012, was that it’s not the wind, it’s not the rain,
it’s the STORM SURGE that creates the disaster.

In the recent typhoon, the storm surge, while not technically a tsunami, pushed up an enormous amount of water on shore, that destroys everything it touches and pushes the water inland, dragging along houses, trees, cars, people, animals, giant ships, hotels and anything else it finds on it’s path.

“As a nation we don’t understand storm surge well, nor do coastal communities understand storm surge risk,” said Jamie Rhome, a storm surge specialist at the Hurricane Center. “It’s one of the hardest things to communicate.”

Storm surges can travel inland up to thirty miles and can quickly push up rivers, and bays. “People
don’t understand how far inland storm surge can go,” Rhome said. “It penetrates well inland, goes up rivers, into bays. It goes wherever it can, and people don’t realize they are at threat of flooding.”

Cities and regional planning groups need to re-examine the storm surge threat in their areas, and make plans to deal more effectively with these lethal storm surges that may come from hurricane and typhoons in the future.

Joint Commission Reports on Shootings in Hospitals

Posted on November 12, 2013 2:08 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

Some of the most horrific shootings we see occur in hospitals. Because most people still think of hospitals as “places of refuge”, it is always a big shock when some kind of violence or shooting occurs in a hospital, especially gun violence.

With so many active shooter incidents in the US in recent months, the Joint Commission recently released information about the number of shootings in hospitals, and found that,

They analyzed a total of 154 hospitals shootings, which took place between 2000 and 2011. They found that 59% of the incidents took place inside the hospitals, and 41% took place outside on the hospital grounds.

Of the 59% of incident that happened INSIDE the hospital, not surprisingly, about 30% took place in the Emergency Department, and 19% in the patient rooms. We all remember the John Hopkins incident that occurred in a room where the shooter shot his mother’s doctor, and then locked the door and killed his mother and then committed suicide.

Of the 41% of incidents that took place outside, but on the hospital’s ground, 23% took place in the parking lot, which underscores how important it is to have a designated manager for the parking facilities. We have seen stories about a man in Tennessee who had a meth lab IN HIS CAR in the hospital parking garage, and the poor baby tossed off the roof of a parking garage.

The 154 hospital shootings resulted in a total of 235 people who were Injured or who died in the incident. The most common
victim was the perpetrator (shooter) and that accounted for 45% of the people injured or killed.

Another 20% of the victims were the hospital employees, including physicians (3%) and nurses (5%).

Another interesting highlight of the report, was that 50% of the shootings that took place in the

emergency departments were the result of the shooter taking the security officer’s gun!

The dramatic increase in Active Shooter incidents, including the Washington Navy Yard Shooting, the LAX
shooting and the Sparks middle school shooting all illustrate that the trend is moving toward more incidents per year, and more people dead or injured in each incident.

For example, from 2000 to 2004, there was, on average, only 3.8 active shooter incidents per year. Then,
from 2005 – 2010, the average number of incidents per year increased to 11 incidents a year, and from
2011 to 2013, it jumped again to an average of 17 incidents per year, which is over a 300% increase from 2000.The statistics clearly show the trend of increasing gun violence in our society, and until society can find a way to reverse
the trend, hospitals will be looking at the possibilities to stop the violence at the door to their emergency department.

Source for hospital shooting data: Hospital-Based Shootings in the United States: 2000 to 2011 by Gabor D. Kelen, MD, Christina L. Catlett, MD, Joshua G. Kubit, MD, Yu-Hsiang Hsieh, PhD

The LAX Shooting and the Active Shooter Threat

Posted on November 3, 2013 9:26 am by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

With the 3^rd Active Shooter incident in less than 45 days, you are probably wondering what is happening here? Why are we having so many active shooters?

There are not any easy answers, but one thing is certain, all the shooters in the Navy Yard Shooting, the Sparks Middle School shooting, and the LAX Shooter all suffered from psychological problems.

In the LAX shooting, the shooter ‘s parent had tried to contact the police because of a suicide text they had received, but it was already too late.

Police red tape being what it is – thorough, the urgency was lost and the incident was already in process before anything had been done.

BUT NOTE: The text was a HELP ME. And it was noticed, but not followed up in time.

All these shooters had major mental issues, that people had noticed, and
that people had remarked on, and that people had worried about.

We don’t know where all the guns in the incidents were purchased, or just picked up at home and taken to the scene.

BUT we know that most of the active shooters had mental issues, which means that the screenings must be approved, and more help available for these individuals, before they can kill or hurt others.