....Since Eobla began spreading rapidly across West Africa this summer, the C.D.C. said, it has assessed more than 100 possible cases in the United States but only the Dallas case has been confirmed.
But increased attention about the virus has jangled nerves around the country, particularly among West African immigrant communities and recent travelers to that region, and placed health care workers on a kind of high alert. “We expect that we will see more rumors, or concerns, or possibilities of cases,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the federal C.D.C., said Saturday. “Until there is a positive laboratory test, that is what they are — rumors and concerns.”
elitedaily.com - by Christian La Du - October 28, 2013
One year ago, the east coast was ravaged by SuperStorm Sandy, a freak occurrence combining a hurricane, Nor’easter, high tide, and a full moon, which wrought particular destruction on the tri-state area.
Although the enduring legacy of Sandy is not measured in tallies of destruction, numbers like 8.6 million homes and businesses without power, gas and water, 650,000 destroyed houses, 200,000 damaged businesses, and 286 deaths afflicted over 13 states. Approximately 50 million people felt the effects of the storm over 800 mile stretch, and an estimated $65 billion in economic damages were incurred.
The real, lasting effect of Hurricane Sandy, however, is in the radical life shifts that people forcibly underwent.
A Sandia National Laboratories team is gearing up for hurricane season, readying analyses to help people in the eye of a storm. The team has two jobs: conducting annual “hurricane swath” analyses of probable impacts on the Gulf Coast and East Coast, and providing quick analyses of crisis response in the face of an imminent hurricane threat to the United States. A swath analysis looks at how a hurricane might interrupt critical services and at impacts to infrastructure specific to an area, such as petroleum and petrochemical industries in Houston or financial services in New York City. It also looks at such things as the economic impact of the storm or how it could upset food deliveries.
It appears that there are food, water and energy shortages in Hoboken and Morristown. The problem right now is that commercial companies and thir vehicles are having difficulties operating in the flooding areas like Hoboken. In those areas, emotions are getting stretched, where facilities and residences have no electricty or supplies.
The National Guard has several vehicles that can deliver food and water neighborhood by neighborhood. Citizen groups are also forming to assist with food and water distribution.
Burger King has an emergency food and water distribution group. They have been contacted. Wegmans is fully operational in New Jersey. Contacts have been made with New Jersey Emergency Services and with the New Jersey Food Council.
Efforts are now underway to establish channels for using crowd-sourcing, intelligent social networks, social network analysis, and media analysis on the New Jersey food and water assessments. Linkages are being made between DHS and the National Center for Food Protection and Defense to identify and resolve gaps in assessment processes.
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