It’s a disaster

NICAR 2014

Matt Jacob, The Dallas Morning News

Alex Richards, Chicago Tribune

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bit.ly/disaster2014

Presentation is already up if you want to follow along

Bridges and dams

Bridges:

National Bridge Inventory

• Structural deficiency, decaying infrastructure and obsolete designs.

Ex:

• I-35 collapse in 2007, Minnesota
• I-5 collapse last year, Washington

Bridges and dams (cont.)

Bridges:

• Also check for state inspection records
• Ex. Illinois Dept. of Transportation
• NICAR Database Library (and story examples)

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Bridges and dams (cont.)

Dams:

National Inventory of Dams

• Restricted access - login
• NICAR has data through 2002

Stanford’s National Performance of Dams Program (NPDP)

Bridges and dams (cont.)

New NICAR release, scraped, but missing important parts

Get state inspection records and emergency action plans.

• Ex: Taum Sauk rupture in 2006
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that Mo. led nation in unregulated dams

Chemical safety

Tier 2 reports

• Companies must report inventories of chemicals that meet certain thresholds
• Available through state agencies
• Ex: Texas run through Dept. of State Health Services

Chemical safety (cont.)

• April 17, 2013: West Fertilizer explosion
• TDMN requests Tier 2 data from DSHS
• Able to map locations of ammonium nitrate

Chemical safety (cont.)

• Further analysis: look into reporting of chemical-related accidents
• No singles aggregator of accidents
• National Response Center
• Occupational Health and Safety Administration
• National Fire Incident Reporting System
• Chemical Safety Board

Chemical safety (cont.)

• What TDMN found:

Aircraft information

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• Aircraft registration queries
• FAA / NTSB safety data
• FAA service difficulty reports
• Wildlife strikes

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• FlightAware

Weather

• The National Weather Service is a journalist’s best friend for data.
• Also, the National Hurricane Center has you covered. Great source for past and present data.
• National Climatic Data Center
• Check out NICAR’s storm events info, too.

Flooding

FEMA:

• Flood maps
• Preliminary flood hazard data

These have some issues, but are worth considering.

Ex: ‘Damage exceeds flood map boundaries’

AJC 2009

Flooding (cont.)

National Weather Service:

• Water levels and forecasts
• Storm surge forecasts

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Ex: NJ railway damage

Earthquakes

• U.S. Geological Survey
• What can you track?
• Location
• Magnitude
• Real-time feeds

Cleaning up / prevention

Public payrolls and overtime amounts:

• Request employee-level county and city payrolls broken down to bi-weekly or monthly amounts.
• Ex. - Chicago spent nearly $15 million in police overtime to host the NATO summit in 2012

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Cleaning up (cont.)

• SBA disaster loans
• Low-interest
• Rebuilding efforts
• Way to track disaster spending
• NICAR has data available
• Also: charities established for recovery efforts

Questions?

x

http://bit.ly/disaster2014

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@alexrichards

@matthewajacob

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Thanks!