Patrick Meier: Crowdsourcing Change. Shannon Hayes: Radical Homemakers vs. the Hurricane. Devastation and resilience: Shannon Hayes reports from Schoharie County, New York, which was hard-hit by Hurricane Irene. posted Aug 30, 2011 This photo was taken in Phoenicia, NY, about 40 miles south of the town where Shannon Hayes and her family live.
It was busy in town Friday and Saturday. Stores and restaurants were filled with New Yorkers and Long Islanders seeking refuge from hurricane Irene, slated to pummel downstate on Sunday. We were safely outside the storm zone, but we figured we’d lose power, so we ground extra coffee, filled the bathtub and several jars with water, and made sure the yard was free of debris in the event of high winds. We assumed we were over-prepared. We weren’t. How Resilient Are You? Schoharie County residents make our lives in three different habitats: on the tops of the mountains, in the mountains, and down in the valleys. We were the lucky ones. The best soil for vegetable crops is generally located along the flood plains.
Life could certainly be worse. Wyoming Doomsday Bill Advances In State House. Wyoming lawmakers pushed forward legislation to explore how the state would respond if the country fell into economic and political turmoil.
The so-called doomsday bill, passed in the Wyoming House on Friday, would create a special task force to study ways the state would handle such crises as a food shortage to a government shutdown. Some provisions that will be explored include Wyoming forming its own army and issuing its own currency. The task force formed by the bill would include state lawmakers, the head of Wyoming's Department of Homeland Security and the state attorney general. The bill must pass two more House votes before it reaches the Senate, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. So far, no word if the task force will explore solutions for a Zombie Apocalypse, as the Center For Disease Control has done.
Also on HuffPost: Dr. Daniel Aldrich on the Role of Communities in Post-disaster Recovery. The Key To Disaster Survival? Friends And Neighbors. Hide captionResidents check an earthquake-damaged house in Sukagawa city on March 11, in the Fukushima prefecture in Japan.
A researcher says that after large-scale natural disasters, it's frequently friends and neighbors who are key to survival. Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images Residents check an earthquake-damaged house in Sukagawa city on March 11, in the Fukushima prefecture in Japan. A researcher says that after large-scale natural disasters, it's frequently friends and neighbors who are key to survival. When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, one victim was political scientist Daniel Aldrich. "It was a neighbor who knew that we had no idea of the realities of the Gulf Coast life," said Aldrich, who is now a political scientist at Purdue University in Indiana. The knock on the door was to prove prophetic. Officials in New Orleans that Saturday night had not yet ordered an evacuation, but Aldrich trusted the neighbor who knocked on his door.
Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images 'The Second Tsunami'