I try not to obsess about disasters, even while I’m helping create a community emergency response plan. I do want to be prepared, though, preferably without having to doomscroll or listen to too much news. I finally hit on the idea of making a bookmarks folder looking at some disaster forecasts and reporting. I have six sites marked:
- Watch Duty, which reports on fires, power outages, and fire related aircraft deployments in our area.
- Hawai’i County Hazard Impact Map, which reports on floods, failures of the water system, road closures, fires, evacuations, public facility closures, and volcanic activity.
- The National Hurricane Center, which, well, does the obvious thing.
- The U.S. Tsunami Warning System.
- Flighty Airports Meltdown Map. Not disasters, per se, but can be valuable information if I or friends and family are traveling.
- SO2 levels, shows the level of sulphur dioxide (a major component of vog) where we live.
My browser (Firefox) has the option of opening all the tabs at once. I’m sure other browsers have something equivalent. That way I can do a quick check for developing situations each morning and then, barring bad news, move on.
—2p