Disaster Podcast

This week we look at the needs of first responders who have fallen on hard times. The Primum Non Nocere Foundation (pnnf.net) provides short term resources to help out our brothers and sisters who need a bit of help in a time of need. Founder Louis Cazzetta comes on the show with co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis to discuss the important work he’s doing.

PNNF has been formed with the purpose of assisting pre-hospital care workers and providers with much needed support during times of despair, desperation and need. EMS workers and their professional counterparts have been overlooked in our country for far too long. Their civil services are a vital part of this nations infrastructure. We at PNNF and our network of generous donors want to give back in any way possible to these public servants. Our cumulative support continues to change the lives of all of the men, women and children in need.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

The Disaster Podcast team assembled to look at the impacts of Hurricane Helene on the Florida gulf coast at the big bend region. It will also have significant impacts on inland areas in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and even southern Indiana and Illinois.

The Hurricane made landfall as a category 4 storm with sustained winds around 140 miles per hour. Storm surge in coastal regions expected in excess of 10 feet, with some areas having surge from the Gulf of Mexico up to 20 feet. Hurricane and tropical storm warnings extend to the northern South Carolina coast and inland up to Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Joe Holley and his wife Kimberly have been deployed with federal USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) and IST (Incident Support Team) resources. Joe shares their expectations for what they expect to see once the storm has passed and they can move in to begin their rescue work along side local and State rescuers.

Our disaster emergency management expert, Becky DePodwin and host Sam Bradley were also on the call to lend their expertise to the discussion.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

Disaster Meteorologist Dan DePodwin joins our podcast this week to review the impacts of Hurricane Francine. This storm struck the Louisiana coast and moved inland over Mississippi, Tennessee and surrounding areas. Dan and the co-hosts also discuss the impacts of wildfires in the west. California, Oregon, and Washington states bear the brunt of the recent spate of serious wildfires. Dan shares how these large areas of fire create their own weather patterns.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

Dan Harris, Battalion Chief with Memphis, Tennessee Fire Department joins us in his other role as one of the Paragon Medical Group disaster educators. He shares key memories of training evolutions and how he learns from the jurisdictional differences he encounters with his students. Dr. Joe Holley joins the discussion as well and shares several anecdotes about Dan’s contribution to the training team.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

In this episode, we chat with Jameson Morgan, Director of Partnerships for goTenna. GoTenna is a company that provides critical network communications solutions for military, government, and emergency services personnel. It enables them to maintain contact in rough environments where standard communications methods experience difficulties.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

Our disaster meteorologist, Dan DePodwin, joins us this week to talk about Hurricanes Debby and Ernesto. Debby caused widespread flooding from Florida to upstate New York. Dan and Becky DePodwin share an experience driving during the passage of Debby’s remnants in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

Ernesto sideswiped Puerto Rico and parts of other Caribbean islands. As many as 70% of the Puerto Rican power grid was knocked out for several days following the storm’s passage. Ernesto continues on into the central Atlantic and bears down on Bermuda next.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

In this episode of the Disaster Podcast we talk with nurse Alicia Bean who is preparing for a return trip with IDMC to Ukraine where she works educating medical personnel on trauma and other best practices. Interstate Disaster Medical Collaborative (IDMC) provides a forum for collaboration, cooperation and coordination of disaster medical experts, assets and systems. The teams are comprised of state and regional providers of mass gathering and disaster medical care.

Alicia is an emergency room nurse and has worked with trauma team coordination for emergency care. She made her first trip in the fall of 2022 to Ukraine as part of a nursing team. Their goal was to assess techniques and training levels for different types of basic care. This included BLS techniques like CPR education and stop the bleed programs and tourniquet use.

Also on the show were co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

Dan Zehner from NHERI rejoins us for today’s episode. The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure, NHERI, is a shared-use network funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. They conduct studies of natural hazards and their effects on manmade infrastructure elements to determine safer and more resilient construction methods and materials.

NHERI 3rd Five Year Science Plan

NFPA Preparing Homes and Property for Wildfire Risks

Dan chats with co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis about the current projects the NHERI centers are using to learn how to build safer and stronger homes and businesses. we talk about research into wildfire resilience especially in the wildfire urban interface. We also have our disaster meteorologist Dan DePodwin to share some of the unique climatically relevant facts on how natural disasters are becoming more prevalent.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.

Our Meteorologist Dan Depodwin joins Dr. Joe Holley and our cohosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis on this episode. The team looks at the early major hurricane named Beryl that caused a revision of the current seasonal hurricane forecast to reflect an even more active season this year.

We talk about preparedness in the face of increased severe weather. We also look at the causes of rapid tropical cyclone intensification and the overall outlook in the future as ocean water temperatures continue to rise. Expect a longer and stronger hurricane season with more intense and stronger storms moving forward.

Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support of the Disaster Podcast. Dr. Joe Holley and the team at Paragon continue to provide excellent and customized disaster response training to jurisdictions around the U.S. and internationally as well.