Impact Maryland Insurance Administration: For any insurance related questions about the incident reach out to  joy.hatchette@maryland.gov  MD Chamber of Commerce Business Impact Survey Form.   US Chamber of Commerce Supply Chain Impacts of Port Closure Call (April 1st @ 3pm EST) registration link Transportation MDOT Road Closures:  https://chart.maryland.gov/   MDOT SHA Operations Dashboard linkhttps://maryland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/6d08c702819542babb89c6b5736e4460 Tradepoint Atlantic Webpage: https://www.tradepointatlantic.com/2024/03/27/tradepo ..read more

As inflation erodes purchasing power and budgets tighten, many community leaders are turning once again to developing public-private partnerships as vehicles to get important projects done. PPPs are important tools for leveraging expertise, resources, outside perspectives, and trust-building, but they can also be a waste of those exact same tools too. Here are six issues to consider if your PPP is going off track: Lack of respect. PPPs are not a vehicle for one party to control the resources of another. I've been in PPPs where "quiet quitting" happens because one partner or another is too dom ..read more

NOAA: Louisiana Wetlands Restoration Project Geoengineering proposals can sound like science-fiction, but as natural disasters become ever more costly and disruptive, regional planners and community developers just might want to keep an eye on some of the smaller scale ideas. Reports that the IPCC predicts the earth will exceed the 1.5 degree Celsius global warming threshold by 2032 are fueling interest. No less a media eminence than The Economist filed a report last November that "Solar Geoengineering Is Becoming a Respectable Idea." There were over 80 geoengineering side events at COP-28. T ..read more

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 8, 2023 The Institute for Sustainable Development is proud to be one of six organizations Wells Fargo & Company has awarded $25,000 for our work on California disaster relief and recovery work after floods and fires this year. The grants come from the Wells Fargo Disaster Response and Recovery Fund. Wells Fargo opened the fund at North Valley Community Foundation more than two years ago as a means to quickly respond to disasters throughout the state. “Collaborating with local organizations to create sustainable communities is at the core of what we do at ..read more

Government and Business Leaders Sharing Perspectives About Post-Harvey Housing Recovery Needs in 2018 Cities from Jacksonville to Gary, IN are embracing the importance of public-private partnerships for resilience. This is important for multiple reasons. Here are just three to consider: Access to more skills, resources, and competencies. Threats like hurricanes, tornadoes, or pandemics affect everyone. No single organization is good at everything. Partnerships enable community leaders to deploy more resources and know-how. Better coordination. There's a common saying in emergency management ..read more

(Shout out to our friends at the ,Tin Shack Bakery in Puna, who hung tough during the Kilauea eruption and helped a lot of other people too) The short answer is because small businesses and non-profits (which are businesses too) are vital for community resilience and development. Imagine a community without a Main Street. A few houses sited in an area is not a community. It might be a good neighborhood, but it's not self-sustaining. People have to go elsewhere to get groceries, look for jobs, or have a central place to gather. Likewise, in many low income zip codes, and even low income countr ..read more

An Israeli firefighter kneels to compose himself after he and his colleagues extinguished cars set on fire by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) There is no justification for October 7. Israel suffered their worse day of loss since the Holocaust. The Hamas thugs killed babies, mothers, and concert goers like Shani Louk. They bear responsibility for the pain and suffering that they have caused, not just to Israel, but to their own people. But the future cannot be like the past. To promote Israel's future security, Israel nee ..read more

Hard to believe that it’s been five years since the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) started the current research cycle. We have been focusing on why and how disasters affect various aspects of human communities, including: 2018 – the impact on small towns and rural communities through the lens of Hurricane Harvey 2019 – the life cycle of small business recovery through the lens of the Thomas Fire 2019 – the need for state-level economic resilience strategies through the lens of the two back-to-back thousand-year floods in Maryland 2021 – ways that large metro areas can overcome t ..read more

Photo: ,BBC In July 2021 in South Africa, riots broke out in Durban, across the KwaZulu-Natal province, and greater Johannesburg. They appeared initially to be a spontaneous reaction to the former President, Jacob Zuma, being arrested and sent to jail for contempt of court. In reality, they were part of a carefully inspired and led insurrection against the sitting President, Cyril Ramaphosa, by the Zuma family and its (mainly Zulu) political allies. The riots lasted a week, with fires, looting and killing on a massive scale, leading to 300 deaths and thousands of buildings and businesses gutt ..read more

Though every ecosystem is facing climactic challenges, Alaska is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. The state is often referred to as the “ground zero” of climate change. This is showing up in multiple ways, from rapid habitat changes to noise pollution and increasing food insecurity. To better adapt to these challenges, policy makers should take advantage of Alaskan Indigenous knowledge and include these community voices in future mitigation and adaptation strategies. As the climate warms, sea ice is melting at rapid rates, allowing for the use of previously inaccessible ..read more