Dr. Matthew Smith joins the show tonight to talk about WMD response and the management of pediatric patients exposed to chemical, biological, or radiological agents. Matt is a former US Navy Medical Corps Lieutenant Commander, and served with the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, where he qualified as a weapons of mass destruction medical specialist. He got the opportunity to go to USAMRIID, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Oak Ridge, and many other places to train for that responsibility. Time after time, he saw that the most overlooked patients in preparing and training for those scenarios are children. Cladis Medical provides time and research proven approach to providing care for pediatric patients in these unique and challenging situations. By using a color coded tape-based approach similar to the familiar Broslow method, he allows any provider to quickly and easily discern the appropriate treatments and dosing for our younger patients. Dr. Joe Holley joined us on the episode and was co-hosted by Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis. Thank you as always to Paragon Medical Education Group for their long-term support

We start off the discussion of recent active weather patterns across the U.S. with cold rain and snow in California, windy red flag fire warnings across the plains, tornados from Oklahoma up through the Ohio Valley, and an extremely wet start of the month of April on the east coast and mid-Atlantic region. We also touch on the recent earthquake in Taiwan which was the worst they had in the past 25 years. We remarked on the amazing pictures of leaning buildings that did not completely collapse. Becky DePodwin, our emergency management expert, made note that after the last bad quake, local building codes were upgraded which may have had an impact on survivability of the quake. Finally, we jump into an in depth look at what goes into a long range hurricane forecast. With such a distant outlook, how do forecasters make their decisions about the whole season this far ahead of time. Our meteorologist, Dan DePodwin, joins us to share his expertise about distant forecasting. Both AccuWeather and the Colorado State University forecasts agree we should expect a very active season for 2024. Both predict 23-25 named storms, 8-12 hurricanes, and 4-8 major hurricanes with 4-6 direct landfall in the U.S. The episode was co-hosted by 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 res

On the Disaster Podcast this week, co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis are joined by disaster emergency management expert Becky DePodwin to look at the upcoming Hurricane Season Forecast. Accuweather released their predictions for the 2024 hurricane season, set to officially begin on June first. Accuweather experts described what they termed as an “explosive” season of up to thirty named storms and four to six major hurricanes landfalls in the United States. This is far above the average number of storms in a normal tropical cyclone season in the Atlantic Ocean basin. The team then shifted gears to discuss the recent boat collision with a major highway bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. We talk about the response from local rescue teams and the coordination seen between local, state, and federal resources. 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.

We welcome meteorologist and disaster incident command system expert Kyle Nelson on the show. He checks in from Florida where he’s traveling to a training event to help him in his roles with his county incident command system, especially when they deploy to other states during distant events. Then we check in with Dr. Joe Holley about his upcoming training events with Paragon Medical Education Group. He reviews training he’s conducting around the country for various jurisdictions, including the U.S. military. In addition to our guest this week, we had 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.

Dr. Joe Holley examines some of the key take aways from the verdict against two EMS providers in the Elijah McClain homicide trial. The team goes over lessons that can be learned from this case. This tragic situation, which resulted in the death of the patient, offers opportunities for all EMS and other medical professional to learn from what occurred. Key challenges start with how protocols are written and how providers are expected to handle situations where patient care is being assumed from police officers. Check out the additional resources below including an earlier episode of this podcast where we briefly touched on this case. EMS1.com article on Provider Liability Attorney/Paramedic Doug Wolfberg webinar on verdict outcome (requires sign up for free Prodigy account) In addition to our guest this week, we had meteorologist and disaster social media educator Kyle Nelson, along with co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

This week features a rare follow-up episode where we looked back at last week’s episode on Geohazard Mitigation with Colby Barrett from GeoStabilization International. This week we brought back Dan Zehner from The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI). Dan talks about some of the ways NHERI centers research aspects of geohazards and natural disasters that cause them. We talk about public-private partnerships that impact response to disasters and change zoning and building codes in areas likely to be impacted by geohazards. NHERI has some great media partnerships and events coming up: NHERI on PBS with Home Diagnosis TV season 3 The NHERI Summit coming up at the University of Maryland in May 2024 In addition to our guest this week, we had co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

Colby Barrett is our guest this week on the Disaster Podcast. He is the son of the one of the founders of GeoStabilization International and currently is the vice chair of the Board of Directors for the company. He’s a Marine Corps veteran, lawyer, engineer, and describes himself as a philanthro-capitalist. The company focuses on bringing new technologies to the critical infrastructure and geohazard repair industries. They work to remediate landslides with technology they’ve developed to mitigate future land and rockslides. They are the leading geohazard mitigation company in North America. One technology they developed is called the Soil Nail Launcher. It fires a twenty-foot-long “nail” into hillsides to stabilize areas of potential rock and landslides. In addition to our guest this week, we all were joined by regular team members Becky DePodwin and Dan DePodwin, as well as co-hosts, Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis.

This week on the Disaster Podcast it’s time to discuss recent wintery weather trends. That also means it’s time to stump our meteorologist, Dan DePodwin. The wintery weather terms we try out on him include freezing fog, polar vortex, graupel, hoar frost, frost flower (ice ribbons or frost beards), and rime ice. We shift gears and continue talking with Kevin Reiter about ways to stay prepared for wintery weather as a traveler. We discuss what to carry in the car or van when making long trips in the winter time. Also on the show are preparedness expert Kevin Reiter, emergency management expert Becky DePodwin, Dr. Joe Holley from Paragon Medical Education Group, along with 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 Holl

This week Dr. Joe Holley drops in after attending the NAEMSP (National Association of EMS Physicians) annual meeting in Austin, Texas. The leadership of our EMS docs discussed a multitude of important topics for the prehospital care environment. Here is one of the topics Dr. Joe shared on this week’s Disaster Podcast. One of the hot topics revolved around the verdict in the Elijah McClain homicide trial. In that trial, two paramedics were found guilty in the death of the individual while he was in police custody. Dr. Joe talks about how EMS providers must make their own independent assessments regarding patient care, treatment, and disposition or transport regardless of what police want EMS providers to do. EMS1.com article on Provider Liability Attorney/Paramedic Doug Wolfberg webinar on verdict outcome (requires sign up for free Prodigy account)

We invite Robert LeHeup on the Disaster Podcast this week to talk about his nonprofit initiative for veterans called Bullets and Bandaids. Bullets and Bandaids uses art therapy to assist veterans deal with trauma from their experiences in the military. The group connects authors with writers and artists who take the veteran’s story and transform it into written and physical forms of art. This helps a person express themselves in ways that may not come naturally to them as an individual. The group accepts contact from all artists including: Writers Interpretive Dancers Sculptors Painters Digital Artists Bullets and Bandaids submission guidelines can be found here. 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.

We kick off the 11th year of the Disaster Podcast with a look at the winter weather patterns for the coming year of 2024. Meteorologist, Dan DePodwin, joins us to share his expertise. We then shift gears a little to talk about winter weather preparedness needs.

The whole team of regulars at the Disaster Podcast wrapped up year number ten with the podcast. We take a look back at a decade of episodes with our Meteorologists Kyle Nelson and Dan DePodwin, Emergency Management expert Becky DePodwin, and co-hosts Sam Bradley and Jamie Davis. They all share their favorite episodes over their time with the show to cap many years with the crew.

The podcast team got together with our picks from the last year's episodes as we wrap up the podcast's year. There was a general consensus on the best episode. The whole group chose the Mark Dickey Cave Rescue Episode as one of their favorites.

Dr. Joe Holley joins us for a clinical episode on Crush Syndrome and injury. The issue represents a broad spectrum of situations affecting the body. The disease process can be from becoming trapped in a collapsed structure or something as simple as passing out or becoming immobilized to lay on a hard surface for a significant period of time.

Jason Friesen from TrekMedics International joins us again on the Disaster Podcast. He is the founder and executive director of the non-profit organization. He recently sent out an update to those who support the organization about their Beacon software for first responders.

Mark Dickey, an experienced caver and cave rescue expert and trainer, became a patient during a recent cave expedition in Turkey. The Morca Cave is one of the deepest in Europe, going over a thousand meters below the surface. While near the camp deep inside the cave system at approximately one thousand meters of depth, He began experiencing gastrointestinal distress symptoms that were ultimately determined to be an internal GI bleed.

In the aftermath of the Maui wildfire disaster that struck the state of Hawaii, Dan Zehner from NHERI (Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure) comes on the show. Dan shares with us the post-disaster lessons learned by looking at the effect of the fires on community and residential infrastructure.

Meteorologist and disaster emergency management expert, Becky DePodwin joined us for a special early episode this week. We wanted to get out with a discussion on preparations for the inbound Hurricane Idalia to hit the west coast of Florida. Becky covers the expected storm track and weather-related impacts predicted for the coming 24-48 hours in Florida as well as up into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Douglas Stockham from the Emergency Assistance Foundation (EAF) joined us this week on the Disaster Podcast. EAF is a U.S.-based, public non-profit administering employer-sponsored disaster and hardship relief funds worldwide.

A line of storms with high-winds and severe weather warnings struck sections of the mid-Atlantic states earlier this week. One of the places struck with some remarkable damage was the home town of host Jamie Davis. Straight line winds of hurricane strength toppled more than a quarter mile of wooden power line poles along a major roadway in Westminster, Maryland.