Hurricane Sandy is the biggest

Atlantic storm in history!

Sandy’s center was about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City. Tropical Storm force winds were about 1,000 miles in diameter.

It is 1,000 miles from New

York to Florida!!!

Super storm Sandy: Facts About

the “Franken storm”

•Climate change likely made Hurricane Sandy much worse than it otherwise would have been, scientists said at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Facts

•Warmer-than-usual temperatures over Greenland also played a role, said George Stone, a researcher at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Facts

•A high-pressure system over the huge island helped to "block" the North Atlantic, pushing the hurricane toward the East Coast, according to researchers. Typically, scientists say, the jet stream instead carries hurricanes eastward into the Atlantic Ocean Temperatures in the Arctic have increased dramatically in recent years, scientists say.

Facts

•This summer, a record-breaking, Arctic sea-ice meltstretched across a larger area than any previously measured. Greenland also set records in August with massive melting of its glaciers."If [Sandy's] left turn was indeed due to re-distribution of air masses and position of the jet stream, and that in turn was due to Arctic warming, then we might attribute a large part of Sandy to climate change," Stone said.

Facts

Facts

•Of course, climate change did not create Hurricane Sandy, Mann said. Hurricanes and tropical storms would occur with or without global warming. But many climate models suggest that such storms will become more intense as the planet warms, he said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

•Founded in 1979, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known simply as FEMA, is an independent agency of the federal government that has many responsibilities during a time of national disaster.

Federal Emergency Management Agency• Its responsibilities cover the whole range of a disaster cycle, and include advising on building codes and flood plain management, teaching people how to get through a disaster and assisting them when disasters strike, helping equip local and state emergency preparedness, making disaster assistance available to states and local communities, supporting the nation’s fire service, and administering the national flood and crime insurance programs.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

•As part of America’s emergency management system, FEMA works in partnership with other organizations, including state and local emergency management agencies, more than 20 federal agencies, and the American Red Cross.

•Up until the early 1970s, more than 100 federal agencies were involved in some aspect of disasters, hazards, and emergencies.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

•FEMA brought many of the separate disaster-related responsibilities under one roof.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

•It has dealt with disasters and emergencies as far-reaching as the contamination of Love Canal in the mid-1970s, the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the 1989 Loma PrietaEarthquake, and 1992’s

Hurricane Andrew.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

• The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, focused the agency on issues of national preparedness and homeland security, and tested the agency in unprecedented ways.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

•The agency coordinated its activities with the newly formed Office of Homeland Security, and FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness was given responsibility for helping to ensure that the nation’s first responders were trained and equipped to deal with weapons of mass destruction.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Homeland Security

Secretary Janet

Napolitano,

who oversees

the Federal Emergency

Management Agency

for President Barack

Obama.

Mission Statement

The American Red Cross prevents and

alleviates human suffering in the face of

emergencies by mobilizing the power of

volunteers and the generosity of donors.

Clara Barton and a circle of her acquaintances founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 1881. Barton first heard of the Swiss-inspired global Red Cross network while visiting Europe following the Civil War. Returning home, she campaigned for an American Red Cross and for ratification of the Geneva Convention protecting the war-injured, which the United States ratified in 1882.

What can you do?

•Donate money to the American Red Cross.

•Donate Clothing/toys to those who lost everything.

•Help your neighbors clean up trees/debris.

•Find a volunteer center and give your time!