by admin | Feb 4, 2026 | Chicago, Climate, Coastal Management, Disaster, Florida, Hurricanes, Insurance, Iowa, Journalism, Movies, Parks, Personal history, Restaurants, Sports, Tornado, Urban Planning, Weather
It was about 11:15 a.m. on Sunday, January 25, when my United Airlines flight from Sarasota, Florida, landed at O’Hare International Airport, and I finally started getting text messages again. The very first one was from Angel, our 22-year-old grandson, whom I had...
by admin | Feb 19, 2025 | Activism, Blogging, Books, Christianity, Civil rights, Government, History, Immigration, Movies, Personal history, Politics, Racism, Religion, Russia, Volunteerism, War, Writing
It is early in the morning as I begin to write this—too early in the view of most people I know. I awoke just before 5 a.m. in part because Tyson, our big Husky-German Shepherd mix, seemed to want to go outside in the bitter cold. (He did not; he merely wanted water,...
by admin | Sep 26, 2023 | Climate, Disaster, Floodplain management, Hazard Mitigation, History, Iowa, Movies, Natural Hazards
In 2008, much of Iowa experienced such massive floods that 10 percent of Cedar Rapids was evacuated, books were being rescued from the basement of the University of Iowa Library, and homes were under water in Cedar Falls. Dozens of other Iowa communities faced flood...
by admin | Aug 29, 2023 | Climate, Coastal Management, Colorado, Disaster, Disaster policy, Emergency Management, Floodplain management, Hazard Mitigation, Movies, Natural Hazards, Resilience, Social Science, Urban Planning, Wildfire
As previous installments of our blog video series have indicated, the production team for Planning to Turn the Tide spent a great deal of time in June and July first in Florida, then on a two-week road trip to Colorado and Iowa from Chicago to capture additional...
by admin | Aug 11, 2023 | Books, Chicago, Environment, Movies, Nature, Urban forest, Volunteerism
It was a simple ask. Our Chicago First Ward Alderman, Daniel La Spata, included a notice in his e-newsletter about a Saturday morning outing, organizing at his ward office on Milwaukee Avenue, for volunteers to join Openlands Chicago tree keepers to help place mulch...
by admin | Jul 28, 2023 | Careers, Climate, Coastal Management, Disaster, Disaster policy, Emergency Management, Energy Conservation, Floodplain management, Floodplain management, Florida, Government, Hazard Mitigation, Movies, Natural Hazards, Resilience, Urban Planning, Water, Weather
A bit more than a month ago, I introduced this blog audience to Planning to Turn the Tide, the film project being undertaken by the APA Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division. I noted that we would be rolling out a series of updates as we completed...
