Episode 2

The host, Diogenes, discusses the recent severe weather in Iowa, including storms, funnel clouds, and tornadoes. He expresses concern about the frequency of tornadoes in the state and the need for emergency management to plan for these disasters. He also mentions the drought conditions and a building collapse in Davenport. Diogenes is excited about his graduate school progress and upcoming paper on improving emergency management. He concludes by promising to continue sharing important information for emergency management and homeland security experts. Hello and welcome to episode 2 of our Cause Speeds Iowa Diogenes. I'm your host, Diogenes. This past week we had some pretty nasty weather here in Iowa. We had three days of morning storms which was really, really concerning. Our first storm on Wednesday actually produced a derecho in Indiana which was kind of amazing that we did not get a derecho type of weather. We did go up to 50 miles per hour here. Yesterday, Saturday, July 1st, we had funnel clouds in the sky over Madison County which is not great due to the fact that we have had tornadoes here last year. So, you know, climate change is really something that's interesting to me as we look at the way that weather has moved up to this part of the state, this part of the country. We had tornadoes in January, February, March was our tornado. So actually here in Iowa all year round is tornado season which is kind of disturbing. If you think about that, really there are two seasons in Iowa. There's snow season and there's tornado season. That's about it. We get like a little taste of spring, hot and dreary summer, and then right back in tornadoes all over again. So something to really think about as I really dealt with some emergency management is what can we do to stop this? Now there's so many things that are out there that can be talked to about environmental science and environmental justice, but for me as an emergency manager it's very, very shocking and exhilarating at the same time. Try to figure out how to plan for these kind of disasters as the days go on. And again, if we've had tornadoes already January, February, March, April, May, I mean it's just time for another one here soon enough which is kind of scary to think about. Plus with the drought conditions here as well as you know the collapse of Davenport, Iowa, the building collapse, a lot of things going on here in Iowa that I don't think people really know about. So it's kind of a quick, quick and easy off my mind here. Graduate school, near postgraduate schools, good stuff going on. I almost finished my paper on how emergency managers can do a better job at serving their constituents. So I'll be coming out here soon. I'm excited for that. Excited to be back with my cohort and really just excited for the journey. So that's my brief summary for this week. I will continue on to put stuff out there for as good information. This was for Lauren because she asked for it and I did say I was going to do it. So I'm going to keep pushing down and putting out stuff that's not necessarily class related but things that I think are important for emergency management and homeland security experts. That's all I have for now. Have a great day.