July 4, 2013 Thailand – The “Safety Talk for the Hotel Industry” was held at the Asia Hotel. Many hotel owners were in attendance to understand the risks to the community they service and their investment. The event was organized and sponsored by the Association of Natural Disaster Prevention Industry (ANDPI).
We flew from Bangkok to Yangon, Myanmar on Monday morning. Once there we were greeted by Twe Twe and Nang. They took us to lunch before visiting the Myanmar Engineering Society. We stopped at a local place, they let me sample the goat brains to see if I would like it as my main course. It seemed
While most were sleeping, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The epicenter is located approximately 7 km northwest of L’Aquila, approximately 85 km northeast of Rome. L’Aquila is comprised primarily of Baroque and Renaissance era architecture and sits upon a hillside in a narrow valley.
The Hotel Montana: Once an iconic, four-star meeting place for Haitians, foreigners, spies and tourists, the locally owned hotel was utterly leveled by
the Jan 12 earthquake. All that is left is broken concrete, twisted metal and the stench of decaying bodies.
We selected 16 contractors and trained them in technology and business. We specified materials from local suppliers—Haitian-made. Contractors hired masons from the pool that we had trained.
We identified over 120,000 yellow-tagged houses with limited damage. They were still dangerous but relatively easy to repair. The famous Yellow House Repair Program originated here. During this program’s initial assessment, we identified more than 80,000 collapsed or heavily damaged buildings, which were red-tagged.