Bob Howard - 54 Years Assisting Disaster Survivors
How I spent September and October 1969
Late in the evening on August 17 in 1969, Hurricane Camille made landfall along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Waveland, MS. Camille is one of only FOUR Category 5 hurricanes ever to make landfall in the continental United States (Atlantic Basin) - the others being the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which impacted the Florida
Keys; Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which impacted south Florida; and Hurricane Michael in 2018, which impacted the Florida panhandle. (Note: It is worth mentioning that the 1928 San Felipe Hurricane made landfall as a Category 5 Hurricane on Puerto Rico)
Camille ranks as the 2nd most intense hurricane to strike the continental US with 900 mb pressure and landfall intensity of 150 knots. Camille ranks just below the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane with 892 mb and 160 knots, while slightly stronger than Hurricane Andrew with 922 mb and 145 knots and Hurricane Michael with 919 mb and 140 knots. The actual maximum sustained winds of Hurricane Camille are not known as the hurricane destroyed all the wind-recording instruments in the landfall area. Re-analysis data found peak winds of 150 knots (roughly
175 mph) along the coast. A devastating storm tide of 24.6 feet occurred west of our area in Pass Christian, MS.
1974 Before there was FEMA EA staff were borrowed from other agencies and the Red Cross
How I Spent April and May in 1975
President Gerald Ford, acting on a plea from New York's Cardinal Terrence Cooke for federal support, ordered Operation Babylift, a plan to evacuate more than 4,000 children from Catholic orphanages in South Vietnam via military aircraft. (Ultimately, about 2,500 children actually made the journey.) Once the flights arrived in the United States, medical teams met them to examine the children for severe dehydration, skin infections, chicken pox, pneumonia and other maladies. The most serious cases were rushed by ambulance to hospitals. About half of the children were processed through San Francisco's Presidio military base, which had converted Harmon Hall, one of its larger buildings, into a care facility. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle from April 6, 1975 listed the supplies required by the facility, including 7,886 bottles of formula, 1,440 aspirin tablets, "at least" 10,000 disposable diapers, gallons of baby powder, and so much more.
How I Spent My Summer 1976
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Phone lines were knocked out. Highways were blocked. What eastern Idaho residents heard on June 5, 1976, over the only reliable form of immediate communication, the radio airwaves was incomprehensible.
"The dam has busted," Don Ellis said on Rexburg station KRXK.
As the world soon learned, the 305-foot-high Teton Dam had broken in half. Its collapse sent a wall of water cascading through the Teton River canyon, north of the town of Newdale in Fremont County. Downstream, with no canyon to contain it, the flood fanned out for miles across the Snake River Plain. The water turned south, gobbling up cattle, cars and homes on its slow march to Idaho Falls and beyond. In the end, 11 people died and there were millions of dollars in property damage.
How I Spent March April 1979
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, and subsequent radiation leak that occurred on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident inU.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, the incident was rated a five as an "accident with wider consequences."
How I Spent October to December 1989
On October 17, 1989, the San Francisco Bay area of the United States was jolted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The quake’s epicenter was near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The magnitude 6.9 quake was the most powerful the state had experienced in several years.
The Loma Prieta earthquake was triggered by the mighty San Andreas Fault, where the massive Pacific plate slips northwestward. During the quake, the epicenter slipped up to two meters (six feet).
The Loma Prieta earthquake caused 63 deaths, 3,757 injuries, and about $6 billion in damage. Many casualties occurred as parts of
several transportation routes, including the San Francisco-
Oakland Bay Bridge and a busy freeway, collapsed.
How I Spent My August in 1999
On 17 August 1999, a catastrophic magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey, causing monumental damage and between 17,127 and 18,373 deaths.[8] Named for the quake’s proximity to the northwestern city of İzmit, the earthquake is also commonly referred to as the 17 August Earthquake or the 1999 Gölcük Earthquake.[9] The earthquake occurred at 03:01 local time (00:01 UTC) at a shallow depth of 15 km. A maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). was observed. The earthquake lasted for 37 seconds, causing seismic damage and is widely remembered as one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern Turkish history.
How I Spent Thanksgiving 2001
The workers ate their Thanksgiving dinners at the Marriott Financial Center hotel on West Street -- just south of the site -- which has been transformed into a respite center run by the American Red Cross. After rinsing off their dust-caked boots, they walked up the hotel's marble stairs, now covered in plastic, and past its empty front desk, which is protected by planks of plywood, to a ballroom on the second floor.
How I spent my New Years 2005
On the morning of December 26, 2004, a 30 meter high wave struck 1000 kilometers of Sri Lankan coastline without warning, devastating hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods. The tsunami, which was the most devastating natural disaster in Sri Lanka’s history, resulted in losses of over $1 billion in assets and $330 million in potential output, according to government estimates. Approximately 35,000 people died or went missing. The damage included 110,000 houses, of which 70,000 were destroyed. Around 250,000 families lost their means of support.
How I spent August 2005 to September 2008
Early in the morning on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale–it brought sustained winds of 100–140 miles per hour–and stretched some 400 miles across.
While the storm itself did a great deal of damage, its aftermath was catastrophic. Levee breaches led to massive flooding, and many people charged that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the people affected by the storm. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were displaced from their homes, and experts estimate that Katrina caused more than $100 billion in damage.
How I Spent My October and November 2009
On September 29, 2009, two large earthquakes struck midway between Samoa and American Samoa, a U.S. territory. The earthquakes generated tsunami waves of up to 22 meters (72 feet)that engulfed the shores, killing at least 192 people—149 in Samoa, 34 in American Samoa, and 9 in Niuatoputapu, Tonga.
The devastation extended beyond human casualties with houses destroyed, cars swept out to sea and some villages being virtually annihilated.
How I Spent My Fall 2017 and Spring 2018
Hurricane Harvey was a devastating Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths.
The Category 4 hurricane had a diameter of 280 miles with winds of 130 mph during its first landfall.
It was downgraded to a tropical storm and made another landfall near the Louisiana-Texas border Harvey has now busted the US record for rainfall from a single storm, dumping 51 inches of rain in parts of Texas The coastal cities of Beaumont and Port Arthur got 26 inches of rain in 24 hours By Sunday, it had dumped 27 trillion gallons of rain over Texas.
How I Spent My Fall 2020 and Spring 2021
Hurricane Ida, one of the most powerful and rapidly intensifying storms to hit the United States, delivered days of misery and destruction — from the time it made landfall in Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to the torrential rains that pummeled the Northeast.
Hurricane Ida lashed Louisiana on Sunday, August 29, making landfall near Port Fourchon as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 mph. A storm becomes a Category 5 at 157 mph. Ida then churned inland, bringing catastrophic winds, heavy rainfall, and tornadoes, along with flash and urban flooding plus life-threatening storm surge along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Death tolls continue to climb in several states — Louisiana officials reported at least 28 deaths, and at least another 50 people died in six Eastern states.
The storm devastated both Mississippi’s and Louisiana’s power grids, knocking out electricity to more than 1 million customers, including all of New Orleans, during late-summer sweltering heat. Some are still without electricity more than two weeks later. 
Those events were the highlights of my 54 years serving with the American Red Cross and FEMA.
There were more than sixty other events that I was honored to support. Each disaster, no matter how small, for the survivor, is a life-changing event.
Red Cross
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Level 5 External Affairs Officer
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International Response EA Lead
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Aviation Response EA Lead
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Mass Casualty Event EA Lead
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National Director Public Affairs
FEMA
