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rulemark7 · 4 years ago

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Workplace And Also Work.

Neighborhood Mediation Solution

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City Lawful Solutions.

Welcome To Mediation Mk.

As opposed to giving direct advice, mediators offer legal and monetary info to help customers reach their own decisions. In situations where there are a number of family possessions, it substantially quickens the mediation procedure if you can get assessments of assets in time for the first meeting. Transfer worths of pensions are typically tough to obtain and can stand up the mediation process. You will certainly require a solicitor to provide you your own independent lawful suggestions. Despite the fact that almost all our moderators are legal representatives, they can not encourage each of you separately, yet can only offer legal info to both of you with each other. Taylor & Emmet are well-established and also highly regarded providers of legal recommendations in the area of household regulation as well as our family mediatior has several years' experience in practicing family members law.

Our certified family moderators can help to sort out plans for the kids, what occurs to the household home as well as the best way of separating up financial debts, pensions and also financial resources, either before or after a separation or relationship split.

We have the ability to supply a range of different options for efficiently fixing household lawful matters.

Household mediation is a quicker, less pricey and also much fairer method for apart pairs to review and also get to amicable agreements outside of the court procedure.

Our family mediation solutions are utilized in circumstances such as separation, separation, parent/ kid conflict, malfunction of civil collaborations or break down of any kind of connections within a family.

Mediation is a process which allows events to resolve disagreements with discussion as well as arrangement, facilitated by an impartial, certified 3rd party-- the conciliator. In instances of separation as well as splitting up we can mediate on the department of residential or commercial property and also various other monetary properties, debts, youngster contact, parenting responsibilities and child/spousal maintenance. https://workplacemediations.co.uk/conflict-resolution/bolton/ aim to help everybody included reach agreement as well as resolution quickly and also with as little anxiety and dismayed as possible. Our arbitrators are specially trained and also experienced in fixing a large range of disputes.

City Lawful Solutions.

There are a a great deal of conciliators around, both independent as well as mediation bodies. The mediator is a court staff member that is learnt mediation skills.

He may not recognize a large amount about the conflict and also will not give any lawful guidance or offer any indication regarding the strength of each situation. His role is to serve as a middle guy to see if terms of the settlement can be gotten to. business mediation services norwich claims mediation solution is a complimentary solution offered by the civil courts for individuals involved in a tiny claims disagreement. Continue reading to discover what it is, when you need to use it as well as what you can do to get ready for it. No, people typically participate in mediation without a lawyer but may well have actually listened from one prior to doing so.

Welcome To Mediation Mk.

Advice is additionally offered from some organisations run systems for a particular market as well as some deal pro-bono or fixed-rate charges, particularly on the lower-value conflicts. Being told about mediation is mandatory for any kind of applicant wanting to go to court for a household issue. Both customers need to intend to moderate but either can stop the process at any time. We are a young, cutting-edge company dealing with all aspects of Family members Mediation Services. Whilst whether you in fact utilize mediation as a process to aid you to deal with any differences remains voluntary, being told about mediation is not volunteer for any type of possible candidate right into the Family members Court. The Federal government is highly encouraging people to find out about mediation to put moms and dads back in charge of choice making as well as to lower stress on the family members court system. Customers eligible to declare legal help will receive complimentary family mediation, with the other party additionally gaining from a free MIAM as well as a cost-free very first mediation conference as soon as qualification is validated.

They are independent, will certainly not pass judgment and will certainly not take sides. Our free and private mediation solution aids neighbours that are having disputes to figure out their differences in a friendly fashion. Readily available to every person in South Ayrshire, our service can be really reliable when used early on in the dispute therefore we encourage participants of the public to come ahead and also talk to us.

The Conciliator.

We can also arrange mediations in other methods if you are not comfy with either video clip or telephone seminar meeting. To figure out even more about how divorce mediation solutions can aid you with this difficult time click here to contact us. The conciliator is a professional in helping people to connect more effectively with each various other. During the mediation, the conciliator's duty is to aid parties obtain quality about their circumstance, promote a conversation, and also help reach a resolution that is equally appropriate. Mediation is a confidential process that aids celebrations to speak via problems with an unbiased arbitrator to discover a means ahead. Mediation works because it assists individuals locate sensible remedies that really feel reasonable to everyone.Click hereto read our one-of-a-kind workplace mediation instance studyfrom each party's viewpoint.

What are 5 conflict resolution strategies?

Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed five conflict resolution strategies that people use to handle conflict, including avoiding, defeating, compromising, accommodating, and collaborating. This is based on the assumption that people choose how cooperative and how assertive to be in a conflict.

Housing Legal rights is piloting North Ireland's initial housing mediation solution for the private rented out industry. The solution is funded by the Department for Communities and will certainly supply an alternative means to fix disagreements in the sector. The Legislation Culture of Northern Ireland is pleased to introduce its authorized mediation solution with experienced conciliators. Usually individuals get to an arrangement, which is placed in composing with the aid of the moderator. The Arrangement needs to serve to all events as well as a copy provided to everybody. Adhering to mediation, we provide a certificate within 3 working days.

Worldwide Mediation provides cost-effective, effective and private mediation as well as disagreement resolution solutions for a wide range of individual or expert conflicts. This does not imply that our service is 'on the cheap', rather our conciliators are fully educated, experienced, and have actually the compassion called for to talk with all of the aspects of your divorce. workplace mediation milton keynes will certainly find that with mediation there is a great deal more cash which is left over for the basics of life. This means that your separation, or separation, will be a great deal less onerous in terms of financial repercussions for your youngsters. There is mediation available for claims outside the little insurance claims track such as fast-track and also multi-track track cases. The National Mediation Helpline can help with such matters or the celebrations can instruct an exclusive moderator.

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The court must however, placed the proceedings on hold or hold back establishing a test day up until the mediation has actually occurred. Under the court policies, Juries are needed to proactively take care of exactly how cases progress including urging the celebrations to use a different disagreement resolution procedure, such as mediation The courts can not compel the parties to a tiny claim to use the service yet they motivate the events to benefit from it. Usually, you must try mediation if you are associated with a little case as there is no cost to you. It is better for mediation to happen earlier instead of later on. If a claim can be cleared up after a defence has actually been filed, it can stay clear of the requirement to prepare witness declarations, records as well as the test itself.

This suggests that if you choose you wish to go to Tribunal, you have 30 days to make your charm. A Bill to make further provision concerning arbitration as well as mediation services and the application of equal rights regulation to such services; and for connected purposes. Our Resolution-trained moderators are all experienced household legal representatives with specialist knowledge of the Family members Court's assumptions. Mediation is usually the most cost-effective technique to settling disputes arising from divorce or splitting up.

DR. JERRY FIDDLER, 81 - wccsradio.com

DR. JERRY FIDDLER, 81.

Posted: Wed, 13 Jan 2021 13:12:19 GMT [source]

Charges are typically split in between you as well as the other event or a funding resource is identified during mediation to cover the process. Usually, sessions last between one and also 2 hrs and the number called for will depend on exactly how rapidly agreement can be gotten to. The Rutland as well as Stamford Household Mediation Solution is readily available Monday to Friday, 9am-- 5pm, as well as is a totally volunteer process.

If your connection has actually involved an end after that you will certainly require to attend MIAMS to start the mediation procedure. These meetings are created to aid you to figure out any type of impressive issues around economic matters, or child care treatments. In 2011 there was an adjustment in the legislation to make participating in MIAMS conference much less governmental, and also indicating that it is virtually essential to attend these conferences. We have offices all over the UK with experienced as well as professional family members mediators to help settles issues. Mediation has an exceptional success rate meaning that any kind of celebration picking to moderate has an excellent opportunity of the conflict being settled there and after that.

Is mediation a good thing?

Mediation is a great way to solve traditional legal disputes and can be a much cheaper, quicker and more pleasant process than litigation. Not too many people are very familiar with mediation, however, and most people have questions about whether the process is right for them.

Typically the events split the price of the conciliator and also this joint investment in looking for a resolution contributes to each celebration's dedication to the procedure. The court provided mediation solution is free and you do not need to carry out a great deal of prep work prior to the mediation occurs. If the insurance claim resolves, you can stay clear of the tension as well as time of the test and preparing for it. Please keep in mind that even if you tick package on the instructions questionnaire stating that you wish to moderate, it does not indicate that mediation will actually occur. There is additionally the risk that the court service will be unable to arrange a mediation before the test day.

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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Biden Poised to Repeat Mistakes that Led to COVID Pandemic, Biosecurity Experts Say

— By Fred Guterl | 08/18/21 | Newsweek

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY NEWSWEEK; SOURCE IMAGES BY GETTY

The COVID-19 pandemic may have made a future pandemic more likely. In a terrible irony, nations eager to get a handle on the virus and its variants are building high-containment laboratories at a brisk pace, ensuring that more scientists continue to experiment on dangerous pathogens even after the current threat fades—increasing the likelihood of future lab accidents that could release dangerous pathogens. Regardless of whether the current pandemic got its start in a laboratory in Wuhan or in animals—a mystery that may never be resolved—the mere fact that it's possible is reason enough to take precautions against any future occurrence, biosecurity experts say.

"Without a doubt, COVID-19 has changed the threat landscape," says Peggy Hamburg, former FDA commissioner and now vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank on global security.

Yet despite the rising risk of a new, future pandemic caused by a lab leak—or one that emerges from a bioterrorist attack or even natural causes, for that matter—the U.S. government, under the leadership of Joe Biden and Congress, seems on course to repeat the mistake made by nearly every one of its predecessors for the past several decades: failing to take all possible steps to strengthen America's response to a future pandemic or prevent one from happening in the first place.

One year ago, as SARS-CoV-2 raged through an unprotected population and vaccines were still months away from authorization, workers were wondering how they'd protect themselves through the long winter months and parents were fretting over how they'd hold down a job while their kids stayed home all day learning in front of a laptop. Now, despite the widespread availability of vaccines, the surge in COVID cases due to the Delta variant is raising fears and uncertainties about the prospects of a second pandemic winter among a war-weary public.

The upside of a nation of people bummed out about new mask mandates and public health restrictions for another school year is a rising understanding of how much pandemics suck and how important it is to prevent them. With the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still in full swing, public awareness should be at a historic high. One poll, by the progressive group Data for Progress, shows that 71 percent of the public—including 60 percent of Republicans—supports a $30 billion pandemic-prevention plan recently floated by President Biden.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with senators earlier this year to discuss the infrastructure bill, which did not contain funding for the president’s pandemic prevention plan. DOUG MILLS/POOL/GETTY

The White House's plan hits the right notes. It would improve response time to develop therapeutics and vaccines, beef up the national stockpile and tighten regulations on risky lab research. But just because Biden proposed it doesn't mean Washington politicians are tripping over themselves to implement it. The bipartisan infrastructure package did not include funding for the plan, and it's not clear the $3.5 trillion spending bill that Democrats hope to pass without Republican support will include that money, either—Democrats are reportedly considering paring down funding to 20 percent of the original proposal. On this omission, Biden has so far been silent.

Having resources to regulate hazardous research may be critical. "The discussions about the Wuhan lab underscore that this is a theoretically plausible risk—that there could be a global pandemic that emerges because of work going on in a laboratory," says Dr. Hamburg. "We may never know the origins of this particular virus, but it shines a very bright light on the need to address some broader, very critical biosecurity concerns."

Former FDA Commissioner Peggy Hamburg, who says, “COVID-19 has changed the threat landscape.” ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG/GETTY

Slow Learners

Keeping the world safe from deadly pathogens isn't something the U.S. can do alone. But the top levels of the executive branch need to ride herd on the disparate departments and agencies of the federal government to prevent a crisis and respond when one occurs.

Past presidents have learned and unlearned this lesson many times. President Bill Clinton appointed a team headed by Kenneth Bernard, a medical doctor and rear admiral, to the National Security Council in 1998. Bernard's office helped coordinate the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis and was instrumental in establishing a national stockpile of vaccines against smallpox, neutralizing the smallpox virus as a potential bioweapon. But George W. Bush eliminated the office early on, only to reverse course after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, when anthrax-laden envelopes started arriving in the mailboxes of prominent politicians and media organizations. A year or so later, Tom Ridge, head of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, brought Bernard back as part of a five-person White House biosecurity team.

The H1N1 influenza pandemic arrived in the early days of the Obama administration, before Kathleen Sebelius could be confirmed as head of HHS. As a result, it was criticized for being slow in developing a vaccine and for its public health messaging. The mildness of the H1N1 virus let the Obama administration off the hook.

Still, when the Ebola crisis arrived in 2014, the Obama White House was caught flat-footed. After being criticized for a slow response, Obama tapped Ron Klain, former chief of staff to vice-presidents Biden and Al Gore—and now to President Biden—to take a high-profile role coordinating the U.S. Ebola response.

A plan is vitally needed to stave off another epidemic, like Ebola (pictured), experts say. JOHN MOORE/GETTY

Klain coordinated the disparate departments and agencies of the federal government. The White House ultimately sent thousands of troops to the front line of the epidemic in West Africa to help contain the outbreak. "I was brought in not because I knew about public health or pandemics but because I had experience in making the different arms of the government work together and making them work effectively and quickly," Klain told Wired in 2015. "That really was the challenge—coordinating between the different agencies.

That lesson was codified after the crisis was over by a junior member of the White House staff named Beth Cameron, who helped draft the Obama playbook for use in future pandemics. Among its recommendations: Create a permanent pandemic office in the White House's National Security Council—a pandemic czar who would sound the alarm about a biological threat long before most White House officials, distracted by myriad day-to-day problems, would typically notice, and then wield the enormous power of the office of the president to force the vast federal bureaucracy to focus on an invisible threat and take swift action.

Obama followed this advice, appointing Admiral Timothy Ziemer, a veteran of AIDS and malaria programs in Africa. Ziemer stayed through the first half of the Trump administration only to be fired in 2018 by John Bolton, the new national security adviser. Bolton disbanded the staff and shifted responsibility for coordinating pandemic response to HSS.

When news of COVID-19 started coming in from China in early 2020, there was no pandemic czar on the White House staff to galvanize the pandemic response or point out how important it was to push China to be more forthcoming with information on the outbreak's origins. "The problem with Bolton eliminating the office was not so much that he disbanded the team but that he fired the pandemic czar," says Bernard. "If you can't advocate for an issue with the boss with a walk-in-the-office mandate, then you are, by definition, lower priority."

Ziemer insists that Bolton's reorganization made sense but allows that a pandemic czar would have helped. "Had I been there," he says, "I'd have been pounding on [chief of staff] Mick Mulvaney's desk saying I needed $8 million to fund this team."

Biden acted quickly upon taking office to correct this omission. He appointed Cameron, the author of the pandemic playbook that Bolton ignored, as head of the National Security Council Directorate on Global Health Security and Biodefense. Cameron is charged with establishing a U.S. center that will act as an early-warning system for disease outbreaks, reduce the time that it takes the government to respond to new biological threats and to review "the existing state of our biodefense enterprise and [determine] where gaps remain," according to a senior government official at the White House. "We must urgently prepare for and ultimately try to prevent the next pandemic by strengthening biopreparedness at home, bolstering health security in every country, and building the international pandemic architecture we need to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to emerging biological threats." (Cameron declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Biden gets high marks for his appointment of Cameron from Bernard and Ziemer. "It shows that the Biden administration gets it," Ziemer says. Gerald Epstein, a physicist who worked in national security in the Clinton administration, says "the White House has hit the ground running and has great people." He calls the Biden plan "ambitious."

The pandemic czar now faces a daunting task. She will have to find a way to effectively regulate the most risky research performed in the U.S. labs and those financed by the U.S. government, many of which take place abroad. And she will have to push to get the commitment of other nations to follow suit and to agree on international mechanisms to monitor for outbreaks and investigate them once they occur.

What to Do About Risky Lab Research

Scientists and policymakers have been issuing warnings of the risk of a pandemic starting with a lab accident for many years. The history of accidents in U.S. labs that perform research with dangerous pathogens, with poor safety practices and minimal oversight, has been well documented.

Cracking down on this research will be tricky, not least because the federal government is not in the habit of policing the work of research virologists, who in turn are understandably reluctant to be policed. For the vast majority of research, this is not a problem. For a tiny portion of research, it is—and all it takes is one incident to start a pandemic.

In recent months, the argument over whether the pandemic started with a lab leak or arose naturally from animals has taken on the characteristics of a schoolyard shouting match—two sides each insisting they're right on the basis of little or no evidence. We may never have clear evidence either way.

Settling the matter would require the discovery of compelling new information—either a genetic trail from bats to humans via some intermediate mammal—a so-called zoonotic origin—or lab notes and interviews with researchers and other employees of the Wuhan laboratories, which could happen only in the event that those records have been retained and that China chooses to cooperate, or copies of those records exist at the Wuhan lab's U.S. collaborators, funders or publishers and that the U.S. chooses to investigate. The 90-day intelligence report that President Biden has requested is not expected to reveal a smoking gun or even anything profoundly new.

A security guard stands by as WHO officials visit the Wuhan lab earlier this year. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY

What's needed are standards of biosafety for the research on pandemic viruses that could result in trouble if a lab leak occurred—not so much a ban on risky research as an effective system of regulation that would require a consideration of benefits versus risks at the outset of research, says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers and an expert in biosafety. "This would be put in place for high-consequence research—research that increases the transmissibility, or pathogenicity, or ability to overcome immune response, or ability to overcome drugs or vaccines of a pathogen," he says.

The current structure of oversight is inadequate, says Ebright, mainly because the funding agencies police themselves. After a moratorium on research that involves increasing the infectiousness or virulence of potential pandemic pathogens, in 2017 the federal government required the HHS to establish a committee to review proposals for such "gain-of-function" research to determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks. It also required the NIH and other funding agencies to flag such proposals to the committee. The committee cleared three proposals, says Ebright, after which no further proposals were flagged for review, essentially nullifying the policy.

Instead, analysts say, oversight should fall to an independent group that can assess the benefits and risks objectively. "It has to be carried out by a federal entity that does not perform research and does not fund research, with expertise in national security issues, biomedical research and formal quantitative risk-benefit assessment," says Ebright. "And it has to be carried out by an entity that is open and transparent in its membership and its proceedings."

The process would be similar to what now occurs with research involving human test subjects. If risks are found to outweigh the benefits, the research is not simply denied funding. It isn't allowed to proceed at all.

Processes are also needed to deal with the pandemic threats posed by bioterrorism—and by nature, which has shown itself perfectly capable of delivering diseases even nastier than COVID-19. For proof, one need look no farther than smallpox, which kills 30 percent of its victims. Inexpensive genetic tools have made it relatively easy and cheap to manipulate viruses like smallpox to resist vaccines, and even manufacture new viruses from scratch.

An International Response

To prevent an accidental pandemic, it's not enough to get a grip on U.S. research. The Biden administration will have to use its leadership abroad to establish international biosafety standards. It will also have to get other nations to agree to standards of behavior in a crisis, including sharing information about outbreaks and agreeing to allow international inspectors to gather information in the early days of an outbreak.

A COVID-19 patient on a ventilator in a Minneapolis hospital. AARON LAVINSKY/STAR TRIBUNE/GETTY

Cameron is well aware of the need for such agreements. Prior to her appointment in the White House, she was an organizer of an exercise held in 2019 in Munich designed to identify shortcomings in the world's biosecurity. For a few days, she and a broad range of experts from several nations held war games that focused on "deliberate high-consequence events"—in a word, biowarfare. The group wanted to assess how well the U.S. and the rest of the world would fare if, say, a terrorist group were to release a dangerous pathogen on an unprotected population.

The group started with an outbreak of a respiratory ailment in the fictional country of Vestia, riven by civil war. Medicines turn out to be ineffective against the pathogen, Yersinia pestis, a plague bacteria engineered by a terrorist group to resist known antibiotics. The outbreak spreads to Europe and the U.S. The director-general of the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency.

It's not exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic transpired a year and a half ago, but it's similar in many respects. It makes little difference whether or not SARS-CoV-2 was natural or engineered or whether it was deliberately or accidentally released. In both the tabletop scenario and the real event, the pathogen was novel, meaning the nearly 8 billion people on Earth had no immune resistance to it, and there were no known treatments or vaccines against it.

The other similarity between the game and the reality is that the world was woefully unprepared and cumbersome in its response. Having lived through the current pandemic, it's not hard to understand the reasons why: Nations are unwilling to share information and forced to cobble together an ad hoc response and governments lacked transparency and consistent messaging. One prominent obstacle the tabletop exercise didn't foresee was the hyper-politicized environment of public health measures, but two out of three ain't bad.

When the pandemic struck in late 2019 and early 2020, the international scenario played out as poorly in real life as it did on the tabletop. China snapped shut like a trap, silencing clinicians who sounded the public health alarm and destroying early samples that could have helped trace the origin of the virus. The World Health Organization, which the Trump administration had recently abandoned, was left to deal with a situation that was beyond its capacities and its mission.

What the world needed at that moment was a "joint assessment mechanism to investigate high-consequence biological events of unknown origin," says Jaime Yassif, a senior fellow for global biological policy and programs at NTI, who worked for Cameron at the time. That would be an independent agency of the United Nations similar to the International Atomic Energy Commission, which oversees agreements on nuclear proliferation, including supplying inspectors to police the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Had China, the U.S. and other nations put such a group in place prior to early 2020, a team of investigators with the ability to explore the "naturally emerging" and "lab accident" hypotheses would have been at the ready, along with international agreements and protocols to smooth their way in gathering information, working with a network of labs to evaluate samples and conduct a thorough investigation. They might have explored, in a scientific, evidence-based way, all the open questions about origins. The U.S. would have had a way of rapidly deploying an investigative team to get more reliable information about the origins and try to understand the cause.

As it was, the void was filled by the WHO, whose mission is to investigate natural outbreaks. Any notion that the WHO was equipped to investigate the possibility of a lab leak is belied by the fact that it took a year to send a team of investigators, who came to the dubious conclusion that no further investigation into the lab-leak theory was warranted—a claim later contradicted by the U.N. Secretary-General.

Had the outbreak clearly been a biological attack or other deliberate misuse of biological agents, the responsibility for investigating could have fallen to the Secretary-General, under the auspices of the bioweapons convention. Because the origin of the outbreak was ambiguous, it fell through the cracks.

With no responsible organization in place to take action at the moment of crisis, a yawning information gap opened up. It was quickly filled with finger pointing, racism and conspiracy mongering, particularly in public exchanges between the U.S. and China. "If we had had a mechanism in place," says Yassif, "perhaps we could have avoided a lot of the uncertainty and politicization of this question, and perhaps we could have gotten a higher confidence assessment of the origins early on."

That assessment, of course, is hypothetical: There's no guarantee China, even were it to sign on to such a mechanism, would honor it at the moment of crisis. But even so, it would have had to commit a clear violation of a standard of behavior that it had agreed to. The fact of noncompliance would itself have been useful information.

Now that the world has seen what havoc can result from a nasty bug, says Yassif, "they may be more interested now than they were in the past of exploring the prospect of using biological weapons to advance their strategic or tactical aims. It's getting easier and easier for malicious actors to theoretically carry out a biological attack deliberately. COVID has highlighted these risks and may even have exacerbated them."

A Question of Leadership

To have a chance at getting all this done, the pandemic czar has to have a laser-focus on the issue of pandemic preparedness as well as the full support of the president of the United States. The key question is, will Cameron get the support she needs to shake up the administration?

The role of a pandemic czar is as much about national security and policy as it is about science. Questions about closing schools and airports, implementing mask mandates and closing businesses are political decisions that can only be made by somebody who has the ear of the president, as Ron Klain did during the Ebola crisis. It's not clear, says Bernard, that Cameron has that kind of authority.

"Before they named Klain during Ebola, it was a disaster," recalls Bernard. "Our response was disjointed and stovepiped. Defense wasn't talking to Health and Human Services. USAID was arguing with CDC. It was a mess—and then Ron came in and pulled everybody together. That's what's needed. That's what's missing even today at the White House."

Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who won high marks for overseeing the Obama administration response to the Ebola crisis in 2014. RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY

The task requires a leader who can act in the president's name and get senior people from all departments of governing to come to the table. The lack of clear authority has hampered pandemic responses not just during COVID-19 but in other outbreaks as well. A pandemic response requires high-level-policy meetings with the Defense Department, State Department, Health and Human Services, USAID, the Treasury and Commerce.

"They all have to be in the room because if they're not, you miss something because they're all interrelated when it comes to a global pandemic," says Bernard.

Cameron's rank in the White House is Special Assistant to the President. This sounds impressive, but it's lower in the hierarchy than Press Secretary or National Security Adviser, who are Assistants, and lower than Deputy Assistants. Bernard says it is "not senior enough for running a U.S. government-wide process."

The highest ranking science adviser in the White House is not Cameron but Eric Lander, the first science adviser to hold cabinet rank. Lander has a reputation as a brilliant scientist and administrator and has assembled a highly-regarded staff. As the former head of the Broad Institute in Boston, Lander knows as much as anybody about the science and is known to be pushing for better oversight of research on risky pathogens. But as head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, his responsibility is far broader than preparing for the next pandemic, which means he lacks the single-minded focus a pandemic czar needs.

Eric Lander, being sworn in last June as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, making him the administration’s highest ranking science adviser. ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY

Even if Cameron gets the full backing of Biden, Ziemer worries that COVID-19 has been so politicized that it will be difficult for the Biden administration to get anything done. "The current government bureaucracy, the inability to move money quickly in response to a changing landscape, will keep the government handicapped on where we need to go in the next five years," he says. "We need to depoliticize COVID and have an adult discussion about how to plan, fund and remain agile in preparation for the next pandemic."

So far, Biden has taken few steps to address the next pandemic. He made public statements calling China to task for its lack of transparency over the origins of the virus. He signed an executive order to create a center for epidemic forecasting and outbreak analytics that would track viruses and watch for early signs of an outbreak in the U.S. And Cameron is reaching out to other governments to talk about cooperation.

If history is any guide, now is the moment of maximum political will to prevent and prepare for the next pandemic.

The failure of the U.S. government, and those of other nations, to prepare for the possibility of a sudden, catastrophic pandemic—something scientists had warned about for years before the coronavirus struck—arguably cost millions of lives, trillions of dollars in lost wages and ruined livelihoods, and immense human suffering. It would be unthinkable to allow that to happen again.

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pagesfestival · 7 years ago

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Winners announced in Tennessee AP professional news contest | Miami Herald

Winners of the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters and Media Editors contest were announced Saturday evening at the Nashville Marriott.

Dozens of AP-member newspapers and broadcasters from across the state submitted more than 730 entries in the contest to honor the best journalism in Tennessee in 2017. The competition is sponsored by the School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University.

The AP is a not-for-profit news cooperative representing 1,400 newspapers and 5,000 broadcast stations in the United States.

John Seigenthaler Award of Excellence: WTVF-TV, Nashville, "Toxic School Water."

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Outstanding News Operation-Newspaper: Joan McClane and Joy Smith, Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Outstanding News Operation-Broadcast: WSMV-TV, Nashville.

Journalist of the Year-Newspaper: Matt Lakin, The Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Journalist of the Year-TV: Chris Conte, WTVF-TV, Nashville.

Journalist of the Year-Radio: Meribah Knight, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

TV Division I:

Short Light Feature: 1, Forrest Sanders, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Funeral Man"; 2, Brittany Tarwater and Caitlyn Shelton, WVLT-TV, Knoxville, "Homegrown Expressions."

Long Light Feature: 1, Michael Crowe, WBIR-TV, Knoxville, "Seeing the Good"; 2, Erika Kurre and Ryan Thornburg, WZTV-TV, Nashville, "Mustard Seed Ranch."

Short Serious News Story: 1, Daniel Sechtin and William Winnett, WBIR-TV, Knoxville, "Gatlinburg Breakfast Club"; 2, Dennis Ferrier and Ryan Brooker, WZTV-TV, Nashville, "An Accidental Shooting."

Long Serious News Story: 1, Lindsay Bramson and Zina Bauman, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "What’s Hiding in Your Kids Classroom?"; 2, Linda Nguyen and Eric Altenhof, WATE-TV, Knoxville, "Stories from the Ashes: James Wood."

Sports Feature: 1, Felicia Bolton and Shiela Whaley, WMC-TV, Memphis, "Diving Back In"; 2, Dennis Ferrier and Stephen Van Schaack, WZTV-TV, Nashville, "Summertown Baseball."

Political Coverage: 1, Jeremy Finley and Jason Finley, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Strong Arm Politics"; 2, Alanna Autler and Zina Bauman, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Cash Concerns on Capitol Hill."

TV Spot News: 1, WHBQ-TV, Memphis, "Confederate Statue Removal"; 2, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Officer Drowns Trying to Save Suicidal Woman."

Videography: 1, WSMV-TV, Nashville; 2, William Winnett, WBIR-TV, Knoxville.

TV Editing: 1, Forrest Sanders, WSMV-TV, Nashville; 2, William Winnett, WBIR-TV, Knoxville.

TV Producing: 1, Linda Nguyen, WATE-TV, Knoxville, "Sevier County Wildfires"; 2, Ashley Zarach and Janna Smithson, WKRN-TV, Nashville, "Road to the Cup June 11th."

Weather Coverage: 1, WTVF-TV, Nashville; 2, WKRN-TV, Nashville.

TV Enterprise: 1, Dennis Ferrier and Kyle Benton, WZTV-TV, Nashville, "Lauren Agee Murder Mystery"; 2, Jeremy Finley and Jason Finley, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Mr. Twisty."

Public Affairs: 1, WTVF-TV, Nashville, "Fire on the Mountain"; 2, Alanna Autler and Matthew Parker, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "A Disabling Form of Discipline."

Multimedia: 1, WTVF-TV, Nashville, "The Search for Tad Cummins"; 2, WZTV-TV, Nashville, "White Nationalists Come to Middle Tennessee."

TV Investigative: 1, Nancy Amons and Jim Garbee, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Influence, Infidelity & Men in Power"; 2, Jeremy Finley and Jason Finley, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Strong Arm Politics."

TV News Videographer: 1, Forrest Sanders, WSMV-TV, Nashville; 2, Shiela Whaley, WMC – TV, Memphis, "Ready, Set, Shoot!"

TV Weather Anchor: 1, Katy Morgan, WZTV-TV, Nashville; 2, Lelan Statom, WTVF-TV, Nashville.

TV Sportscaster: 1, Louis Fernandez Jr, WBIR-TV, Knoxville; 2, Sudu Upadhyay, WMC-TV, Memphis.

TV Reporter: 1, Forrest Sanders, WSMV-TV, Nashville; 2, Daniel Sechtin, WBIR-TV, Knoxville.

TV News Anchor: 1, Tracy Kornet, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Breaking News & Rooftop Views"; 2, Amanda Hara, WVLT-TV, Knoxville.

TV Daytime Newscast: 1, WKRN-TV, Nashville, "Good Morning Nashville"; 2, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "Clerk Killers Caught LIVE."

TV Evening Newscast: 1, WSMV-TV, Nashville, "National Manhunt Ends in Tennessee."; 2, Airelle Vincent and Sarah Shiverdecker, WZTV-TV, Nashville." Antioch Church Shooting."

Newspaper Division III:

Features: 1, Juli Thanki, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Music Highway"; 2, Jason Wolf, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Craft."

Sports-Outdoors: 1, Geoff Calkins, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal; 2, Adam Sparks, The (Nashville) Tennessean.

Business News: 1, Jamie McGee, The (Nashville) Tennessean; 2, Michael Reicher, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Nashville’s Housing Boom."

Editorials: 1, David Plazas, The (Nashville) Tennessean; 2, Jack McElroy, The Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Daily Deadline: 1, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Antioch Church Shooting"; 2, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "Memphis Removes Confederate Statues From Downtown Parks."

Video: 1, Angela Gosnell, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, "Five Days of Flame"; 2, Marc Perrusquia and Jason Viera, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King’s Last Words."

Multimedia: 1, Matt Lakin and Angela Gosnell, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, "Five Days of Flame"; 2, Marc Perrusquia and Brad Vest, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "Wounded City."

Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting: 1, Michael Reicher, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "The Cost of Jobs"; 2, Joel Ebert and David Boucher, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Tennessee Campaign Finance Abuse."

Feature Photography: 1, Lacy Atkins, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "A Mother’s Nightmare"; 2, James Weber, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "Beale Street Music Festival."

Sports Photography: 1, Calvin Mattheis, The Knoxville News-Sentinel; 2, Mark Weber, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "Grizzlies Season."

Spot News Photography: 1, Andrew Nelles, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Church Shooting"; 2, Shelley Mays, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Flash Flood."

Photojournalism: 1, Brad Vest, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "Wounded City"; 2, Shelley Mays, The (Nashville) Tennessean, "Mountain Mission on Wheels."

Individual Achievement / Body of Work in Photography: 1, Lacy Atkins, The (Nashville) Tennessean; 2, Andrew Nelles, The (Nashville) Tennessean.

TV Division II:

Short Light Feature: 1, Lee Broome, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "91-Year-Old Honors Late Wife with Song"; 2, Jessica Harthorn and Heath Mosier, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Nash Norris."

Long Light Feature: 1, Natalie Potts and Lee Broome, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "Hart Gallery"; 2, Paul Johnson, WCYB-TV, Bristol, "Junior’s First Ride."

Short Serious News Story: 1, Sydney Cameron, WJHL-TV, Johnson City, "Dangers of Fentanyl"; 2, Stephanie Santostasi and Blaine Headrick, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Bedroom Crushed."

Sports Feature: 1, Dave Staley, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Andrea Motivates"; 2, Jill Jelnick and Charlton McCullom, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "Jerry’s Miracle."

Political Coverage: 1, Curtis McCloud, WJHL-TV, Johnson City, "Greene County Road Superintendent Campaigning During Parade"; 2, James Mahon, WDEF-TV, Chattanooga, "Iraq: A Spring of Discontent."

TV Spot News: 1, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Stabbing and Chase"; 2, WCYB-TV, Bristol, "Eastman Explosion."

Videography: 1, Blaine Headrick and Brent McDonald, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "New Fire Truck"; 2, Blaine Headrick, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga.

TV Editing: 1, Lee Broome, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "91-Year-Old Honors Late Wife with Song"; 2, Morgan Hiu, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Old Harrison."

TV Producing: 1, Danielle Wilburn, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "Man Found Alive, Popular Restaurant Collapse"; 2, Emily Kulick, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga.

Weather Coverage: 1, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga; 2, Tom Meiners, WBBJ-TV, Jackson.

TV Enterprise: 1, Curtis McCloud and Brandon Hicks, WJHL-TV, Johnson City, "Saving Cedar Grove"; 2, Katherine Marchand and Adam Watts, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Woodmore Promise."

TV Investigative: 1, Katherine Marchand and Adam Watts, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, "Teacher Licenses"; 2, Cameron Taylor and Charlton McCullom, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga, "School Bus Complaints."

TV News Videographer: 1, Webb Wright, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga.

TV Weather Anchor: 1, David Glenn, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga; 2, Tom Meiners, WBBJ-TV, Jackson.

TV Sportscaster: 1, John Madewell, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga; 2, Jill Jelnick, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga.

TV Reporter: 1, James Torrez, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga; 2, Stephanie Santostasi, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga.

TV News Anchor: 1, Paul Johnson, WCYB-TV, Bristol; 2, Jessica Harthorn, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga.

TV Evening Newscast: 1, WCYB-TV, Bristol; 2, WRCB-TV, Chattanooga.

Newspaper Division II:

Features: 1, Tammy Childress, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Paws to Help – Blind "; 2, Anyssa Roberts, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle, "Breaking the Color Barrier."

Sports-Outdoors: 1, Melanie Tucker, The (Maryville) Daily Times, "Galyon’s Hike Start to Finish"; 2, Colton Pouncy, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle.

Business News: 1, Nathan Baker, Johnson City Press, "NN Inc. "; 2, David McGee, (Bristol) Herald Courier.

Editorials: 1, Ted Como, Kingsport Times-News; 2, Robert Houk, Johnson City Press.

Daily Deadline: 1, Robert Sorrell, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Arrest Made in 27-Year-Old "Clown" Murder"; 2, Stephanie Ingersoll and Chris Smith, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle, "Woman, 2 Children Killed in Clarksville."

Video: 1, Kenneth Cummings, The Jackson Sun, "West Tennessee EMS Shortage"; 2, Erica Brechtelsbauer, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle, "The New Normal: A Family of 15 Shares How They Do It."

Multimedia: 1, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Addicted at Birth"; 2, Kenneth Cummings, The Jackson Sun, "Lambuth Comes Alive With Music."

Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting: 1, Nathan Baker and Zach Vance, Johnson City Press, "PILOT Tax Incentives Investigation"; 2, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Addicted at Birth."

Feature Photography: 1, Andre Teague, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Windows"; 2, Sue Guinn Legg, Johnson City Press, "A Day of Boundless Fun."

Sports Photography: 1, C.B. Schmelter, The Jackson Sun; 2, David Crigger, (Bristol) Herald Courier, "Endzone Interception."

Spot News Photography: 1, Erica Brechtelsbauer, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle, "Hurricane Harvey Brings Floods to Clarksville"; 2, Tom Sherlin, The (Maryville) Daily Times, "Missing Teen Walks out of Smokies."

Photojournalism: 1, Erica Brechtelsbauer, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle, "Fort Campbell Lays to Rest 101st Airborne Soldiers"; 2, Jeff Bobo, Kingsport Times-News, "Patriotism, Food and Fun at Surgoinsville Riverfront Festival."

Individual Achievement / Body of Work in Photography: 1, Erica Brechtelsbauer, The (Clarksville) Leaf Chronicle; 2, Kenneth Cummings, The Jackson Sun.

Radio:

Short Light News Feature: 1, Meribah Knight, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Shadow Snakes"; 2, Mike Osborne, WMOT-FM, Murfreesboro, "Mid-State Man One of the Nation’s Few Custom Trombone Makers."

Long Light News Feature: 1, Natasha Senjanovic, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "The ‘Bad News Bears’ Of Tennessee Mountain Bike Racing "; 2, Craig Havighurst, WMOT-FM, Murfreesboro, "At Larry’s Grand Ole Garage in Madison, it’s a Circle of Song."

Short Serious News Feature: 1, Duane Nelson, WKPT-AM, Kingsport, "Toddler Saved"; 2, Chas Sisk, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Minister in Antioch Shooting Says Church Has ‘No Enemies, No Hostilities’."

Long Serious News Feature: 1, Terry Likes, TN Radio Network AM/FM, Nashville, "When Advertisers Pressure News Management About Content"; 2, Tony Gonzalez, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Nashville Mayor Says Son’s Overdose Death Deserves ‘Frank Conversation’."

Continuing Coverage: 1, Julieta Martinelli and Meribah Knight, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Police Shooting of Jocques Clemmons"; 2, Mike Osborne, WMOT-FM, Murfreesboro, "Tennessee Reaction to the GOP Tax Overhaul Plan."

Sports Feature/Special: 1, Tony Gonzalez, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Will Nashville See A Youth Hockey Explosion?"; 2, Matt Follett and Matthew Brown, WMOT-FM, Murfreesboro, " The Preds Super Fans Who Put the ‘Loud’ in Smashville Hockey."

Political Coverage: 1, Charles Choate, KYTN-FM, Union City; 2, Chas Sisk, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

Breaking News: 1, Charles Choate and Paul Tinkle, KYTN-FM, Union City.

Use of Sound: 1, Blake Farmer, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "For Some in Tennessee, Hunting Remains A Way of Life"; 2, Tony Gonzalez, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Tennessee Buck Dance Master Passes Style to An Apprentice."

Digital Coverage: 1, Mack Linebaugh and Emily Siner, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

Weather Coverage: 1, Natasha Senjanovic and Jason Moon Wilkins, WPLN-FM, Nashville; 2, Charles Choate, KYTN-FM, Union City.

Short Public Affairs: 1, Chas Sisk, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Costs and Benefits Of Medical Marijuana Divide The Candidates."

Long Public Affairs: 1, Terry Likes, TN Radio Network AM/FM, Nashville, "Cameras, Cops and Concerns."

Special Series/Documentary: 1, Blake Farmer, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Remembering America’s Deadliest Train Crash"; 2, Terry Likes, TN Radio Network AM/FM, Nashville, "Television, Truth and Trust."

Investigative Reporting: 1, Julieta Martinelli, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "A Nashville Man Spent Two Decades Behind Bars."

Sports Reporting: 1, Tony Gonzalez and Chas Sisk, WPLN-FM, Nashville, "Predators Stanley Cup Run."

Radio Reporter: 1, Blake Farmer, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

Radio Anchor: 1, Natasha Senjanovic, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

Best Newscaster: 1, Jason Moon Wilkins, WPLN-FM, Nashville; 2, Duane Nelson, WTFM-FM, Kingsport.

Short Newscast: 1, Natasha Senjanovic, WPLN-FM, Nashville; 2, Mike Osborne, WMOT-FM, Murfreesboro, "Folk Anthems, Free at Last?"

Long Newscast: 1, Charles Choate, KYTN-FM, Union City; 2, Jason Moon Wilkins, WPLN-FM, Nashville.

Newspaper Division I:

Features: 1, Lorelei Goff and Michael Reneau, The Greeneville Sun, "World War II Soldier Finally Returns Home"; 2, Michael Reneau, The Greeneville Sun, "Despite Hard Times, Young Dairyman Wants To ‘Tough It Out’."

Sports-Outdoors: 1, Erik Bacharach, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "Sports & Life"; 2, Darren Reese, The Greeneville Sun, "Ken Sparks: The Good Fight."

Business News: 1, Michael Reneau and Lorelei Goff, The Greeneville Sun, "US Nitrogen Coverage"; 2, Kristen Early, The Greeneville Sun, "Capital Bank/First Tennessee Merger."

Editorials: 1, Michael Reneau, The Greeneville Sun; 2, Michael Reneau, The Greeneville Sun.

Daily Deadline: 1, Ken Little, The Greeneville Sun, "Nitric Acid Vapor Release at US Nitrogen"; 2, Brian Cutshall, The Greeneville Sun, "Astros Cut Ties With Greeneville."

Video: 1, Helen Comer, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "I am the Music”’; 2, Brian Cutshall, The Greeneville Sun, "72 Years After Death, War Hero Returns Home."

Multimedia: 1, Wayne Phillips and Brian Cutshall, The Greeneville Sun, "Ladies’ Classic Basketball Tournament"; 2, Brian Cutshall, The Greeneville Sun, "72 Years After Death, War Hero Returns Home."

Malcolm Law Award for Investigative Reporting: 1, Ken Little, The Greeneville Sun, "Unearthed Video Links Greene County Man To Florida Murder"; 2, Michael Reneau and Sarah Gregory, The Greeneville Sun, "LaBeouf’s Flag Stolen."

Feature Photography: 1, Helen Comer, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "Life with Kids"; 2, Michael Reneau, The Greeneville Sun, "Despite Hard Times, Young Dairyman Wants To ‘Tough It Out’."

Sports Photography: 1, Darren Reese, The Greeneville Sun, "Put A Ring On It"; 2, Darren Reese, The Greeneville Sun, "Don’t Mess With Texas."

Spot News Photography: 1, Houston Cofield, Memphis Daily News, "Elvis Week 2017"; 2, Chris Menees, Union City Daily Messenger.

Photojournalism: 1, Helen Comer, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "Standing Firm"; 2, Helen Comer, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "One Strong Arm."

Individual Achievement / Body of Work in Photography: 1, Helen Comer, (Murfreesboro) Daily News Journal, "In the Face of Adversity"; 2, Darren Reese, The Greeneville Sun.

A list of winners can be found at http://discover.ap.org/contests/tennessee .

Source Article

The post Winners announced in Tennessee AP professional news contest | Miami Herald appeared first on PAGESFESTIVAL.

Read More At: http://www.pagesfestival.com/winners-announced-in-tennessee-ap-professional-news-contest-miami-herald/

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anonymous-manor · 1 year ago

Text

And here is the exam room! When he’s not deep into the occult (or deep in the dirt stealing a corpse), Dr. Kenneth Benton is a renowned optometrist and ophthalmologist. He sees patients right in his home, and he’s a wonder in surgery and sedation.

The bottom pic shows the whole room from the front. Above are some fun details like the surgical tools and microscope.

#elzbietta house #miniatures #dr. kenneth a. bolton #exam room #optometrist

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 8 years ago

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Born in Sandy-flood hospital, kids 'stronger than the storm'

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/born-in-sandy-flood-hospital-kids-stronger-than-the-storm/

Born in Sandy-flood hospital, kids 'stronger than the storm'

Their lives began with one of the most dramatic stories of Superstorm Sandy: the evacuation of 32 newborn babies from a major New York City hospital that got flooded and lost power. Hospital staffers tended to laboring women in the dark and carried mothers and tiny infants — 21 of them in intensive care — down stairways into the thick of the 2012 storm. Doctors and nurses squeezed air pumps by hand to fill some of the most fragile babies’ little lungs.

In the end, every one was delivered to safety.

Five years later, some of those babies are kindergarteners with mementos of the storm in their birthday celebrations, keepsake boxes and even their names. Their parents remember the experience with awe, humor, gratitude and the chagrin of sharing a day of personal joy with a natural disaster.

One mom tells her son: “We were the lucky ones that day.”

———

Oct. 29, 2012: 9 a.m.

“I know this is the worst possible timing,” Tamar Weinstock said as she woke her husband, Allon, “but I think my water just broke.”

Tamar’s due date was three weeks off. But their first child was coming, and so was Sandy, a 1,000-mile-wide behemoth with nearly 100-mph winds pushing a huge swell of ocean toward the coast of New Jersey and New York. The Weinstocks hurried from their home in the Long Island City section of Queens to NYU Langone Health’s Tisch Hospital, set along the East River in midtown Manhattan.

“Oh, my God, this is happening in the middle of a hurricane,” thought Tamar, a banker.

“You’re in the best possible place,” staffers reassured her.

With the hospital-room shades pulled down, the couple took in only snatches of the storm from the room’s TV. They noticed the electricity flicker at 7 p.m., but generators kicked in.

Then, at 8:30 p.m., the backup power failed, and the hospital plunged into darkness.

Monitors went silent. Electronics that keep patient records were useless. Elevators stopped.

Labor didn’t. “You just have to keep going with what you’re doing,” Tamar realized.

—

WORKING AGAINST TIME

NYU Langone had thought it could handle Sandy. After moving out sometimes frail patients before an ultimately uneventful Hurricane Irene in 2011, the hospital was allowed to stay open during Sandy after assuring city officials it had generators and fuel ready.

Then the storm raised the East River by more than 10 feet, crippling a nearby power plant and pouring more than 15 million gallons of water through air vents and other openings into the hospital’s basement. The water triggered sensors that shut off fuel to the generators providing power for 322 patients.

Dr. William Schweizer, the obstetrics safety chief that night, and his colleagues had about 10 patients in labor and others who had just delivered, including one who’d had a premature baby. And the physicians, nurses and aides would have to get them all out of the hospital.

But first, the doctors decided, they would deliver babies who appeared ready to arrive by midnight, rather than risk births in ambulances.

Out came flashlights, emergency glow sticks, and techniques from a less technological era. Doctors would use stethoscopes, along with battery-operated devices, to monitor unborn babies’ heartbeats. Nurses would keep track of contractions with watches, pens and paper.

“We just dealt with our own familiarity with a process that has been going on for as long as mankind has been,” Schweizer said.

“People pulled out of their soul what they could do,” he says.

—

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Doctors and nurses gathered by Tamar’s bed. They needed to deliver the baby. Now.

Tamar didn’t feel ready. The staffers rallied her.

At 10:29 p.m., the Weinstocks saw their son for the first time — by flashlight.

“You hear your baby crying for the first time, and nothing else really matters,” says Allon, a construction project manager.

These days, their son Stone is a kindergartener so awesome that Awesome is his unofficial middle name, bestowed by a cousin. Glow sticks are a go-to favor at his birthday parties. Like several other new parents from that night, the Weinstocks credit NYU Langone — which has since undertaken more than $1 billion in floodproofing improvements — with maintaining calm and control in an unforeseen situation.

But the Weinstocks, both of them 37, make sure Stone knows he’s fortunate to be celebrating a day that was catastrophic for many others in New York City. Sandy killed 43 people and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes and apartments.

“You almost feel guilty that for us it’s such a happy moment, because that’s what started our family,” Allon says. “But it’s not lost on us what everybody else went through.”

———

GET MY BABY BACK

Staffers were in Julz Donald’s darkened room, explaining that the hospital where she’d had daughter Freda that morning was being evacuated. Donald said she could walk out.

“I didn’t actually realize where we were,” the 42-year-old marketing researcher says, chuckling.

They were on the 13th floor — and the stairs were the only way down.

The first families to leave were those whose babies had health issues. Then, around 2 a.m. Donald and husband Mark Potts were escorted by a doctor, nurses, medical students and volunteers down a stairway by flashlight. At the hospital’s insistence, a nurse carried a tightly swaddled Freda.

“Let’s get down these stairs so I can get my baby back,” Donald thought.

Her legs were exhausted by the time they reached a lobby illuminated by the flashing lights of dozens of ambulances — “like a scene out of ‘Die Hard,'” recalls Potts, 38, who works in advertising.

The Long Island City family keeps its hospital-issued flashlight in a “birth box” for Freda, a wry girl who likes Irish dance, writing, beluga whales, the color purple — but not the wind.

———

CALL ME SANDRA

Dmitry and Daria Shurba were about to take newborn daughter Masha home when they settled on her middle name: Sandra, after the storm.

The Stamford, Connecticut, couple’s second child was born at NYU Langone around noon on the day of the storm. Dmitry, a 42-year-old auto sales manager, was returning from getting celebratory flowers and wine when the power went out, with Daria in a 13th-floor room.

After he got there, the windows rattled so ominously that the family waited in a hallway for its turn to walk down.

The Shurbas figured their daughter should be proud of being born during a historic storm, and she is. She sometimes asks to be called by her middle name, says Daria, 39, an information technology project manager.

“I call her my little hurricane, at times,” Daria says. “She has a great heart and everything, so she’s tough.”

———

STRONGER THAN THE STORM

Kenneth Hulett III weighed just over 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms), with feet the size of fingernails. He’d just been born 2? months early, by emergency Caesarian section, and rushed to NYU Langone’s neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. Doctors had determined he might have a rare and potentially serious genetic disorder.

His parents, Emily Bolton-Blatt and Kenneth Hulett Jr., were still in a recovery room when the power went out. Hulett raced up to the darkened NICU, where he recalls a nurse asking him to watch the numbers displayed on a machine running on backup batteries. So he watched, unsure what the numbers meant, wondering how long the batteries would last, hoping for the best.

“This is a natural disaster happening while our son was just born,” says Hulett, 34, an Army veteran pursuing a computer engineering technology degree. “One of the happiest moments in your life … but then, with the chaos around it, it’s just all of the emotions mixed into one.”

Then the word came: evacuate.

Worried about Bolton-Blatt but unable to leave their son’s side, Hulett followed the tiny boy, clasped in a nurse’s arms, down nine flights of narrow stairs lined by people with flashlights. The nurse and a doctor pumped air into Kenny’s lungs by squeezing a plastic bulb over and over, as a security guard carried an oxygen tank and two nurses toted monitors.

“Let us get to safety” was Hulett’s only thought as he sloshed through heavy rain to an ambulance.

Kenny would be hospitalized for another three months before coming home to Flushing in Queens.

Now a talkative, engaging kid, he has needed surgeries for a cleft palate but hasn’t been affected by the genetic disorder that was a concern before his birth. He plays with his family’s cat, eyeballs cartoons and giggles occasionally as his parents tells visitors the first chapter of his life story.

For his first birthday, his grandmother had a banner made with a custom message:

“Stronger than the storm.”

———

Associated Press video journalist Joseph B. Frederick contributed to this report.

Original Article:

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#flood #hospital #sandy #storm #stronger

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