Stronger Together
Lessons Learned from a Tsunami Threat
The recent tsunami that menaced the entire West Coast could have been an unimaginable disaster, due to both the potential widespread flooding and the fact that it would have happened in the middle of the night. Every disaster offers the ZDR3 staff new information to consider. Most important: discovering gaps in our members’ planning, which allows us to help them flesh out their preparedness.
Meet Our Intern, Konnor Roberts
We’re very pleased to announce that Konnor Roberts has joined ZDR3 for a summer internship. Our small staff had never previously considered bringing an intern aboard, but Konnor’s experience, skills, and familiarity with ZDR3 made him an excellent candidate.
Her Dedication to Lemurs Almost Delayed Her Wedding
In October 2024, Hurricane Milton was the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico. Meredith Hinton, Curator at the Lemur Conservation Foundation (LCF) in Myakka City, Florida, had to shift her focus from preparing for her wedding to planning for a possible direct hit by a major hurricane. “I was so much more focused on the needs here than my wedding.”
ZDR3 responds to historic Southern California Wildfires
A catastrophic series of fast-moving wildfires began burning in Southern California on January 7th. The ZDR3 team has been in contact with facilities in the region since the first day of the fires, and will stay in communication with them until the event is finished. At the time of last contact, no facilities in the region were in imminent risk or reporting high levels of need. Since firefighting teams anticipate more wind and dry conditions to continue complicating their efforts to contain the fires into next week, we will remain activated and ready to roll, if needed.
ZDR3 Response Activities in 2024
ZDR3’s 2024 response season was intense, and the work we did was quite varied. In future posts we want to tell you some of the stories of individual response teams and impacted facilities, but first, here’s an overview of everything that happened!
Director Julia Wilder on ZDR3's 2024 response season
The 2024 hurricane season has proven to be an extraordinarily intense one, and ZDR3 has been busy supporting those who have requested assistance. Between assisting the evacuation of a facility threatened by wildfires in California, and responses to facilities impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and assisting with animal placements, we’ve been activated for three months! Director Julia Wilder explains what ZDR3’s communications strategy will look like going forward.