Study Says South Dakota Agriculture Has $21B Impact

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

An associate professor at South Dakota State University says agriculture and related industries had a $21.4 billion impact on South Dakota’s economy in 2010.

Gary Taylor, an associate professor of economics, says the impact includes more than $8.3 billion in direct agricultural production, $3.4 billion in inputs supplied by businesses and nearly $1.7 billion from increased household spending.

Agricultural processing and manufacturing added more than $8 billion in economic activity.

Taylor says agriculture’s total $21.4 billion economic impact makes agriculture the largest single sector in South Dakota’s economy. He says agriculture makes up about 19.8 percent of the state economy’s total output.

 

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Independent Agencies Continue Growing in Number, Revenues: Study

October 18, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle3 Comments

The number of independent insurance agencies has increased, newer agencies are growing and the system as a whole is dynamic, according to the 2012 Agency Universe Study.

The study also documents that independent agencies appear to be increasingly using social media.

Key findings of the study, which is is sponsored by Future One, a collaboration of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (the Big

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South Carolina Emergency Officials Study Sandy for Lessons

November 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Emergency officials on the South Carolina coast are looking at Superstorm Sandy to try to learn ways to better prepare for future storms.

Horry County emergency management director Randy Webster has been looking at the impact of Sandy, The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported.

The storm hit the East Coast on Oct. 29, causing problems from North Carolina to Maine. More than 100 deaths were reported, most from drowning in the storm surge. The storm had moved by Myrtle Beach two days earlier, far offshore.

Webster has considered what would have happened if Sandy had hit the area.

“The immediate coastal impacts would be just as catastrophic, but when you get into that larger infrastructure issue we don’t have the same issues,” he said.

The Grand Strand would not face the same problems with damage to the transportation network, Webster said. The concentration of the population is also much less than New York.

The storm would have been similar to Hurricane Hugo in 1989 as far as the storm surge, up to 13 feet, he said. But Sandy lacked Hugo’s winds.

“There’s more work to be done to recognize that storm surge needs to be at the forefront and not the category of the hurricane that represents the wind speeds,” Webster said.

Storm surge impacts have been studied for Horry and Georgetown counties. Study results for the rest of the state are expected to be ready before the 2013 hurricane season that begins in June, said Sam Hodge, Georgetown County’s emergency management director.

Both men worry about complacency, since Hugo was the last major storm to hit South Carolina.

“As prepared as we think we are, we don’t know until it actually happens,” Hodge said. “There’s the unknown of will the people actually evacuate? Will we have a death toll with people failing to evacuate like they did up there?”

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Southeast NewsTopics: disaster preparedness, South Carolina, storm losses, Superstorm SandyHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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LSU Gets $1.5M to Study Sustainability of Louisiana Coast

October 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Louisiana State University has been awarded $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation to investigate whether southern coastal Louisiana has reached the tipping point, becoming too costly to sustain.

The interdisciplinary research project will investigate the sustainability of coastal communities that are especially vulnerable to natural resource loss and natural hazards.

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Union Study Recommends Changes at N.M. Fire Agencies

September 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A new study concludes that firefighters aren’t capable of responding to calls within nationally recommended time frames in certain parts of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County in New Mexico.

The Albuquerque Journal reported  that the study completed this month by the International Association of Firefighters points to limited manpower, not enough fire trucks and a lack of real-time communication between the Albuquerque and Bernalillo County fire departments as primary reasons for gaps in service.

The report recommends new ladder trucks for each of the departments, additional pumper trucks for Albuquerque Fire Department and three new battalion commander positions for the AFD.

Albuquerque Fire Chief James Breen disputed parts of the union study, saying the department is meeting national safety standards but agreed with other aspects, such as a finding that fire and rescue responses would improve if the city and county merged their dispatch centers.

Although there are efforts under way to improve communications between the two departments, they don’t use the same computer-aided dispatch software and their radio frequencies aren’t synced in real time.

But Breen took exception with some of the study’s findings, saying AFD is meeting the national standards by creatively dispatching the resources it has.

The standards, laid out by the National Fire Protection Association, say ladder trucks should have at least four firefighters aboard and be able to respond to 90 percent of calls within eight minutes.

AFD and Bernalillo County Fire Department staff the ladder trucks with four firefighters about 40 percent of the time, and according to the study, current staffing levels and equipment prevent them from arriving within eight minutes in certain parts of the city and county.

First-responding units that provide basic life-support services, including pumper trucks for fires and ambulances for medical calls, should be able to reach 90 percent of calls for fire and medical help within four minutes, according to the NFPA standard.

Again, AFD and BCFD don’t have the resources to meet the standard in all areas of the city and county, according to the study.

Another study was being completed by a consultant hired by Mayor Richard Berry’s administration to find ways to cut costs in city government. A draft copy of that report from Matrix Consulting Group, obtained by the Journal after a public records request, lays out a different vision of how to move the fire department forward.

As possible places to cut expenses, the Matrix report questions whether AFD is “over-responding” to fires and whether the department needs two paramedics on each rescue unit. It also recommends ending the practice of staffing the AFD dispatch center with sworn firefighters.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: West NewsTopics: New Mexico, wildfireHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Missouri Senate Backs Study of State-Created Workers’ Compensation Insurer

April 6, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Missouri Senate has endorsed the establishment of a special committee to study whether to change a state-created workers’ compensation insurer.

Senators gave initial approval on April 4 to a bill creating a five-member Senate panel to analyze whether Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Co. should be sold, privatized or restructured.

The Columbia-based company was created under a 1993 law at a time when many small businesses were having trouble getting reasonable rates on workers’ compensation coverage. The company has flourished to the point that it now has the largest market share among Missouri’s workers’ compensation insurers.

A recent state audit noted that the company benefits from a federal tax exemption and has built up a surplus of more than $160 million. Some lawmakers question whether that tax exemption should continue.

Insurance agents in the state have asked lawmakers to avoid a hasty response to the state audit.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Midwest NewsTopics: legislative, Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Co., study, workers' compensationHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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$581K Study to Look At Safety On Las Vegas Strip

April 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Elected officials concerned about safety and the image of the Las Vegas Strip are funneling $581,000 in hotel room tax money into a three-month study of pedestrian areas on the tourist corridor.

The Clark County Commission on Tuesday called for Resort Corridor Workgroup to recommend laws and funding to curb unregulated commercial activity on sidewalks in Nevada’s adult playground.

The advisory panel was established last year with law enforcement, casino and tourism representatives.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that more police and surveillance cameras are among proposals being considered.

Nevada Resort Association chief Virginia Valentine points to letters from tourists complaining that walking on the Strip is a

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Returning Soldiers Involved in More Car Crashes: Study

April 24, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsU.S. military personnel have 13 percent more car accidents in which they are at fault in the six months after returning from overseas duty than in the six months prior, a USAA study revealed on Tuesday.

USAA, a major insurer catering specifically to the armed forces and their families, based its study on 171,000 deployments by 158,000 of its members over a three-year period ending in February 2010, when combat was still raging in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In many cases, USAA found, soldiers took the driving style that kept them alive on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul and applied it to the suburban roads at home.

The results were most dramatic for returning members of the Army and Marines, whose accident rates rose 23 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively. (Rates were up 3 percent for the Navy and 2 percent for the Air Force).

Not surprisingly, given the experience many soldiers had with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other roadside obstacles in combat zones, USAA found “objects in the road” to be the most cited of the 13 accident causes it studied.

The insurer also found a direct correlation between the number of deployments and the rate of accidents — those deployed three or more times had 36 percent more incidents, those deployed twice had 27 percent more and those deployed only once had 12 percent more accidents. A 2009 military study found that, since 2001, deployments for reservists had averaged from 8 to 14 months in duration.

There was also correlation by age (soldiers under 22 were involved in more wrecks than those over 29) and by rank (the more senior a soldier the lower the number of accidents).

“USAA has shared its research with each military branch’s safety center commanders. USAA has also shared the study with academics and traffic safety experts and has taken steps to make USAA members aware of the behind-the-wheel risks for returning troops,” the company, which had 8.8 million members as of the end of 2011, said in the report.

The Army’s Office of Public Affairs declined to comment on the results of the study, saying it was the company’s research project and not the government’s.

The USAA survey adds to the growing body of data on the psychological and physical effects of deployment to war zones.

The U.S. Army said in January that violent sex crimes committed by active-duty soldiers have almost doubled over the last five years, due in part to the trauma of war. In March, Army researchers said one in five soldiers returning from Afghanistan or Iraq after a concussion develop chronic headaches.

(Reporting By Ben Berkowitz; editing by Gunna Dickson)

 

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