EWB Boston Professional Chapter

Hello EWB-Boston!

First, thanks for the great meeting on May 29th. It was exciting to see the energy that all of you brought to the meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing what we will accomplish in the next couple of months.

I hope to see you on June 16th, 2008 at 7 pm in the Robbins Library in Arlington for an EWB-Boston sponsored talk. The title is "A MA Engineer's Reflections on 2.5 Years of Disaster Relief and Reconstruction Following a 9.1M Earthquake and Ensuing Tsunami," by David Murphy of Tighe & Bond. The synopsis is at the end of this email.

Please note: our next General Chapter Meeting is Tuesday, July 1st, 2008, at 7 pm in the Robbins Library in Arlington.

If you are interested in working internationally, please take a look at the EWB-USA projects list (http://www.ewb-usa.org/OpenProjects.php). If you see a project that you'd like to work on, contact Ravi Bandi at projects@ewbboston.org.

Mark your calendars: EWB-Boston will be volunteering at The Greater Boston Food Bank on Wednesday, July 30th, from 5:15pm-8:30 pm. We're looking for volunteers, so please email me at president@ewbboston.org if you'd like to help out. We will provide dinner.

Please join me in welcoming our new Events Coordinator, Niki Kallergis. Niki will be working to organize local events for EWB-Boston members. If you have suggestions for events, please email her at events@ewbboston.org.

If you want to join the EWB-Boston mailing list, please add yourself to our google group: http://groups.google.com/group/Boston-EWB. Also, please create an account for yourself on our website: http://www.ewbboston.org/members/.

Regards,
Bree Carlson
President, EWB-Boston

Brief Synopsis

On December 26, 2004, a 9.1M earthquake struck off the coast of Banda Aceh Indonesia, a city slightly smaller than Boston in population. A giant wall of water (not a wave as many believe) ranging in height from 30 to 90 feet and several miles deep roared into the City of Banda Aceh, over 2.5 miles inland, destroying nearly every home in its path, school, bridge, road, and utility in its path. .
In the days following the Tsunami, the world's attention was riveted on the horrendous death toll. David Murphy uprooted his family, left the environmental engineering firm he was running and took his family to assist in the emergency response and reconstruction efforts. David will provide an overview of the public health issues and engineering challenges of addressing the world's largest known natural disaster. David and his family were featured on an NBC Christmas special broadcast nationwide (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10644084/). They also created a web site www.bulaifamilyinaceh.com. Today David is a senior project manager with Tighe and Bond, working out of their Worcester Office.