World Building

I have strayed from the beaten path of my typical science fiction stories. I have two ideas competing for space in my brain right now.

One idea comes from recent experiences. I've thought of writing short realistic fiction pieces, or possibly a longer piece focusing on hurricane relief efforts, or volunteers, or hurricane victims and survivors. Not that I wish to capitalize on an experiece that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies, but there are ideas bouncing around inside my head, and I wonder if any of them would develop if I gave it a chance.

The other idea comes from the past. I thought of a few characters and science fiction ideas and sketched out an idea in early September, 2001. I called it "Allied Space Rescue," a sort of relief organization for planetary disasters that might strike other colonized worlds. Shortly after I hatched the idea, the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks happened. I was also taking courses at college at that time, so I got busy enough that ASR got shoved to a back burner.

The question I have is this: where can I get the information I need to make a realistic story seem real enough to readers, or to make a science fiction disaster sound like a real event?