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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ARCHIVES

Local Emergency Management: The CFATS Challenge

Chemical facilities have always been a concern for local first responders. Most major chemical accidents rapidly overwhelm community emergency-services capabilities. Until the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, U.S. emergency-services agencies viewed chemical incidents as accidental events – and the tragic Bhopal (India) toxic chemical release in 1984 had already

Radiation Detection: Dosimeters Plus Common Sense

The reality of a radiation emergency differs little from that caused by a chemical or biological release – any or all of them are either accidental or intentional. But in either case the emergency-response community is tasked with determining the type, size, and impact that the incident has on the

Dead Reckoning: EMS, Death, and Resource Management

The assumption that an accident victim who is not breathing is dead can be a fatal mistake – for the victim. Which is just one of many reasons why so many laws governing the handling of apparent deaths have been enacted by every state in the union.

IEDs and the First Responder

Today’s first responder has had to adapt to an ever-changing threat that affects all U.S. citizens. The individual responder himself has to some extent become a human “tool box” that must be able to operate in many different venues. From apprehending a criminal to fighting a fire, to transporting sick

CDC’s Career Epidemiology Field Officer Program

The innovative CEFO Program represents a new national resource that is already being used by 21 states to strengthen their own epidemiological preparedness capabilities, with other states sure to follow in the near future.

The Gap Analysis Tool: Building Blocks for Preparedness

Best-case estimates provide a shaky foundation for all-hazards disaster plans; worst-case estimates may cost more in the short term, therefore, but are a better working tool for post-incident response and recovery efforts.

The All-Seeing Eye of Video Surveillance

Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the federal government has invested deeply in improving the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The term critical infrastructure sounds like an abstraction encompassing and/or limited to major government buildings, bridges, tunnels, etc., but it is not. In fact, The State Official’s

Sorting It All Out: Triage, CERT, and EMS

Community Emergency Response Team members are often the only medical “reserve” available to a community hit by a mass-casualty incident. But, like the medical professionals they are helping, they face some difficult questions impossible to answer.

Politics and Science: A Glowing Combination?

How does a democracy work? Not always quite the way it should, particularly when substantive evidence has been presented for only one side of an issue and the media compensates by giving more, and more favorable, publicity to the other side.

Interim Housing Following Disasters: The FEMA Temporary Housing Program

After presidentially declared disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers Direct Assistance – in the form of campers, trailers, and mobile homes – to those who are without shelter. Direct Assistance is available to eligible applicants in addition to cash grants.Disaster survivors are often assigned a camper, trailer, or

NIMS Training Plans: An Effort Without End

From George Washington’s days to the present, U.S. leaders have adhered to the credo that “Eternal Vigilance” is “the price of freedom.” Today, those wise words of warning are applicable, with only a slight modification, to the efforts of federal, state, and local officials seeking to meet National Incident Management

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