Emergency Management View All →
Toward More Resilient Futures: Putting Strategic Foresight Into Practice
David Kaufman, Associate Administrator for Policy, Program Analysis, & International Affairs, recently did a presentation to the War College.
Read More →92 smart phone apps for public safety and emergency responders
The website for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International is http://www.apcointl.org/. A few weeks ago, they created a repository for public safety and emergency response smart phone applications. The site is called AppComm, and you can find it at http://appcomm.org/. Read more @ hlswatch.com
Read More →Satellites See Double Jeopardy for Southern California Fire Season
New insights into two factors that are creating a potentially volatile Southern California wildfire season come from an ongoing project using NASA and Indian satellite data by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and Chapman University, Orange, Calif. The scientists tracked the relationship between rainfall and the growth and drying-out of vegetation in [...]
Read More →Can collaboration defend U.S. critical infrastructure?
Vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, particularly through cybersecurity gaps, are a top concern for government officials and lawmakers. Legislation to address those gaps so far has failed, and key partnerships are crucial to shoring up weaknesses as best as possible until a bill passes, officials say.
Read More →Global Hawk Flies High, Offering a Detailed Hurricane Measurement
Scientists at the Earth Science Office at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., are testing an airborne system that could drastically change the way hurricanes are forecast.
Read More →What Went Wrong in West, Texas?
A week after a blast at a Texas fertilizer plant killed at least 15 people and hurt more than 200, authorities still don’t know exactly why the West Chemical and Fertilizer Company plant exploded.
Read More →New Metric to Measure Destructive Potential of Hurricanes
Researchers at Florida State University have developed a new metric to measure seasonal Atlantic tropical cyclone activity that focuses on the size of storms in addition to the duration and intensity, a measure that may prove important when considering a hurricane’s potential for death and destruction.
Read More →Boston Bombing Shows How Wireless Emergency Alerts Can Work with Other Media
The best examples of best practices often come from real life. Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) showed the rest of us strong best practices when they issued the shelter-in-place order last week.
Read More →#smem View All →
Does social media monitoring belong in Planning or PIO?
by Gerald Baron @ the Crisis Comm Blog In a previous post on making suggestions for updating NIMS, I suggested that social media monitoring should go into the ICS structure rather than be considered a part of the JIC or PIO responsibilities. This prompted some thoughtful responses from readers of this blog–I encourage you to [...]
Read More →Keep it Short: The Need for Emergency Managers to be Brief
by Adam Crowe @ Disasters 2.0 Last week a colleague pointed out an interesting phenomenon related to social media systems.
Read More →Social Network for Emergencies to Launch in San Francisco
Disasters are scary — there’s no question about it. But as much as they cause fear, they also bring people together, connecting communities in ways that few other incidents can. Focusing on those connections, rather than the catastrophe, is the theory behind the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management’s (SFDEM) new projectSF72.org, created to enhance [...]
Read More →Researchers Review Boston Bombing Social Media Activity
By Kim Stephens @ idisaster 2.0 Project HEROIC–which stands for Hazards, Emergency Response, and Online Informal Communications (see footnote)–took a close look at the online activity of official organizations during the recent domestic terrorist event in Boston and the ensuing suspect chase–that seemed like a marathon in itself. They released a report today (May 10) titled [...]
Read More →Boston bombings: Twitter is too slow, we’re now into nano-news
From Gerald Baron @ the Crisis Comm Blog The events in Boston and West, Texas have generated a deluge of focus once more on how communication happens in major events. I’ve resisted jumping into this, wanting some time for the dust to settle and be able to take a step back. What I see now [...]
Read More →3 Observations: Social Media and the Boston PD #BostonMarathon
From Kim Stephens @ idisaster 2.0 on Apr 16 Even though the Boston Marathon 2013 bombing event happened less than 24 hours ago at the time of writing, there are already numerous accounts of the role social media played during the horrific aftermath. Read more @ idisaster 2.0
Read More →Sandy Marked a Shift for Social Media Use in Disasters
First it was the AOL chat rooms, followed by online community chat and discussion boards, then it was blogs. Since 2000, social media has expanded to include Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more.
Read More →Maryland Emergency Management Agency Plans for #SMEM
From Kim Stephens @ idisaster 2.0 The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (@MDMEMA on Twitter) has recently taken their social media communication’s strategy to new heights–even incorporating a module about the tools into their Public Information Officer training. Read more @ idisaster 2.0
Read More →Grants & Funding View All →
House Appropriations Committee Approves DHS Funding Bill
The House Appropriations Committee approved the DHS funding bill. The bill funds state and local programs at $1,500,000,000 The committee report has the interesting detail. Regarding the number of UASIs: The Committee is pleased that in fiscal year 2012, the Department began restoring the original intent of the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) program by [...]
Read More →2013 Homeland Security Grant Program Summary
The 2013 FEMA grant guidance was just released today (May 21, 2013). This document is an unofficial summary of the grant guidance (as contained in the FOA and other documents) designed to provide a quick read of the highlights and some increased context to the guidance. Readers should refer to the official FEMA guidance and [...]
Read More →Anti-Terrorism Grants for Cities at Risk
In the midst of last month’s manhunt to find the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, Massachusetts police received a tip about a trail of blood leading to a resident’s covered boat.
Read More →City of Atlanta losing UASI grants despite its high profile
The city of Atlanta is losing DHS grant money used to strengthen the city’s ability to protect against a terrorist attack. Despite being home to recent high profile events such as the NCAA’s Final Four, federal records show the amount of money allocated to Atlanta through urban area security grants has dropped from $13 million [...]
Read More →Homeland Security Grants to States Gutted
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, the state of Massachusetts, the city of Boston and federal authorities quickly joined together to respond to the emergency. But in recent years, federal funding for state homeland security efforts to respond to emergencies has been gutted.
Read More →Measuring the Effectiveness of UASI Equipment in Real Time
Like everyone else, I am glued to MSNBC watching the events unfold in Boston. What I am seeing is living proof in real time that the money spent on coordinated anti-terrorism, on command and control, and on police equipment to combat real terrorist threats was in fact very well spent. Congress may think otherwise and [...]
Read More →Boston 10th in Funds Received for ‘High Threat’ Urban Areas
Terrorism has been in the headlines in Boston before. Ten al-Qaida hijackers departed from Boston’s Logan airport on Sept. 11, 2001. And in 2012, Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury, Mass., a Boston suburb, was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida. But when the Department of Homeland Security originally assessed the threat of terror to 65 [...]
Read More →CFSI Comments on White House Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Proposal
On Wednesday, April 10, the White House released President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) Budget Proposal. The $3.77 trillion budget includes $39 billion in spending for the Department ofHomeland Security.This includes a number of programs of importance to the nation’s fire and emergency services. Read more @ fireengineering.com
Read More →Homeland Security View All →
Recognizing Our Frontline Medical Providers
by Dr. J.D. Polk, Acting Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs & Acting Chief Medical Officer This week, we celebrate and honor the federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal Emergency Medical Service (EMS) practitioners serving communities all across the country. Every day, we see paramedics or firefighters, but many of us do not actually stop to [...]
Read More →Working with International Partners on Critical Infrastructure Protection
Today’s evolving threats transcend national borders and affect the security and economic prosperity of the entire international community.
Read More →Lawmakers Fault Pre-Boston Attack Intel Sharing
An early dissection of what federal authorities learned in past years about the accused perpetrators of last month’s Boston Marathon bombings reveals how far the United States still has to go in sharing and making sense of leads on suspected terrorists, current and former lawmakers said on Thursday. Russia warned the FBI of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible [...]
Read More →Boston probe’s big data use hints at the future
Less than 24 hours after two explosions killed three people and injured dozens more at the April 15 Boston Marathon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had compiled 10 terabytes of data in hopes of finding needles in haystacks of information that might lead to the suspects.
Read More →WMD Charge Called Key Tool in Bombing Case
Accusing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of carrying out a WMD strike at the Boston Marathon could offer prosecutors a clear route to a conviction, even though the two pressure-cooker devices used in last week’s attack do not fit the accepted definition of a “weapon of mass destruction,” academics and former federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Read more [...]
Read More →Counterterrorism analysts want US mass transit security tightened in wake of plots
Counterterrorism experts have renewed calls to tighten security on America’s mass transit lines following two would-be terrorists’ foiled plot to blow up a Toronto passenger train. The alleged plan to attack Canada’s transit system has shed light on the vulnerabilities that still exist in America’s commuter system and the challenges involved in keeping it safe [...]
Read More →Most Schools Are Ill-Prepared for an Active Shooter Scenario
It will take an all-hazards tactic, additional campus safety personnel and a new approach to building design for schools to become more hardened against the threat of an active shooter on campus. But before all of that happens, we will undoubtedly see more events like the one that shook the country on Dec. 14, 2012, [...]
Read More →Digital Jihad: Inside Al-Qaeda’s Social Networks
Almost a decade after their emergence, Al-Qaeda’s password-protected online forums continue to remain popular. Government officials in the U.S and elsewhere
Read More →Training, Exercise and Drills View All →
C-CERTs Allow Colleges to Take Quick Action During an Emergency
When disaster strikes on or near a college campus, local first responders don’t always have the staff or resources to help immediately — especially when the campus is as big as a small city.
Read More →“Live burns” to benefit research and firefighter training
Fire researchers from theNational Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) and colleagues from fire service organizations will turn abandoned wood-frame, single-family houses near the site of an old Spartanburg, South Carolina, textile mill into proving and training grounds for new science-driven fire-fighting techniques this week.
Read More →Active-shooter training programs for local law enforcement
Active-shooter training sessions have been in high demand as law enforcement agencies have increased the attention they pay school security after the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting.
Read More →The Complete Guide to What To Do Before, During, and After a Disaster
Do you know how to actually protect yourself during an earthquake or hurricane? What about a tornado or fire? You’ve probably heard lots of conflicting information over the years.
Read More →Public School Teachers Take A Firearms Training Class
Rubber pistols and a very bizarre shooting target in Sarasota, Florida, nearly a month after Newtown. (Photoset) Read more @ buzzfeed.com
Read More →Individual Preparedness and Response to CBRN Terrorist Attacks
Individual preparedness is an important element of our nation’s strategy for homeland security. This report adopts a scenario-driven approach that provides a rigorous way to identify actions-linked specifically to terrorist attacks-individuals can take to protect their health and safety.
Read More →What the U.S. Can Learn from the Christchurch Earthquake
Learning from experience, including that of other countries, is an important element of our knowledge about earthquakes and other disasters that affect major urban areas. The United States can learn from a recent report that assessed the response to the damaging earthquake that affected Christchurch and the surrounding Canterbury Region in New Zealand in February [...]
Read More →4 Tips for Creating an Emergency Management Career
The field of emergency management is constantly evolving. New ideas are being blended with old principles, creating a profession that is hardly recognizable when compared to the emergency management practices of 20 or 30 years ago. Emerging EMs who are completing, or have just completed, degrees in emergency management are finding that their knowledge is in competition [...]
Read More →Cyber Security View All →
Securing the Network Supply Chain
Securing the supply chain – simply, assuring that computer and communications wares organizations procure are secure – is receiving much attention by the federal government. Supply-chain security is a component of President Obama’s cybersecurity framework, being developed under the guidance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Now, a House subcommittee has created a [...]
Read More →Cyberattacks Against U.S. Corporations Are on the Rise
A new wave of cyberattacks is striking American corporations, prompting warnings from federal officials, including a vague one issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security. This time, officials say, the attackers’ aim is not espionage but sabotage, and the source seems to be somewhere in the Middle East.
Read More →Beware of Online Fundraising Scams and Hackers Trying to Exploit the Tragedy in Boston
From the DHS Blog The outpouring of support and generosity of the American public in the aftermath of last Monday’s explosions in Boston speaks to both our compassion and resilience as a country. But unfortunately, as we’ve seen previously, high profile news stories and tragedies can also lead to a variety of Internet scams and [...]
Read More →NIST announces federal cyber center plans
The National Institutes of Standards and Technology is spearheading efforts to establish a new federally funded research and development center through its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The goal of the FFRDC is to create a neutral venue for collaboration between government and industry that will accelerate progress in implementing cybersecurity. The idea is to [...]
Read More →Guidance Aims to Ease Access Control
Improving information sharing while maintaining control over accessto that information is a primary goal of new guidance coming from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST has issued a draft of NIST Special Publication 800-162: Guide to Attribute Based Access Control Definition and Consideration. Attribute-based access control, or ABAC, is a logical access control methodology where [...]
Read More →Are You Vulnerable Online? Get Tips from U.S. CERT
Cyberspace is woven into the fabric of our daily lives. According to recent estimates, this global network of networks encompasses more than two billion people with at least 12 billion computers and devices, including global positioning systems, mobile phones, satellites, data routers, ordinary desktop computers, and industrial control computers that run power plants, water systems, and more. [...]
Read More →Reassuring Industry on IT Best Practices
Top administration officials told Congress that industry, not the federal government, will take the lead in establishing IT security best practices for critical infrastructure operators called for in a presidential executive order.
Read More →Strengthening Cybersecurity for the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure
Critical infrastructure is the backbone of our country’s national and economic security. It includes everything from power plants, chemical facilities and cyber networks, to bridges and highways, stadiums and shopping malls, as well as the federal buildings where millions of Americans work and visit each day.
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Anti-Muslim activity on the rise in UK after soldier killed in London http://t.co/gGhiKmvY3b #HSEM #UASI - posted on 05/25/2013 22:51:34- New bird #flu may be capable of human to human spread - study says: http://t.co/6UEzcgaGsw #H7N9 #HSEM - posted on 05/25/2013 13:38:04
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