In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

That’s the provocative question asked by the headline of an ABCNews.com article written by Leonard Marcus, Isaac Ashkenazi, and Barry Dorn from Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative with advice for the new Administration. The piece came out in December when this blog was on hiatus but I wanted to post it because the authors point out the [...]

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I have five copies of Christopher Dickey’s terrific new book, Securing The City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force – The NYPD, to give away. 
Contest Rules:
Securing The City provides a behind-the-scenes look at the anti-terrorism efforts of the New York Police Department which is considered the most effective urban anti-terror operation in the nation.
So, in order [...]

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If you are in the Washington, D.C. area on Monday morning, there will be an interesting panel discussion on business and community preparedness and response. Organized by the Reform Institute, the forum is titled “A Resilience Metric: Measuring Preparedness Before Disaster Strikes”. The event is described in an Institute news release:  
Preparation and planning are the foundation [...]

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The Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado is once again holding its Annual Hazards and Disasters Student Paper Competition for undergraduate and graduate students.
Papers can present current research, literature reviews, theoretical arguments, or case studies. Eligible topics include floods and floodplain management, Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes, climate change, warning systems, hazard mitigation, emergency management, vulnerability, [...]

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Timothy Noah has written an interesting article, “Why No More 9/11’s,” in the online publication, Slate. Noah examines some of the leading theories why the U.S. has not been attacked by terrorists again, ranging from Al-Qaida’s patience to the nation’s anti-terror efforts. As he writes in the introduction to his piece:
Islamist terrorists struck Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, and many [...]

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Martin Jones, creator of the informative National Terror Alert website, has just launched the Homeland Security Response Network, “an online, collaborative community of concerned citizens, and government and community leaders” which is “designed to promote discourse and community involvement, and help to create safer, more secure communities, with an emphasis on engaging citizens at the community [...]

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Monica Schoch-Spana of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity, one of the (if not ‘the’) leading authorities on citizen preparedness and engagement, did an interesting interview on the radio show, Homeland Security Inside & Out. In it, she makes some recommendations to the new Administration on bolstering public preparedness and engagement. This week’s show [...]

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A recent Wired.com article highlights the potential of a relatively inexpensive mapping software in disaster preparation and response:
Thanks to disaster-simulation software inspired by videogames, David Friedman has a new family member: Jordan, a yellow Labrador retriever puppy. The software helped emergency workers in Louisiana rescue Jordan – and 15,000 other stranded pets – during Hurricane Gustav. ”Going by boat [...]

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Bad news for the emergency management blogosphere is good news for the people of the Northwest and the nation. Eric Holderman, who created the excellent blog, Disaster Zone, has taken the job of Security Director for the Port of Tacoma, Washington.  
Eric is the former Emergency Preparedness Director of Washington’s King County. He was one of [...]

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For the blog’s next Book Contest, we are giving away Christopher Dickey’s terrific new Securing The City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force — The NYPD. Thanks to Dickey and his publisher, Simon & Schuster. 
Contest Rules: “Securing The City” provides a great behind-the-scenes look at the anti-terrorism efforts of the New York Police Department which is considered [...]

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