So, what’s the angle for this blog? It’s the family emergency preparedness pamphlet from the Children’s Health Fund that the show helped pay for, which was developed by Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

“My Family Disaster Plan,” was supported by a grant from “Idol Gives Back”, the show’s annual fundraising event. The piece was released last year when this blog was on hiatus so I am posting it now.

You can download “My Family Disaster Plan” here. Thanks to the Twitter feed @kidsgoape for bringing this to my attention.

According to the Depiction website, the webinar will:

describe several discrete, concrete projects that volunteers can do using Depiction mapping, simulation and collaboration software to help their communities become more prepared, including: Building detailed maps of key neighborhood locations with an iPhone or other smartphone, creating YouTube videos to raise awareness of potential dangers to your community, building visual presentations about specific disaster scenarios to show to local government and other groups.

Volunteers who attend the webinar will also have the opportunity to receive a 50% discount on Depiction mapping software. There are other NPM Depiction webinars coming up and videos of previous ones listed here.

The Preview Site provides a sense of the forthcoming National Memorial and Museum, which is scheduled to open in 2011. It welcomed its millionth visitor less than a year after opening its doors in August, 2009. It is definitely worth a visit. That’s a sentiment shared by Christina Stephens from Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security, who went to the Preview Site earlier this summer and told me she was quite effected by it.

Once there, visitors can help contribute to the permanent Museum by sharing their 9/11 stories. An on-site recording booth allows the public to record their stories for the Museum’s planned introductory exhibition, which will feature a soundscape of people’s voices remembering – in multiple languages – where they were on September 11, 2001, and how they learned of the attacks. To date, more than 2,900 people have recorded their 9/11 story in more than 10 different languages. The Preview Site is located at 20 Vesey St. in lower Manhattan and is open seven days a week.

Vibeke Arensbak of Denmark, the millionth visitor of the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site, is cheered by Memorial Board Member Anthoula Katsimatides and Museum Director Alice M. Greenwald (Photo: Amy Dreher)

A ‘thank you’ Boulder firefighters poster produced by Steve Lowtwait. It can be purchased here.

For those interested in donating or volunteering in support of the San Bruno explosion relief efforts, click here.

The Facebook post piqued my curiosity about the FEMA course whose introductory Overview explains:

“has been designed to help the citizens of this nation learn how to protect themselves and their families against all types of hazards…By reading and following the instructions in this guide you and your family can say, Yes, we are ready!”

As this is ostensibly the government’s baseline for judging whether citizens are “ready” for disasters, I thought I would read through the course material. After finishing it, I had two overall reactions:

1) there is a real need to review and refine what government authorities are telling the public about preparedness and what “we are ready” should mean for American citizens.

2) as part of that review process, it would be very useful for top federal (as well as state and local) emergency management officials to hold open forums — maybe using the “Are You Ready” class format somewhat along the lines of the Kansas City Medical Reserve Corps course writ large — in order to solicit questions and input about preparedness from Americans. These types of events would bring new attention to the subject as well as stimulate an important and overdue dialogue integrating the public in helping determine policy about public preparedness.

First, as far as the content of the “Are You Ready? An In-Depth Guide To Citizen Preparedness”, I want to highlight what I think are some significant shortcomings and disconnects. For example, right at the beginning of the course, Chapter 1.1, “Getting Informed,” instructs the public to:

Learn about the hazards that may strike your community, the risks you face from these hazards, and your community’s plans for warning and evacuation. You can obtain this information from your local emergency management office or your local chapter of the American Red Cross…

Ask local authorities about each possible hazard or emergency and use the worksheet that follows to record your findings and suggestions for reducing your family’s risk…

There is a major problem here: the government is putting far too much of the onus on the public — telling citizens it is only their responsibility to ask rather than taking the initiative to inform them if it is that important. The fact is that in many parts of the nation (including here in New York) the average citizen cannot just contact the local emergency management office and get a hazard briefing. Further down in the same chapter, the public is also told to request information that is not fully accessible or available to them:

Ask local authorities about methods used to warn your community…

Ask local authorities about emergency evacuation routes…

Ask local officials the following questions about your community’s disaster/emergency plans. Does my community have a plan? Can I obtain a copy?

The fact is that FEMA is recommending people undertake a time consuming and unfamiliar task that in many cases they actually will not be able to accomplish by themselves. Shouldn’t the government at all levels have more responsibility to take the initiative in communicating this the information to the community rather than wait until individual citizens contact them?

Ok, so how do you begin this discussion? I have an idea that was provoked by seeing the photos from this weekend’s Kansas City class: why not hold open public forums on preparedness? These national seminars would be coordinated with similar events run by state and local emergency managers. This would bring new attention to citizen readiness and provide the public with the opportunity to both ask questions and as importantly offer input. I think FEMA head Craig Fugate would do a terrific job of leading such forums as would a number of state and local officials.

As Tip O’Neill might have said, (almost) all disaster preparedness and response is local. But the federal government does have a significant role in public education, particularly when it comes to terrorism and major disasters. In fact, Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in a speech at Harvard University earlier this year made that point saying that Americans deserve a “clear appraisement” of the terror threats, “because I believe the American people want, and deserve, candor about what we face.” That appraisement still needs to be delivered. National officials also have a megaphone and platform that is necessary to get the issue on the media and political agenda.

Fugate began a review discussion of the government’s recommendations last year when he tweaked the agency’s central readiness preparedness message emphasizing family plans over supply kits. Others in the emergency management community are also increasingly asking out loud some basic questions about citizen preparedness such as ‘what really is prepared?‘ One question after going through the entire 200-page “Are You Ready?” document is whether we’re asking the public to do and know too much — in fact, I would argue that we’re both giving the public too much information but not enough of what they really need to be ready.

Whenever I attend local public events on preparedness, citizens always have specific questions about specific threats, evacuation plans, emergency communications that cannot be answered fully with general preparedness boilerplate. The fact is that government officials have not fully leveled with the public on preparedness, giving them all the information they need to be really prepared. Without having an open, interactive discussion we are not really going to make progress on really ‘getting informed’ or figuring out if “you [and I] are ready?” and what that means. I think a series of preparedness forums at a national and then state and local level would be very helpful as part of that process.

These public reporting can be very helpful according to the USGS:

This web site is intended to tap the abundant information available about earthquakes from the people who actually experience them. By taking advantage of the vast numbers of Internet users, we can get a more complete description of what people experienced, the effects of the earthquake, and the extent of damage, than traditional ways of gathering felt information. And best of all, with your help we can do so almost instantly.

By contributing your experience of the earthquake, either immediately afterward, or whenever it is possible for you to do so, you will have made a contribution to the scientific body of information about this earthquake. You will also ensure that your area has been represented in the compilation of the shaking map. This is a two-way street. Not only will you add valuable information on the extent of ground shaking and damage, but in the process we hope you will learn more about how other communities fared and gain a greater understanding of the effects of earthquakes.

For more information on the “Did You Feel?” program or on reporting an earthquake, you can find the web site here.

The Commission concluded its work as a congressionally-mandated organization on February 26, 2010. The chair was former Senator Bob Graham (recently chosen to co-chair the presidential commission on the Gulf oil spill), the vice chair was former Senator Jim Talent, and the executive director was Col. Randy Larsen. The trio have formed The Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center to continue work on these issues

“We All Have A Role” is a concrete result of the WMD Commission’s public outreach effort, which was central to the group’s mission. Senator Graham told me last year in an interview that informing the public on weapons of mass destruction was an “urgent” priority. And the Commission dedicated the final chapter of its report to the “Role of the Citizen.”

What I think is particularly special about “We Have A Role” is that it not only offers advice to the public on personal preparedness and response. But it also gives them guidance on how to take a leadership role as citizens to determine if their community is prepared for weapons of mass destruction, and if not, how to get it ready.

“We Have A Role” concludes with suggested questions “specifically for nuclear and biological attacks.” To me, that underscores a point I’ve made previously on the blog that the term “WMD” should be clarified for the public with the catastrophic nuclear and biological weapons in one category and serious but lesser weapons (also normally placed within the WMD rubric) such as chemical and radiological, placed in another.

In the game, Quake players are:

presented with a little icon of a house on a map of a hypothetical country. They also get a pot of digital cash—$20,000. Players are told at the start of the game that at any time, an earthquake can hit, either severe or mild, and that three to five quakes will hit during the course of the game. Then all the players have to do, it turns out, is decide what to do with their money: they can pump it into their homes, making them safer by purchasing a series of structural upgrades (to the chimney, the door frame, the roof, etc.) or they can leave it in the bank and earn 10 percent interest. The game unfolds in real time, and up to 10 people can inhabit the same Quake world at one time. Players can see other people’s houses and observe their decisions.

Kanreuther who wrote the excellent book, At War With The Weather, last year with his Wharton colleague Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan, has run the simulation in his class for the past four years:

By now, about 500 students have played the game, and every time, they play it essentially the same way.

They tend to begin the game cautiously, spending money to build stronger roofs and walls. But as the game goes on, they take more risks. Instead of spending their money to avoid disaster and death, they keep it in the bank to earn interest.

“They think, ‘Can I get away with the next 30 seconds in the game?’” says Meyer. “‘What are the odds of getting destroyed in the next 30 seconds? Well, probably very little.’ So they think, ‘OK, I’ll go a minute.’ And of course eventually they get destroyed.”

Meyer and Kunreuther have found that there’s nothing they can do to prevent the students from destroying themselves. Even if one of them pulls a student aside and explicitly tells her how to “win” the game—i.e., by building the strongest house possible, as quickly as possible, and then just sitting on it—the student still won’t do it, preferring to rack up those sweet interest payments.

It’s not like the students don’t know what’s coming, either. When asked if they understand what’s going on, they always say, yeah, they get it: they’re about to get hit by an earthquake. So if it’s not stupidity or ignorance, why do the students keep losing? Kunreuther and Meyer believe the game demonstrates a psychological bias toward short-term maximization instead of long-term planning—a psychological bias all humans share.

Meyer has tried out the Quake simulation with groups of corporate executives, and the results are the same. The players always see the quake coming, and they always “have a difficult time translating that belief that it’s going to happen to a short-term action”—much the same way, in fact, that the government of Haiti failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a major earthquake.

The Quake players derive a sense of security from observing the flimsiness of one another’s houses. If everyone around you has a house of straw, having a straw house yourself seems somehow safer.

Of course, this is wrong.

The full article can be found here.

The Citizen Corps Volunteer page was created by Andrew Levy, a friend of this blog, who authors his own Neighbors Helping Neighbors blog. The page is active and growing and is a good resource for Citizen Corps members. It gives them an opportunity to share experiences, events and best practices, get their questions answered by peers, and help tie together the volunteers working in communities spread throughout the U.S.

The Citizen Corps Volunteer Facebook page can be found at www.facebook.com/citizencorps.

The far-reaching Gulf oil spill tragedy has left many people feeling powerless to help out. But beyond the official Deep Horizon response, pockets of non-profits and people are starting to use social media tools to organize grassroots activities throughout the Gulf region. Here’s a quick look at four tools and efforts geared towards delivering aid and cleaning up crude oil in local coastal areas.

The four are: 1. Oil Reporter Apps, 2. Greater New Orleans Foundation Helps Local Fisherman, 3. National Wildlife Federation Organizing Local Teams, & 4. “Adopt a Beach” with Crisis Commons. The full article can be found here.

The Oil Reporter app being used by citizens to report on the Gulf Oil Spill.

1. “Official” social media accounts created by governmental agencies can become a leading hub for sharing critical information,

2. Social media beats traditional media in reporting news first; people flock to social networks in time of crisis; social media provides information before traditional media or relief workers can get to the scene of a disaster

3. Social media networks are dynamic: the content can be updated in real-time, from diverse users, to share the latest information about real needs and progress

4. Social networks can be used to direct victims on where to go to file claims and seek assistance

5. Social networks can be used to enlist, direct, inspire and thank volunteers

6. Social Media covers the story when major media chooses not to or is unable to do so

7. Social Networks are reliable mediums for conveying important information far, wide, and quickly

8. Social networks help in reaching those who are often difficult to reach

9. Curation: Twitter Lists and Hashtags are well-suited for identifying reliable sources of up-to-date information

10. Geotagging by social network users provides important context to the information being shared

The full blog post can be found here.

Thanks to Wendy Harman at the American Red Cross Blog for bringing this to my attention.

In my homeland security work, I have been struck and have written about the continuing challenge of integrating the efforts and communications of the various emergency agencies/subjects. That’s because each discipline has different languages, objectives, culture and perspectives.

To help his readers keep up, Bellavita helpfully listed 60 homeland security blogs:

“where I have found — at one time or another – surprising, thoughtful, opinionated, challenging, funny, creative, outrageous, factual, irritating, or insightful ideas about homeland security.

They’ve sometimes also been the source of wrong, petty, or stupid ideas.”

I was happy to see this blog on the list (probably for being the “source of wrong, petty, or stupid ideas”). In his post, Bellavita asked readers if there were any other helpful homeland security blogs not mentioned. I have suggested a few to him. If you have any recommendations, email them to hlswatch@gmail.com.

The new blog’s goal “is to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. We will be posting and commenting on current disaster and disaster recovery news (such as newly released reports from Government Agencies) and provide commentary and context for those events. We also will refer you to relevant recovery research.” Recovery Diva can be found here.

Vandor separates her guide into “Create A Plan,” “Keep In Touch,” and “Get Your Life Back,” and offers technology ideas for each, including:

Google’s MyMaps feature (screen shot above) and the ICE app for the iPhone (below):

The full article can be found here.

Bill is a thoughtful and bountiful resource on homeland security and emergency management, among other issues. He gets into a level of detail and historical context that is often missing in discussions on these topics. The blog can be found here.

is to create an editable directory of resources related to disasters and crises around the world. An example of how we’ve done this in the past can be seen at HurricaneWiki.org. What sets CrisisWiki apart from other disaster wikis is that we intend to design the wiki so it can accommodate resources for any disaster, rather than just one specific event, as well as aggregate local, state, national and international emergency preparedness resources before a disaster strikes.

The Wiki offers news, ways of helping & getting help, and many other resources. But it relies on the work of volunteer contributors. For more information, go to its project wiki or contact Andy Carvin (Twitter: @acarvin) who developed the idea.  (Btw, an article I saw on the Nashville Flood Wiki “So Nashville Is Flooded…I Can Help” from Nashvillest.com, offers a comprehensive list of how to assist in the town’s recovery.)

A woman wades through flood water on a downtown sidewalk in Nashville (Getty Images).

According to the Department, three scenarios – at minimum, moderate and maximum hazard levels – were created for the survey, starting with a single dirty bomb released in the region, but not near the survey respondent. The maximum level involved a situation with multiple dirty bombs released throughout the region and exposing the population to radiation. The scenarios were varied to learn the effects of four factors: the level of hazard, whether the respondent was at home or at work, whether there was prior notice of the event, and the source of information and instructions about the event.

Among the overall findings from the report (which was done for the state by the University of Virginia Center for Survey Research and the Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems):

* Of those at home during the event for all three scenarios, nearly 80 percent decided to stay home.

* For those at work during a minimal event (in which no shelter-in-place order is given for the respondent’s area), only 41 percent would stay at work, with 33 percent leaving to go home.

* For those at work during a moderate or maximum event when a shelter-in-place order is given, approximately 70 percent would stay at work.

Other findings include:

*The president, the Department of Homeland Security and the governor were cited as the most trustworthy sources of information, with the youngest respondents giving the president the highest level of trust.

*During the first 48 hours after a major local emergency, whether they chose to stay or to evacuate, residents expect emergency managers to supply information about the emergency and help with any needed decontamination, more than they expect food distribution or anti-looting patrols.

*About 54 percent have prepared a personal emergency plan, an emergency supply kit, or arranged a meeting place away from home for use by family members. Only 13 percent had done all three.

This appears to be a thorough, comprehensive study of an important issue — how the public would react to a dirty bomb — that has been discussed extensively on the blog. The findings would seem to report the good news that most citizens would be willing to ’shelter in place’ in their homes if that was the correct response and would follow instructions from authorities during a dirty bomb emergency. It also appears to show a relatively high level of knowledge about the dirty bomb threat among Washington-area residents.

As officials will be using the report to help develop emergency plans for the National Capital Region and surrounding areas, I would offer a couple of thoughts. I would be encouraged by the findings. But I do think that the unfamiliarity and newness of a radiological device that Americans have never experienced is something that really cannot be fully captured in a survey. These numbers might lead the authorities to think that there isn’t as much need for public education about the dirty bomb and other threats or more explanation about ’shelter in place’ vs. evacuation, or discussion of how workplaces and schools would be integrated into the response (ie. will parents be willing to stay home or at work if they don’t know what their kids are doing). That would be the wrong conclusion.

I am also concerned that there may be a little too much confidence among the survey respondents in the capacity of emergency responders (including the survey result: “During the first 48 hours after a major local emergency, whether they chose to stay or to evacuate, residents expect emergency managers to supply information about the emergency and help with any needed decontamination.”) That may not be the case in a post radiological situation. There needs to be more information provided on what those expectations really should be when it comes to radiation. And, the time to do it is not after the incident has occurred.

The survey will not only provide data for emergency planning but also help raise the profile of the issue of dirty bomb civilian response. I hope the authorities in National Capital Region and across the nation will also use it in helping to better educate and prepare their residents for this important — and unfortunately somewhat likely — possibility.

The Lists allow Twitter users to organize the feeds they’re following into groups. And, Ostrow notes the work of several news organizations as part of their Ft. Hood coverage to provide a “real-time view of what multiple sources — both local and national — are reporting”:

“The New York Times: Their Fort Hood Shootings list has updates from news organizations throughout Texas, the US Army, as well as what look to be several citizen journalists on the ground…

Dallas Morning News: Reporter Scott Goldstein has taken it upon himself to setup a list of news sources…

CNN: The cable news network has created its own Fort Hood list with local and national sources. It’s the first list the network has created on its breaking news (@cnnbrk) account, which has more than 2.8 million followers.

What’s really interesting here from a media perspective is that we’re seeing news organizations that compete vigorously for breaking news turning to real-time curation to help tell the story. And the result is certainly a win for media consumers – rather than searching far and wide for local news from Fort Hood, it’s all being aggregated for us by news organizations we trust. It certainly might be a glimpse of what’s to come from the Twitter Lists feature.”

I have put together an emergency preparedness list on my Twitter feed, and I’ll be highlighting some lists being set up for Hurricane Ida. [UPDATE: Andy Carvin at National Public Radio is putting together a list for Ida at twitter.com/nprnews/hurricane-ida]

Thanks to Jimmy Jazz who referred me to the Mashable post.

“With flu season in the northern hemisphere upon us, and cooler weather bringing the likelihood of new H5N1 bird flu reports as well, the newshounds that work the flu forums are looking at six very busy months ahead.

Newshounds are volunteers who spend hours each day searching in the hundreds of online English and Foreign language news sources for information pertaining to pandemic influenza, avian flu, and other emerging infectious diseases…Their work thankfully is archived on the flu forums, where it is discussed, analyzed, and becomes part of the historical record. The flu forums have essentially become repositories of flu and infectious disease information, that function like real-time libraries.”

Coston notes that the newshounds’ good work appears on flu forums like Flu Wiki and FluTrackers as well as on blogs like his (and mine) — and is ultimately used by public health practioners, policymakers and average citizens:

Flu Wiki

“Much of what I do in this blog is dependent upon their labors. While I still do a fair amount of news hounding myself, at least half of the stories I blog about come by way of these hardworking news analysts…

Both FluTrackers and the Flu Wiki produce a daily summary of news items, which helps make it easier to pluck out individual news stories from the onslaught of posts.

The Flu Wiki summary is updated in real time, during the day, at the top of each day’s news thread. Each item has a corresponding link to take you to the original source material (news article, journal article, etc.)…FluTrackers takes a slightly different approach, posting a summary at slightly irregular intervals, but generally every 24 to 36 hours.”

“All of this, as you might imagine, takes an incredible amount of work and dedication. Scores of these folks work on the forums without pay, and far too often without recognition. Their work, by the way, is freely shared between forums and with the world.

The expertise of many of these newshounds is remarkable, with some becoming quite adept at translating articles, and knowledgeable about local customs and idioms in places like Indonesia and China.”

If you have not already, I recommend you checking out these forums both for the flu information available on them as well as a model of what can be done by knowledgeable, committed and public spirited citizens in the area of emergency preparedness and response.

“The site is focused on individuals and families in multi-hazard disasters. It includes information on what to do before (preparedness), during (response) and after (recovery and mitigation) disasters…

The new design features a simple format with main topics divided in blocks of three for easy access. The first block includes information like disaster information, preparedness, and mitigation. The second block includes action items such as recent news, major warnings and relevant information just one click away, i.e. hurricane preparedness, National Preparedness Month and H1N1.

The third block includes general information like current disasters, types of disasters and what to do before, during and after different types of natural or man-made emergencies as well as links to other government agencies active in disasters.”

But a bigger theme (and, I would argue, a bigger deal) throughout the book is his frustration with the inability to have a frank and sustained dialogue with the American public about post-9/11 homeland security. The good news is that many of the objectives envisioned but not attained by Ridge when he was in charge and detailed in the book can — and may well — be taken up by the current Secretary Napolitano.

Ridge’s book, The Test Of Our Times: America Under Siege…And How We Can Be Safe Again (Thomas Dunne Books), written with Lary Bloom, was released on Tuesday. What initially struck me reading Test Of Our Times is how similar the themes and emphasis are — particularly when it comes to the public — to another book by a former DHS Secretary that was released Tuesday, Michael Chertoff’s Homeland Security The First Five Years. Chertoff also devotes a good deal of his book to encouraging government officials to engage and inform the citizenry in order to prevent complacency.

Ridge says he wrote his book in large part because “I’ve seen a sense of public complacency creep in.” Chertoff also writes in his about his similar concern about “complacency” and a return “to a September 10th mindset”. Further, Chertoff told me in an interview last month that he “wishes he could have done more” on citizen preparedness. Though Ridge doesn’t explicitly say so in his book, it comes through pretty clearly that he has some of the same regrets.

Ridge acknowledges the confusion that  Americans have had about their role in the nation’s homeland security since 9/11. In fact, he characterizes it memorably as “homeland helplessness”. And though I think he would agree that he did not address it nearly as well he would have hoped, Ridge does nicely lay out some useful ways that current leaders can try (ie. candid discussions with the public on topics like risk management and ‘dirty bombs’). The same significant challenges about the task — the novelty, complexity and sensitivity of the subjects in a highly-charged media and political environment — are still there as is the huge opportunity to capitalize on the largely untapped asset that is the American public. (Something that Napolitano has indicated an intention of doing.)

In the book, Ridge writes that when he came to Washington after 9/11 as presidential homeland security adviser and then as head of the new cabinet department he wanted to “create a culture of sharing” both among agencies and the public and move from a “need to know” to “need to share” philosophy. He believed that communities and citizens “deserved more information about the conduct of our business and the rest of the administration as it effected them.”

Ridge describes how he and his chief public affairs aide, Susan Neely, envisioned their citizen communications approach:

“We needed to create a government office with a public information policy that would be groundbreaking. We would find a way to interpret frightening reports in a way that would motivate a sense of readiness and security without sounding like a horror movie. We would attempt to share as much information as possible, certainly more than government agencies were used to doing. The goal was unprecedented, and the task would prove more difficult than we realized.”

“An informed public is an engaged public and a good investment in the security of the community and the country. And informing the public required a new way of thinking and communicating and, I believed, now was the time to take up the task…Americans had a role to play, and to do so effectively, they needed to know more not less.”

But, Ridge writes, others in the Bush Administration did not share that same idea when it came to the public. He says some in the White House opposed the citizen awareness campaign, Ready.Gov, because it would have “little value or merit, but grudgingly let us proceed”. (He does note getting some satisfaction later on that Ready did gain some traction with the public and ultimately even First Lady Laura Bush did PSA’s on emergency preparedness.)

Ridge, like Chertoff, believes that there needs to be far more public understanding about the role of risk in homeland security. In the book, he uses the example of the ‘dirty bomb’ — a traditional explosive laced with radiation — which “though it will cause some deaths in the area of the explosion, is primarily a psychological weapon and a means to contaminate a large area.” Ridge raises a key question — that most experts I’ve spoken to believe the nation will face at some point in the future — how will we decide to deal with that contaminated area? (e.g. would we abandon all of downtown Manhattan?) He writes:

“If the measured level of contamination should turn out to be moderately higher than the existing federal health and environmental standard, but at a risk level that people were prepared to accept, would the government force them to leave? What level of additional health risk would citizens and communities be prepared to accept in order to maintain their communities?…If decontamination of the affected area could not reduce the danger of cancer death to one in ten-thousand, which means in a city of five hundred thousand an additional fifty deaths would occur, should we or would we abandon the city? And how could the government arrange for a trustworthy response devoid of panic and politics, with a clearly scared (and rightly so) population.”

Statistically, this is minimal. But it is not hard to imagine the media frenzy whipping the population into a panic…In the post -9/11 world, we need to be informed and realistic about the level of contamination we will accept. In such an attack, most of the casualties come well after the initial explosion. The difficulty is determining the subsequent level of contamination and its long-term physical and psychological effects on the population. We believed we could address these problems, but we were also left with major policy issues at various levels.”

Ridge lays this out in a clear, straightforward and provocative manner in the book. It leads to the obvious question — shouldn’t he have presented it this way to the public during his tenure? (I will ask Ridge when I interview him; I’m guessing he would answer ‘yes’ but cite some of the major obstacles he faced in doing so.) Again, the good news is that we haven’t been struck by that ‘dirty bomb’ (which Ridge would seem to deserve some credit for) so the fact is that the public still can and should get that type of briefing.

His use of the ‘dirty bomb’ to illustrate the need for public education reminded me of an interview I did with Steven Brill, a Ridge friend and sometime adviser, for the National Public Radio show “On The Media” in 2004. I asked Brill, who had written a book, After, on the period post-9/11 about how he would recommend the Secretary talk to the public and the media about the ‘dirty bomb’, a weapon whose psychological impact would probably be greater than its actual physical damage:

“The whole idea ought to be to just take that weapon out of the arsenal of the terrorists, and this is one situation where you can take the weapon away without spending money, without, you know, shooting people, and without two years of planning. If I were Tom Ridge and George Bush, I’d ask for a half-hour of network time to hold a teach-in about dirty bombs. The time to give that speech is now — not two hours after someone sets off one of these bombs and everybody’s panicked, because it’s not going to work then.”

Test Of Our Times seems to indicate that Ridge wanted to give that speech, but wouldn’t or couldn’t. In the book, he also offers some ideas on how to begin talking to the public about risk management and involving them in the tough decisionmaking on homeland security policy choices.

“Expecting our government to create a fail-safe, risk-free environment is not. As individuals or as a nation, our lives would be incalculably better if we could avoid tragedy. We cannot. As individuals and as a country, we accept the reality of the moment, deal with it as best we can, and move on…The question for our leaders, our policy makers and ourselves is: “How much security is enough?” At what point does the financial or philosophical cost exceed our willingness or ability to pay for it? Risk management involves making choices-tradeoffs.”

Though Ridge’s recommendations in the book are often made contemporaneous with the events he recounts, most apply just as much now. Typical is this recollection: “I felt we still had a lot to learn from Britain and Israel” on societal resilience. And, we still do.

Another obstacle Ridge faced was somewhat self-inflicted — what Ridge calls the “Duct Tape Debacle” when his recommendation on storing emergency supplies led to long lines at home supply stores and even more endless laugh lines from late night comics. “What would Leno, Letterman and O’Brien have done without me?” he writes. First of all, though it was ultimately the fault of Ridge and the Department for its clunky rollout of citizen preparedness advice, the incident was totally blown out of proportion by the press (and gave the nation an excuse to ignore what is viewed by many as an unpleasant topic). Second, it is a lesson to the current Administration that on a sensitive issue like preparedness you sometimes only get one first impression and any presentation to the public needs to be carefully planned and implemented — and must, I’m sure Ridge would concur, have commitment from the White House.

Ridge also did a national listening tour on public preparedness, organized by the Council For Excellence in Government, during which he heard first hand how perplexed Americans were about their role in homeland security — and how much education and dialogue was necessary. He writes, ”In San Diego, the father of a grade-school student said, ‘We were told by our son’s school that we should come up with a family evacuation plan, but it’s hard to come up with that if you don’t know what the school’s plan is in the event of an emergency.’”

Ridge observes correctly: ”Ordinary citizens were trying to figure out how to adjust to this new kind of threat, just as we were, and their interest could inform us…”There was no modern equivalent of a scrap-iron drive. It was as if this new kind of confrontation also created a new kind of homeland helplessness.”

I recommend the book to anyone interested in homeland security. Despite following the topic closely over the past eight years, I learned a number of things about key events and players — and particularly about Ridge’s actions and mindset during his tenure. As one of only three Homeland Security Secretaries in the nation’s history, he is clearly interested in continuing to have a say in the Department’s future.

In the book’s introduction, Ridge notes ”as we move farther in time from the mindset of 9/11 we will have lost our edge” and he makes this call to action: ”I want to persuade you to become a partner in a new kind of America, more alert and more willing to pitch in for the common good, but also more resilient.” The fact is that he was not able to accomplish that as Secretary, but I believe that Test Of Our Times helps the current occupant with her attempt to do so.

“Walking The Emergency Preparedness Talk”/Emergency Management Magazine — How and why to prepare (as well as the role of passion and personal anecdotes) from a leading citizen preparedness advocate, Seattle’s Lu-An Johnson.

“Preparing For Storm Season”/The Wall Street Journal – “With family budgets stretched thin and local governments strapped for cash, it’s important to be prepared. Here’s what you can do.”

“Anticipated Hurricanes Leave Consumers Exposed”/Associated Press — As we enter the hurricane season, “many homeowners are finding insurance is either more expensive, or harder to get.”

“UIC Study Explores Emergency Training In Second Life/Chi-Town Daily News — “The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health is recruiting public health workers to participate in emergency preparedness training in Second Life”, the popular virtual reality game. UIC will be looking at the game’s potential for use in emergency simulations such as terrorist attacks and epidemics.”

Second Life users during a mock outbreak | Credit: Courtesy Photo

Their goal is to “try to make preparedness relevant and even a little bit fun” and “give you practical tips for practically anything”. And already in their debut they are delivering. The show fills an open emergency preparedness niche in the radio world, and I recommend it. Ready Radio can be heard Thursdays at 1:00pm on the Small Plate Radio Network. But it also available for download and you can subscribe through iTunes (which I have done).