In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

A new Congressionally-mandated commission has found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) risk analysis capabilities and methods are not yet adequate for supporting DHS decision making.
The National Academies’ commission’s report — “Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Approach to Risk Analysis” — does, however, approve of the Department’s current risk approach on natural [...]

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As the U.S. marks the ninth anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to post some ideas that I think would help raise citizen preparedness and engagement. The recommendations come from discussions that I have had with people involved in all aspects of the issue, my own experiences as a parent and CERT member in New York [...]

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A new study  says “individualistic” Americans may be too optimistic about the risk of disasters, including terrorism, as opposed to more “interdependent” cultures such as in Asia. The report argues that the perception of disaster risk is influenced by culture more than experience.
It may help explain why many Americans still do not prepare for disasters (and, [...]

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An article yesterday by the Washington Post’s excellent homeland security reporter, Spencer S. Hsu, “Arrest of Va. man spotlights al-Qaeda’s new American recruiters,” looks at how al-Qaeda and its affiliates are “increasingly are relying on a new generation of American recruiters to radicalize other Americans.”
It’s an interesting piece about how this potential growth of domestic-based [...]

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On the subject of the role of games in disaster preparedness and response, an article, “Masters of Disaster” from the most recent Wharton Magazine, describes the computer simulation, Quake. It was designed by Howard Kunreuther and Robert Meyer of the Philadelphia school’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, to test ideas about how humans perceive risk. Amazingly, everyone [...]

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The word ‘fear’ has gotten a bit of bad rap this decade. And, I would argue that’s hurt the country’s public preparedness. Let me explain.
I think the fear of being accused of fearmongering has put a significant crimp in the ability of our leaders to communicate with and prepare Americans for terrorism. That’s a problem [...]

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In Slate, Christopher Beam has an interesting piece, “Oh Well: Why We’re So Bad At Dealing With Unlikely Disasters Like The Louisiana Oil Spill,” about how we as a nation think about, prepare for, and ultimately learn from unlikely but disastrous events. His conclusion: not well.
…the real lesson of the oil spill may be how [...]

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In their new books, former DHS Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff both say that there is a need to engage the American public in a discussion on risk and homeland security priorities. That’s also one of the recommendations in a recent report, “Improving Strategic Risk Management at the Department of Homeland Security,” from the [...]

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The 10 finalists for the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) YouTube Flu Prevention PSA contest have been announced and posted on Flu.Gov. You can now vote here through September 16th for the winner who will receive a $2500 prize (and whose PSA will be featured on national television).
The finalists are all good and their entries [...]

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In an interesting article on ForeignPolicy.com, “Swine Flu: Twitter’s Power To Misinform”, Evgeny Morozov argues that “despite all the recent Twitter-enthusiasm about this platform’s unique power to alert millions of people in decentralized and previously unavailable ways, there are quite a few reasons to be concerned about Twitter’s role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic about swine [...]

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