I hope and trust that the bill will pass. I am particularly supportive of the legislation as it addresses the health needs of both volunteers and the general public impacted through their work in the 9/11 response. (Further, a number of the victims are suffering with Leukemia likely a result of the aftermath.)

In supporting the bill, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg underscored the reasons I think it is important to help this group of Americans:

“It’s time that the country stood up to do the right thing,” he said. “There are people who rushed into what started as a rescue and wound up to be a recovery mission. They put their lives on the line. They are suffering greatly,” he said.

“Supposing there’s another disaster. You don’t want people sitting back and saying, ‘I’m afraid to go in and save somebody’s life, because when it comes to my life, the public’s not going to be behind me,’” he continued. “That will be my message to both the parties.”

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.

Serve.Gov has created a widget (above — to post the widget, click on the “Get Widget” icon) on its “Gulf Oil Spill: How You Can Help” page. The search function allows the user to look for volunteer opportunities by zip code. However, the page notes that at present there is not a high demand for untrained personnel due to the “complex nature of oil cleanup, coupled with health and safety concerns”. At this point, I think it is more useful for interested volunteers to visit the impacted states’ individual citizen Oil Spill pages which are also listed on the widget (several of those sites offer information on citizen training and are collecting names for when/if a number of untrained personnel will be needed).

Florida’s Volunteerism Commission’s website, for example, offers a county-by-county rundown of volunteer needs and offers the overview (below) of the situation for citizens interested in helping out:

There has been a tremendous amount of support from volunteers who have prepared Florida’s coast for the oil spill. As of Monday, June 28, 3,250 volunteers have served 19,467 hours on oil spill response activities.

Volunteers are still needed for other meaningful activities throughout Florida’s communities. Volunteer Florida encourages everyone to get connected with a local organization. Volunteers can support these organizations throughout the oil spill and beyond through appropriate activities such as Coast Watch, pre-oil landfall beach cleanups, fundraising, and meeting other needs of responding organizations.

Volunteers can also receive training as a member of a Community Emergency Response Team, a 211 operator, or a volunteer manager. Even though volunteer opportunities with the oil spill are limited, volunteer opportunities in the local community, not connected with the oil spill, are limitless. This website features volunteer activities happening in your own backyard as well as links to other websites with volunteer opportunities.

U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Robert Casey (D-PA), wrote the President yesterday requesting that he fully utilize the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) as part of an effort to recruit citizens to help in the Gulf. According to a press release:

“The future of our nation depends on the drive, the talent, and the values of our young people, and tremendous good can come from giving them a mission in this time of turmoil when their country needs them,” the Senators wrote. “By leading a nationwide, proactive mobilization of the resources of the CNCS, Americans across this country will be given the sense of mission they seek: to support the clean-up and revitalization of the Gulf Coast.”

‘As the oil continues to flow in the gulf, thousands of college graduates are entering into one of the toughest job markets since the Great Depression. These young adults are among the most eager to volunteer and help with community development along the Gulf Coast. By increasing the visibility of the CNCS, individuals and businesses will have an avenue to volunteer their support and donate their resources to address this crisis.”

I wrote about a similar idea from a Connecticut prep school headmaster that was mentioned by “Hardball” host Chris Matthews earlier this month.

Schwarzenegger colorfully tweeted out the news on Friday: “Check out our Disaster Corps…Because we believe in the 7 P’s. Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.”

Gov. Schwarznegger’s tweet announcement (photo credit: David Konig)

Amanda Ripley, who covered the creation of the CaliforniaVolunteers cabinet position, has a nice writeup, “The Navy Seals Of Disaster Volunteers,” on the Disaster Corps announcement in her Unthinkable blog:

Secretary Karen Baker, the woman who got that job on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s cabinet, is introducing the nation’s first Disaster Corps–a squad of 1,000 elite, well-trained volunteers who can can be deployed to disaster sites as soon as they are needed (without waiting for the soul-killing bureaucratic sign-offs that so often delay volunteer efforts after big calamities.)

“We needed to develop the Navy Seals of volunteers,” Baker says. OK, first of all, it takes some chutzpah to put the words “Navy Seal” and “volunteer” in the same sentence. Baker can pull it off only because she has actual power–the kind almost none of her peers across the country can claim. When I greeted her as “Secretary Baker” on the phone the other day, she laughed and said, “Call me Karen, or I’ll kill you.” But she (and by association all volunteers in the state) have experienced a surge in credibility since she got the cabinet post. “All of a sudden all phone calls are returned,” she says. “Instantly.” (Seven months after Schwarzenegger created the cabinet post, Gov. David Paterson did the same thing in New York.)

For two years, Baker has worked on creating the Disaster Corps. “We needed to up the game,” she says. Why? Because California is crowded with volunteers (one quarter of the population volunteers in some way.) But too few of them have the training, the experience, or, crucially, the trust of the authorities. “Everyone will say, ‘Yeah, we love volunteers.’ But the truth is, they don’t often use them because they don’t know what they’re getting.”

The new Disaster Corps will be made up of citizens who have received Department of Justice/FBI background checks and First Aid/CPR training, at a minimum. Many will have special skills (like language fluency or law enforcement experience) that make them particularly valuable for certain kinds of crises. They will be drawn from existing volunteer outfits like Citizen Corps, which means they will have worker’s compensation coverage already–an important pre-requisite for higher-risk disaster sites. The Corps will be supported by five local coordinators, full-time staffers in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and San Francisco counties.

The idea is to make it easier for the people in charge to find, trust and deploy volunteer assets when they need them. As part of the project, Baker’s office is also creating a large new database that everyone can access with critical information about which volunteers (from all organizations across the state, not just Disaster Corps) are available to do what. “Often in government, they know what the problems are but not what resources are available to them privately.” And Baker has set up mutual aid agreements so that volunteers can work across different counties. Not very sexy, but very important. All of this has been done with private and federal dollars, which is a good thing given that Baker’s state has no dollars.

Thanks to Jimmy Jazz for giving me the heads up on Amanda’s post.

‘Thank you’ video by Red Cross in Greater New York

“CBS Evening News” segment on 11-year-old Olivia Bouler

Mandi has the same disease, acute myeloid leukemia, that I have. Like me, er cancer went into remission after the initial chemotherapy regimen but after awhile returned. I was very lucky to have been able to find a bone marrow match, but the article describes how to date doctors have been unable to locate a suitable donor for Mandi:

That is where her teammates and friends come in. Finding a perfect bone-marrow match is essential, because even a “9-out-of-10” match can cause life-threatening complications, said Dr. Tedd Collins, a New Haven-based clinical immunologist who is trying to find Schwartz a donor.

More than 1,600 people got their cheeks swabbed at bone-marrow drives held at Yale the past two springs, but no one was a match for Schwartz. Additional drives have been held or are planned for eight Canadian cities this summer.

Schwartz’s friends and family are also trying to collect umbilical cord blood, which Collins said was preferable to a bone-marrow transplant because the match does not need to be as precise.

“We have basically a one-week mission,” said Yale’s leading goal-scorer, Bray Ketchum, who was among several teammates who spent this past week calling obstetricians around the country on Schwartz’s behalf. “No one is holding back.”

To learn more about the Mandi Schwartz donation effort, go to www. becomemandishero.org. For more information on becoming a bone marrow donor and nearby donation registry drives, the website of the National Marrow Donor Program can be found here. It is not hugely difficult or painful, and registering involved only a swab inside your cheek. Thank you.

“…imagine a game — call it “Coastal Cleanup” — that connects people online for a good cause in their local communities offline. Volunteers could “check in” at locations via Foursquare and unlock badges for their volunteer efforts. Or they could earn patches of the ocean as rewards — similar to the (Lil) Green Patch game on Facebook that empowers users to fight global warming.

That’s just the kind of strategy companies and organizations need to be pursuing to win public relations battles in this social-networking era. By now it is clear that people spend a lot of time online, much of it on social-networking sites. And gaming is one of their favorite online activities.

FarmVille, which engaged its community to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief, leads the pack, but other social-gaming venues are rapidly becoming popular. For instance, more than 500,000 users “check in” regularly to earn badges, mayorships and more on Foursquare, which is only a year old, and reportedly growing by 15,000 users each day.”

The full article can be read here.

By 2 June, BP had received 31,600 suggestions from members of the public on how to plug the well, or deal with the oil slicks already in the sea. The company’s helpline, which has 80 telephone operators, deals with interested citizens. Of the 31,600 ideas, 8,000 have been submitted on paper.

BP then puts the plans through a four-stage process. The first is a primary evaluation to weed out ideas that have already been considered or are just not possible. The second stage is classification into categories such as “dispersants” or “mechanical”. The third stage is a more detailed technical review and the fourth stage is field testing. There are 235 ideas currently in stage three and four, says BP. Of those, just 10% are about how to plug the well.

Some might ridicule the idea that interested amateurs might be able to solve a problem that is foxing a giant company with immense resources at its fingertips. But the notion has a long pedigree. One of the most famous examples of attempting to tap the public brain came in the Longitude Prize, established in the UK by Parliament in 1714. For a seafaring nation, the ability to accurately measure longitude was a massive challenge.

The act of Parliament offered £20,000 to the person who could do it, and the clockmaker John Harrison established the principles for the marine chronometers that revolutionised navigation. Another prize was offered in late 18th Century France for the creation of soda crystals from sea salt. Harrison was met with scepticism and never received the full prize, while the French winner Nicholas Leblanc was denied his cash because of the revolution.

One reason, experts say, why there haven’t been any successful citizen ideas yet on the oil spill is a lack of information:

The term “crowdsourcing”, coined by journalist Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, is now often used to describe this phenomenon. Howe says that it is sometimes the case that problems that have proved insoluble to hand-picked experts can be solved when placed before a wider, but less expert, audience. ”[Crowdsourcing] is an acknowledgment that 99 times out of a 100 the best person to solve a problem is an expert. If it’s a chemistry problem, you want a chemist.

“But one time out of a hundred the problem seems intractable. Crowdsourcing has revealed – in those intractable cases – you need someone who is not trained. All the steps the experts have thought to do haven’t worked. You need the unexpected.”

That might be why BP is using some of its resources to test these suggestions from the public. They won’t reveal any of the detail of the submissions they have had, but look at some public forums on the web – not run by BP – and you can get a flavour of the sort of ideas that might be arriving…

Looking on the web you can see solutions involving pre-cast concrete plugs, giant screws, explosives, sealant pumps, giant magnets, liquid nitrogen, inflatable bladders and all manner of other devices…

But despite the public enthusiasm, there’s a feeling among some experts – not brought in by BP – that they aren’t able to contribute their own ideas because of a lack of detail from the oil firm. ”The problem is there is not a whole lot of detailed information released,” says Prof Sears. “Exactly what are the pressures, temperatures, flow rates and pipe sizes?

“The more information is released the more analysis can be done by people that are not directly involved.” It will probably be somebody with some sort of engineering or science background who could come up with an answer, says Howe. It is unlikely that “a random guy with an English degree” will crack it, he notes. ”[It might be] someone who has some tangential experience – it isn’t some experience that BP think to tap.”

Harrison was a self-educated genius, who already made clocks, and Leblanc had a scientific background. The prize approach made sense in a time when the pool of formal academics was tiny compared with today. And if an ordinary citizen comes up with the solution, they have to hope that the powers-that-be treat them a bit better than they did Harrison and Leblanc.

I don’t know the feasibility of putting together such a program. But I think the general idea — and particularly the underlying spirit behind it — is terrific. The text of Matthews’ commentary is below:

I think what’s been misunderstood in this entire fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico is the spiritual factor. People in our country are heartsick over this. They sit and watch our natural birthright, this “gift outright” that Robert Frost called North America, being disfigured.

And there’s nothing that they can do. There’s nothing that their kids or parents or anyone that they know can do. It’s as if we’re all a bunch of by-standers, watching part of our country get destroyed.

I have a small recommendation that could fill a big part of our national heart. Put out an offer to the people of America – not just to the youth, but to anyone who can participate. Create a modern Civilian Conservation Corps, and deploy it in all the states of the Gulf. Invite any American who wants to join to come down south this summer and to clean up the beaches and wetlands of the Gulf.

I know that there will be those who warn you of the hazards in this, of the possibility of people getting hurt. Let people sign releases if it’s necessary – but give Americans the chance to do something.

Matthews said the idea was not his but came in a letter from Edward J. Shanahan, the headmaster of a New England prep school with at least one famous alumnus:

I got this idea from the headmaster of Choate Rosemary Hall [Edward J. Shanahan], the school in Connecticut that John F. Kennedy attended back in the 1930s:

“It is now June 3 and millions of high school boys and girls, college men and women, are finishing up their academic work,” he wrote me, “some of them with jobs, many of them no doubt without jobs. Is it not within the purview of any of our many federal agencies to mobilize a national ‘peace corps’ or national environmental protection corps for the next three months, for the purpose of capturing the oil that is already beginning to cause irreparable harm to our environment and to those who live in the Gulf area?”

Maybe you could give that nickname to the huge brigade of people whom I predict will join you to clean up the Gulf this summer. Maybe the best thing that you could do right now – while slapping BP with the bill for all of this – is to let the American people regain the spirit of young Jack Kennedy and reclaim this America the beautiful of ours.

There’s a wonderful story behind this. When he was a student at Choate, young Jack Kennedy organized a group of trouble-making classmates, whom he christened “The Muckers.” He gave each member a little shovel in order to show that he belonged.

According to its website, Evacuteer.org was launched on June 2, 2009 as an organization of New Orleans citizens committed to helping execute the new City Assisted Evacuation Plan.

If you are interested in volunteering to be an Evacuteer, click here.

As the unprecedented offshore oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico unfolds and extraordinary measures are being taken to protect vulnerable coastal and marine environments from the toxic fuel, the question arises: Is the health and safety of responders being protected as well? Over the past week, I’ve been investigating this question for The Pump Handle, but answers to my questions have not been forthcoming. On May 3, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) head David Michaels visited the Gulf and profile of responder health and safety issues began to rise, but many questions remain unanswered…

…A pressing question is how to ensure the health and safety of response workers – a question being asked with the specters of the Exxon Valdez, World Trade Center, and Hurricane Katrina looming large. Concern is real that in the rush to protect beaches, sensitive wetlands, and wildlife – and to contain the massive oil flow – health and safety of those on the front lines is receiving scant attention.

Obviously, the health and safety of all rescue workers should be a top priority (though this blog will be focused on the thousands of citizens who volunteer for the cleanup — Grossman says there have 14,500 involved so far.) It’s a topic that we’ll continue to keep an eye on as the situation develops. Grossman’s full post can be found here.

Here is what MIT student Jeffrey Warren plans to do Thursday: Walk up and down the Louisiana coast holding a kite string that’s tethered to a helium-filled trash bag and a point-and-shoot camera. The set-up may sound goofy. But Warren’s aim is serious. The 26-year-old is trying to monitor the effects of the oil spill that threatens to wreak environmental and economic havoc on the Gulf Coast of the United States…

Warren, who has been working on these “grassroots mapping” efforts for several months, is among a number of people and organizations trying to empower ordinary citizens to document the effects of the massive oil slick, which, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, has released more than 1.6 million gallons of crude into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

As that pollution heads toward the coast, it becomes all the more important that local people help monitor its effects on people, the environment and wildlife, local workers said. They also aim to involve local people in the disaster response, both to keep them from feeling helpless in the wake of the incident and to collect useful data about the extent of the damage.

The volunteers are using a number of new and newly improvised technologies to accomplish these goals, which generally fall within the trend of “crowdsourcing,” or using the skills of many people, in response to a disaster or conflict…

The full article can be found here.

As a result of my reporting as well as first person experience here in New York, the need to reexamine the CERT program has been a regular theme of this blog. Though the CERT is good idea and members have made a definite impact in their communities, it is a resource not being used to its potential. Doing so, however, will not be easy. But in this the 25th year since the program was first conceived by the Los Angeles Fire Department it would seem to be an appropriate moment to take a new look at the program.

In his post, Chubb lays out both the possibilities and the challenges of CERT:

…teams have largely been left to organize and administer themselves. Team leaders receive little additional training and no formal mentoring. Anyone who receives training is welcome to play or not play according to their individual willingness to do so. No one is excluded from training due to age, physical ability, prior criminal history, or other limitations or associations. As such, our volunteer corps, although quite diverse, is not necessarily representative of all segments of our community, nor organized to instill confidence in those who do not participate.

From the outset, program managers and volunteers alike have assumed that in the event of a serious emergency, such as a major earthquake, the teams would deploy themselves without need of instructions or assignments from a central command authority. Their training would dictate the priorities and rules of engagement as situations warranted: Assess damage, identify and isolate hazards, organize bystanders and others, render assistance when able, communicate conditions and resource requirements to the nearest fire station, and follow the instructions of emergency responders when they arrive. Until recently, the system managed to get along in spite of itself.

But recently, as the community responded to the H1N1 pandemic by establishing community vaccination clinics, it became evident that things were not working as well as some of us had assumed or perhaps simply hoped.

Chubb says the pushback on the pandemic disclosed other more general concerns from the CERT volunteers:

For starters, people were reluctant to step forward. This sort of mission was not what they had in mind when they signed up for training. Others expressed concern that they would be exposed to the disease and might become ill themselves or transmit the illness to someone in their household who was otherwise vulnerable. And still others found it difficult to accommodate the commitment in already busy schedules crowded with other obligations.

All of these explanations seemed reasonable enough and were little cause for concern. What we did not expect was a backlash from some quarters that suggested we were taking advantage of our volunteers to provide free labor for something that the government had not adequately prepared for and which they considered could hardly be called an emergency. Others complained that they were being asked to come to the aid of others besides their neighbors since most clinics were organized in poor communities with inadequate access to health care and a high number of uninsured residents. And still others questioned whether we knew what we were doing at all since no one had prepared them for such responsibilities much less organized them to respond to such situations beforehand.

Chubb concludes:

…we as a larger community of emergency management and homeland security professionals and policy-makers have assumed for far too long that volunteer means free. This can be taken one or both of two ways: 1) free as in without cost and 2) without responsibility or accountability. As it turns out, neither assumption is correct.

The opportunity cost of ignoring volunteers in exchange for making investments in hardware and software rears its ugly head sooner or later. Eventually, disgruntled if not disorganized volunteers will, as ours did Monday night, remind you that the liveware — the people and relationships that make up a community — are assets to be invested in not just protected or neglected.

I think Chubb’s post helps explain both the promise of and problems with CERT. Government officials have promoted the program to tap the interest of the public to contribute and assist the authorities, particularly in emergencies. And in a number of ways, it has been successful as teams have been set up in communities across the U.S. But, as Chubb’s report helps show, there is a need to better elucidate what is the role of CERT, and what are the resources, training and management necessary to accomplish that. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has repeatedly expressed his enthusiasm for the CERT program. As CERT marks its 25th year, it is time for the Agency along with local partners to take a new look at the program for its next quarter century.

The base commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said the tragedy might have been worse if not for the training and quick action of those nearby:

“People tell stories of soldiers ripping their uniforms apart and basically applying first aid. We put a great investment in soldiers’ first aid and taking care of each other. I’m sure this could have been much worse. As horrible as this was, I think it could have been much worse,” the general said.

The need for blood was significant but the response was quick and robust, according to an article in the Dallas Morning News:

Some North Texans spent Thursday evening doing what they thought could help the most after the shooting at Fort Hood – giving blood. Both the local Red Cross chapter and Carter BloodCare centers began accepting donations for shooting victims Thursday evening. Those efforts will continue today.

“I heard on TV that they needed blood, so I came down here,” said Matt Williams of Irving. He has two sons, one currently serving in Iraq and another who recently completed a tour of duty. ”If my son was hurt at a base, I hope someone close by would go and give blood,” Williams said. Bill Clements was donating platelets Thursday evening, something he started doing on a regular basis after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

PHLEBOTOMIST MELISSA VILLARUEL, DONOR BILL CLEMENTS AT RED CROSS BLOOD CENTER (Photo: Dallas Morning News)

To garner a better understanding of what its residents could contribute to disaster response and recovery, Adair County, Iowa, is surveying its citizens to determine their availability for volunteering and how they’d be interested in contributing.

Robert Kempf, emergency management coordinator of Adair County, said in the past the county has relied heavily on service clubs if it needed volunteer support. “With the more advanced planning that we try to do now, we’ve decided we should try to solicit more people instead of depending on the groups,” he said. “In the rural areas, the same groups get called on again and again to help.”

The emergency volunteer survey asks residents when they would be available and what type of help they’re interested in doing – food services, baby-sitting, clerical work, answering phones, etc. It also finds out of residents would be willing to donate the use of their chainsaws, tractors or other machinery that could be used to aid emergency response.

This type of disaster volunteer ‘census’ is a terrific idea not only because it adds to the assets a community has to respond to an emergency, but also reaching out to everyone underscores the point — often made by Fugate — that every citizen is part of the local disaster preparedness and response “team”.

The Emergency Management website has another post on a similar theme from Eric Holdeman which notes how the Regional Public Information Network (RPIN) in the Seattle area is using the web tool SurveyMonkey to assess business and community flooding preparedness.

As part of the “Preparedness Weekend,” NYC-OEM handed out readiness information to the the public and the New York Blood Center Van was there to take donations. By the way, I definitely recommend you visit the ship if you’re sightseeing in New York City.

NEW YORK BLOOD CENTER VAN UNDERNEATH THE USS INTREPID; USS GROWLER SUBMARINE IS IN BACKGROUND

Due to dangerous wildfire conditions, please do not travel to the areas affected by the fires without explicit instructions from a qualified emergency response organization. In the days and months to come, longer-term recovery efforts may be under way and in need of support. These services are best provided through coordinated efforts, and it is critical that potential volunteers do not self-deploy. Please see the Web site links below for the most up-to-date information regarding the wildfires, potential volunteer opportunities, and donation opportunities.

It then offers links to the most updated information, places to provide financial/in-kind assistance, and possible volunteer opportunities through LAWorks. The site also shows how Californians can sign up to train for future disasters through CERT, the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.

(photo: Associated Press)

“I have been a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) member in Cobb County, Georgia since 2004. It all started with my desire to help my family and neighbors to survive a disaster. I started searching on the internet to find out if any volunteer opportunities were being offered in my community, and that’s how I found CERT through Citizen Corps and ultimately Cobb County.

I participated in exercises, drills, training and recruitment opportunities. I took numerous FEMA independent courses in emergency management until I decided to enroll in a formal study program in emergency management. That is when I started the graduate certificate program in emergency management at Georgia State University.

Today that knowledge has allowed me to create a ministry in my church focusing on awareness of emergency management including conducting drills, exercises and training. Through that ministry, I have created vital documents such as emergency operations procedures for church and faith-based schools, continuity of operations plans, and evacuation plans–documents that I am happy to share with my neighbors.

In addition to the purpose of sharing those documents, and in the spirit of cooperation, I have established communication between the church and the Public Safety authorities including, the sheriff, police, fire and emergency management departments in the county. After all how good is a plan if it not shared with those who are there to help you?”

To read more stories of volunteers like Lisbeth R. or add your own, go to http://serve.gov/stories_safety.asp.

The Preparedness Toolkit offers ways to encourage individuals to volunteer and a comprehensive guide to developing their own “do-it-yourself” readiness projects. The site will help citizens create a service project to prepare their family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues for disasters in their local community. It offers detailed steps for a volunteers to follow, including these steps: 1. Identify Local Partners 2. Build a Team 3. Set Goals 4. Serve Your Community 5. Celebrate Success. For more information and to download the Toolkit, visit http://www.serve.gov/toolkits/disaster/. Anyone who might be interested in volunteering in the disaster preparedness area or even helping organize their own readiness effort should go to this site.

The new positions would be focused on particularly challenging national problems: tackling the dropout crisis, strengthening schools, improving health care and economic opportunity in low-income communities, cleaning up parks, aiding efforts to boost energy efficiency, as well as dealing with disasters and other emergencies.

A provision in the legislation would also establish September 11th as a “National Day of Service and Remembrance.” According to a sponsor, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), “September 11 should not only be a day for mourning — it should be a day to think about our neighbors, our community and our country.” I agree and hope the subject of citizen preparedness (which is such an important legacy of 9/11) plays a role in the Day of Service’s activities.

The House of Representatives have passed a similar version of the “Serve America Act”, and President Obama yesterday expressed his intent to sign the legislation when it gets to his desk.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will be making a visit to Galveston tomorrow to inspect reconstruction progress.

UPDATE: Due to bad weather, Secretary Napolitano has postponed the trip.