In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Israel yesterday began its 4th annual Turning Point national civil defense drill Sunday. The five-day exercise, developed in response to a concern about the nation’s preparedness, involves the Israeli public of all ages. Though the U.S. does not face the daily threats of Israel, the Turning Point exercise offers useful guidance for this country’s public readiness and engagement efforts. According to the Jerusalem Post:

Under the scenario being drilled, the IDF has been at war in the North for just over two weeks, and Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i convened top IDF brass Sunday evening to assess the extent of damage to the country and the number of casualties.

As part of the drill, OC Home Front Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan informed Vilna’i of his decision to complete the draft of all Home Front Command reservists after close to 200 rockets and missiles, included ones with chemical warheads launched from Syria, landed in the center of the country.

The five-day drill will include the sounding of air sirens nationwide on Wednesday at 11 a.m. Residents are being asked to participate in the drill and to search for the nearest bomb shelter or safe room.

The focus of the drill is on 38 local councils, mostly from the center of the country, which are undergoing a series of simulations to test their ability to continue providing basic services for their residents at a time of war.

Under the scenario, most of the missiles were landing in the Gush Dan region in the center of the country, from which about 200,000 residents decided to flee south. The Eilat Municipality was asked, in the drill, to prepare a plan to absorb some of the refugees.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said citizen preparedness was a key goal of the drill

…in addition to maintaining deterrence, Netanyahu said it was “important to bolster citizens’ awareness vis-à-vis the protection issue – and this is exactly what this exercise will do, starting today and running throughout the week.”…

Defense Minister Ehud Barak characterized the exercise Sunday as “important” and a result of lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War. “We have no intention at all of starting a war in the North,” he said. “We are working toward the opposite, for calm and peace, but a country like Israel has to be prepared, and we are preparing.”

By coincidence, this year’s Turning Point exercise comes at the exact same time as the U.S.’s National Hurricane Preparedness Week. The difference in public involvement, engagement and compliance between these two awareness events is stark.

School children and security forces take part in the Israeli Home Front Command national exercise in a school last year in Tel Aviv.

The latest issue of the Natural Hazards Center’s informative newsletter, Disaster Research, has an interesting article about the national media’s lack of coverage of the Tennessee flooding. The piece, “15 Minutes Lost: Disaster Media Disses Tennessee Flooding,” provocatively asks whether that oversight was necessarily all bad for the locals:

While disaster news coverage is often characterized as opportunistic, provocative, and careless, the Tennessee situation begs the question: is it preferable to no coverage at all?

One positive is that the veritable national news blackout may have been a result of a successful local response:

Locals, in a sort of sour—or perhaps, sweet—grapes idealism, have interpreted that to mean their behavior was essentially too good for the news.

“It was not a PR nightmare,” writes Jan Morrison on the marketing blog Lovell Links. “It was handled with relative calm, an organized response and a lack of sensationalism.”

And, the article raises a great — and not usually asked — question: when national media ‘floods the zone’ so to speak on a disaster is that always good thing for the locals?:

Regardless of the emotion invoked by the cold media shoulder, one might wonder, why do they care so much? According to many disaster experts, the media do little more than muck up an emergency: spreading myths and misinformation, getting in the way instead of helping, and capitalizing on sorrow. Maybe the folks down in Tennessee should count their blessings.

I think it is a very fair to ask whether flood victims (or survivors as FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate like to say) should care. The article reports that there was a lot of hurt feelings in Tennessee about the lack of attention. But the most tangible negative may be less financial support from other parts of the nation:

Nothing whips up a donation frenzy like a solicitous news story and no national coverage equals no national sympathy.

In this case, social media seemed to help fill the void both in generating interest and support.

Like most questions, the answer is probably a mixed bag, but just the fact that Disaster Research raised the issue of the value of press coverage is interesting. And it should lead the national media, particularly all news television outlets, to think about how their coverage — when they cover a disaster round the clock — impacts the community and the response.

A new Red Cross survey suggests that bosses better be nice to their employees or else not have a heart problem in the workplace. The poll indicated that only 58% of Americans would give CPR to their boss. The organization’s annual summer safety poll of more than 1,000 adults also found:

that Americans say they are most comfortable giving CPR to family members, friends and coworkers, with less than half very likely to perform CPR on a stranger. The survey showed that physical appearance was a significant factor when people are deciding to perform CPR on a stranger, and men with a disheveled or sloppy appearance were the least likely to receive assistance, with only half of respondents saying they would very likely try to give them CPR.

Previous Red Cross research found that nearly 90 percent of Americans say they want to be prepared for an emergency, but they don’t know where to start or what to do.

Americans plan to be very active this summer, as the survey found that more than 40 percent will go hiking or camping and almost 75 percent will go swimming. While people expect to be active, the Red Cross found that many were not confident they knew what to do in an emergency – less than two-thirds felt confident helping a heat stroke victim and fewer than half could help someone with an allergic reaction to an insect or snake bite.

By the way, the Oregon Trail chapter of the Red Cross notes that Friday was the national organization’s 129th birthday.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano receives Red Cross CPR training at Department headquarters

In a post on Friday, Christopher Bellavita from the Homeland Security Watch blog noted how the topic of “homeland security” covers a lot of territory and crosses a number of issue stove-pipes. He’s absolutely right: keeping on top of the relatively new subject of homeland security requires a familiarity with many different disciplines (and blogs) including, emergency management, law enforcement, public health, infrastructure, defense policy, new technology, etc.

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.

Related to a previous discussion about improving public information and preparedness for the nuclear threat, I thought I’d mention that I unexpectedly will be making a small contribution to medical research in this area as part of my recent hospitalization. Before starting my treatment for leukemia, I volunteered to be part of a medical study, “Radiation Biodosimetry in Patients Treated with Total Body Irradiation (TBI)” which aims to help medical personnel treat victims of a radiological accident or attack. The release I signed described the objective:

“The purpose of this study is to develop blood tests and urine tests that can tell doctors how much radiation a person has been exposed to. Doctors know how much radiation patients are exposed to in certain medical situations…However, doctors may not know how much radiation patients are exposed to in non-medical situations would be a radiation accident or a terrorist attack.”

“The research study will help researchers develop tests to show how much radiation a person has been exposed to. This would be very helpful information to doctors if people were exposed to. This would be very helpful information to doctors if people were exposed to radiation in an accident, or in a terrorist attack.”

Recently, I also happened to see an Associated Press article, “Dirty-bomb test for terror may aid cancer research,” which reports on new findings that will potentially benefit both cancer patients and terrorism victims:

With a few drops of blood, scientists are creating a way to tell who has absorbed dangerous radiation levels, part of the government’s preparations against a terror attack, and advance research that just might point toward new cancer care, too.

Duke University’s work aims to allow rapid triage in the aftermath of a dirty bomb explosion or other radiological emergency, to sort out who among potentially thousands of panicked people need treatment for radioactive fallout and who can go home. At the same time, it illustrates an evolving new approach to developing so-called “medical countermeasures” for defense: They ought to have an everyday use, too.

In December of  2009, the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC held a conference in Washington, D.C., “Resilient American Communities: Progress In Practice And In Policy”. The aim was “to apply state-of-the-art knowledge of resilience to the design of federal policies that will strengthen local communities and their environments to withstand disasters, epidemics, and terrorism.”

Co-sponsors included the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, the Natural Hazards Center of the University of Colorado and the Alfred E. Sloan Foundation. Among the 140 participants were U.S. government officials, congressional staff, policy analysts, scholars, public health and emergency management practitioners, heads of private and nonprofit initiatives to reduce disaster risk, and members of the media.

I was excited to participate in the event but unfortunately had my leukemia relapse the week before and therefore could not attend. I did, however, want to post the meeting’s output which went on the Center for Biosecurity’s website earlier this year while my blog was on hiatus (so some of you may have already seen it already).

A 2-page conference brief, prepared by the Center’s Monica Schoch-Spana, listed the “Major Themes And Objectives”:

* A resilient community has the capacity to anticipate, withstand, and rebound from an extreme event with minimal damage and disruption.

* The nation needs a rational approach to collecting information on disaster-related losses and gauging the value of investments in resilience.

* The federal government should invest more money in pre-event hazard mitigation.

* A resilience certification program could inspire more communities to adopt creative disaster mitigation approaches.

* Partnerships beyond the bounds of the traditional disaster establishment strengthen resilience.

* Public engagement in key policy decisions improves emergency planning and empowers community members.

* Disadvantaged populations require enhanced protections from the disproportionate impact of extreme events.

The full report is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in community preparedness. All the presentations are available on video here.

An Associated Press article, “Parking attendants trained to watch for terrorists,” I saw last week (thanks to the informative National Terror Alert Twitter feed) highlighted a new federal homeland security program that:

aims to train thousands of parking industry employees nationwide to watch for and report anything suspicious — abandoned cars, for example, or people hanging around garages, taking photographs or asking unusual questions.

Organizers say parking attendants and enforcement officers are as important to thwarting attacks as the two Times Square street vendors who alerted police to a smoking SUV that was found to contain a gasoline-and-propane bomb.

“We can no longer afford as a nation to say, `It doesn’t impact me or my family, so therefore I’m not getting involved,’” Bill Arrington of the Transportation Security Administration told parking industry professionals at a convention this week in Las Vegas. “We’re saying, `Please, sir, get involved.’”

It makes a lot of sense for officials to educate those citizens who are more likely to see suspicious behavior. Similarly, as part of its outreach to the private sector, the New York Police Department has been training workers who spend their day on the street level, such as building doormen. In Boulder, Colorado, city employees who write parking tickets also receive special anti-terror training.

The AP article continues:

The program is part of a larger effort by the government since 9/11 to enlist ordinary people — airline passengers, subway riders, bus drivers, truckers, doormen, building superintendents — to serve as the eyes and ears of law enforcement.

But while all the “ordinary people” mentioned in the article are being enlisted “to serve as the eyes and ears of law enforcement,” not everyone is receiving training or briefings. Ordinary people who are not part of the industries covered by the authorities aren’t being included.

I would argue that with an apparently increased threat the nation is in sort of a halfway, ambivalent position when it comes to the role of the public in homeland security. Officials say they want civilians to see and say something and are an integral part of the anti-terror team. But are they giving them the information necessary to be most effective? This may be especially important now as experts are warning about the possibility of new attacks, particularly from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) such as the one Faisal Shahzad tried to set off in Times Square.

In fact, Mark Mueller, Acting Deputy Chief, Office for Bombing Prevention, National Protection and Programs Directorate at a recent Homeland Security Policy Institute forum on the increased domestic IED threat stressed the necessity of providing concrete guidance to the public, and underlined the role citizens play in providing key intelligence explaining that “quite often it is the alert clerk, it’s the off-duty police officer, it’s the neighbor” who notices key indicators that enable law enforcement and national level assets to intercede before a threat comes to fruition.

The National Terror Alert website offers a detailed list of “suspicious behavior” citizens should look for with a mnemonic, SALUTE. Former football star narrated a video for Denver’s Center for Empowered Living & Learning, “Recognizing The 8 Signs Of Terrorism.” However, that level of guidance is not normally provided to the general public. Now, an argument can be made that it’s too much information for average citizens to know (or to have learn). Further, you don’t want Americans obsessed with being tipsters, especially in areas with little terrorist threat. It’s a balance. But I don’t think government officials have found it yet.

The question is if the government is training the outer rings of the security concentric circle should it begin to put a little more emphasis on the next circle out — the rest of the “ordinary citizens”? Officials have said that a more informed public is a stronger public, but have not yet figured out how to accomplish that goal. It’s not easy, because these are sensitive topics. And there is a question of what and how much to do. I don’t think we know the right answer. It will require some study and analysis. But it is important and I think can be done quickly if authorities are willing to try.

A new report released today says that a majority of Americans have a positive impression of the U.S. government’s response to the H1N1 pandemic, but many citizens would not get a vaccine in the future either because they may believe that the illness does not pose a serious health threat or over concern about its safety.

The report, “The Public’s Response to the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic,” reviewed 20 national opinion polls, including eight by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, taken during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. It was authored by HSPH’s Gillian K. SteelFisher, and Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis. The analysis appears as an Online First Perspective in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine:

Throughout the H1N1 pandemic, more than half the U.S. population appeared to have a positive impression of the government’s response, although a sizable minority did not. For example, in the early days of the pandemic, 54% believed the response of the federal government was appropriate, whereas 39% believed the government had overreacted (CNN, May 2009). Nine months later, in January 2010, 59% believed that public health officials did an excellent or good job in their overall response to the pandemic, whereas 39% believed they did a fair or poor job (HSPH, January 2010)…

Our review of these data suggests that in the event of a future influenza pandemic, a substantial proportion of the public may not take a newly developed vaccine because they may believe that the illness does not pose a serious health threat, because they (especially parents) may be concerned about the safety of the available vaccine, or both. More work may need to be done to understand the basis of these beliefs and to address them in the case of a serious influenza outbreak.

Parental concern must be better addressed in any future pandemic vaccine rollout, according to the HSPH press release:

[Read more →]

I wanted to mention that the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The organization was launched in July of 1970 and, as its website says, is a “voice for the nonprofit organizations and volunteers that work in all phases of disaster preparedness, response, relief, recovery, and mitigation.”

FEMA head Craig Fugate just tweeted that NVOAD was saluted on the White House blog earlier this week. David Myers, Director for the Center for Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote about the group and its annual conference held last week in Orlando:

….You might be asking yourself, what is a VOAD? The first thing I can tell you is that National VOAD is a key partner of FEMA and the DHS Faith/Community Center. National VOAD is a nonprofit membership organization whose members are national nonprofit organizations whose mission includes programs in disaster preparedness, response and/or recovery. Since its founding, state and local equivalents of VOAD have emerged to foster cooperation, communication, coordination and collaboration at the state and local level–the heart of any disaster response. This conference is one of the only times during the year that these groups come together in non-disaster events…

Highlights of the conference included presentations by Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of White House Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. DuBois said, “You make wonders happen.” He described the work of disaster volunteers and staff gathered at the conference: “With the government’s partnership and your works of faith and service, people made hungry and homeless from disaster are fed and housed.”

In the wake of recent tornadoes, floods and storms, DuBois emphasized the point that federal government cannot help everyone alone. “You [volunteer] not because you have been assigned to do it. No one has conscripted anyone into service. You are there, voluntarily, because you cannot do otherwise.”

At the conference, NVOAD showed a 40th anniversary video (below) recounting its history and thanking those non-profits and volunteers for their work over the past four decades.

NVOAD’s 40th anniversary video

Earlier in the week, I did a post on a terrific new paper, “A Vision for Technology-Mediated Support for Public Participation & Assistance in Mass Emergencies & Disasters” by researchers from the University of Colorado and University of California as part of the Project EPIC initiative. The focus of the paper is the role of technology in improving public preparedness and response, but I also separately wanted to briefly mention its first footnote explaining the use of the word “citizen”:

We use ―citizens and ― members of the public interchangeably to support readability, though the latter is the most accurate term. When readability allows, we privilege ―members of the public in acknowledgement that not all people who are affected by emergencies and other disruptions are accorded national citizenship. In fact, vulnerable populations, which include non-citizens, are disproportionately affected by such situations. Tourists and visitors to foreign countries are also affected by disruptions, and usually have fewer resources for reacting to events than residents.

I have never explicitly clarified the use of “citizen” on my blog, and — as I use the word in practically every post — I probably should have posted a similar note at some point. But what I found particularly interesting about the footnote is the point that “tourists” and “visitors from foreign countries” are often particularly at the center of crises (and have less resources to deal with them). I’ve written about non-citizens living in the U.S. but had never thought about tourists though I should have, because:

1) it stares me right in the face every year when I distribute ReadyNY preparedness guides to tourists in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle on “National Night Out” for CERT, and

2) even more recently, the The Times Square bombing attempt is a perfect example of a crisis situation in which many of the people at the site were from out of town which has implications for the response/evacuation. Similar situations are likely going forward as many potential terror targets are also often places where tourists are apt to be. The fact is that many folks in the direct area of an incident do not know the environs or the usual information sources  and have not been exposed to any type of local preparedness/response messaging. That’s an important element to think about when it comes to public disaster response. And until reading the EPIC paper this week I really hadn’t.

Tourists and locals behind police barriers in Times Square after the attempting bombing there (credit: Daily News)