FEMA's new Comprehensive Preparedness Guide, scheduled to be released later this year, will be an instant best seller - thanks in large part to a distinguished heritage that started more than forty years ago.
Members of the armed services, policemen, and other first responders accept the fact that when duty calls they may have to put their own lives on the line. But acceptance is much more difficult when the lives of family members also are being risked.
Napoleon said that an Army travels on its stomach. Today, policemen and other first responders use more modern means of transportation - but if a police car runs out of gas it stops immediately, and the impact is felt throughout the entire community.
The development and promulgation of stringent Chemical-Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards represented a major step forward in U.S. preparedness planning. Adherence to those standards is the next step, and will be a long, steep, and costly process.
"Thermoluminescent" - that is the futuristic-sounding name, and operational characteristic, of the high-tech radiation dosimeters coming into play to prevent first responders from becoming secondary victims of radiation incidents.
State & local agencies set the pace in development of FRAC ID cards to meet HSPD-12 requirements, but incident commanders need additional assistance - and, while waiting, should be advised to keep track of the number of fire trucks at the disaster scene.
Working in close cooperation with the private sector - Thermo Fisher Scientific, to be more specific - the U.K.'s Dorset Police Department scored what Americans would call a "no hitter" at last year's Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth.
Private-sector security forces have been growing both in numbers and in capability since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Far too often, though, their working tools - detection & surveillance systems, primarily - are in urgent need of updating & modernization.
If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, its twin, eternal preparation, is the price of readiness. And of prevention. And recovery, restoration, and resilience. Relaxation, though, is not even in the vocabulary.
The once-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency displays determination as well as imagination in its innovative plans to provide temporary housing for those suddenly homeless in future times of disaster.
