Should a state train its first responders to meet federally-mandated "compliance" criteria (and thereby become eligible for future funding), or to develop true/new operational capabilities?
The well educated Islamic fundamentalist knows that the Internet is just as useful as truck bombs & passenger aircraft in killing Western infidels of all ages, ideologies, & political persuasions.
Hurricane Katrina was the largest post-emergency sheltering operation in U.S. history - which implemented some common-sense guidelines that state and local governments can use to build, manage, and pay for their own emergency shelters.
Combine a shortage of trained staff with a surplus of crises, and what emerges is an accurate but not yet finished portrait of the LA Emergency Preparedness Department, which has become one of the city's most valuable organizational assets.
FEMT may be hard to pronounce, but it is becoming a key legal and organizational concept in the war against international terrorism, thanks to the forward-looking instructional approach developed and used by the State of Washington's Department of Health.
Responding to a federal mandate, the Commonwealth of Virginia created an Initiative Action Team to ensure that its local, county, and state agencies could & would use a common language in their radio communications with one another & other jurisdictions.
Interagency operations centers that provide a unified, all-purpose "home base" for Navy, Coast Guard, and other federal, state, and local port and maritime stakeholders are already operational, with more on the way.
The City of Alexandria, Virginia, took the money and ran with it when a DOJ grant was made available. The result was Community Support Group C, which specializes in a broad spectrum of homeland-security missions - and serves as a helpful example.
The University of Virginia, the City of Charlottesville, and Albemarle County join forces to develop and deploy one of the most versatile and most capable multi-jurisdiction communication systems in the country.
Rather than waiting until the unthinkable becomes the inevitable, Washington State's Health Department moved out - and moved fast - to create an outreach training program that prepares responders to cope with nuclear/radiological incidents.
