Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate has kicked off the tenth annual National Preparedness Month (NPM), joining local New York City Emergency Management officials, and members of the New York City Citizen Corps Council, at the Children's Museum on Staten Island to talk about the importance of family and community emergency preparedness.
The Attunda Fire & Rescue Service has chosen RescueSim for its incident management and emergency response training. RescueSim was developed by VSTEP and is a new generation of virtual training tools for emergency responders and fire-and-rescue services.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that it will expand its TSACheck program to 60 new airports in addition to the existing 40. TSACheck is an expedited screening program that allows pre-approved airline travelers, in select screening lanes, to keep on: (a) their shoes, light outerwear, and belts; (b) their laptops (in cases); and (c) their 3-1-1 compliant liquid/gel bags (in carry-ons).
Salamander has announced the addition of two exciting mobile applications for smartphones and tablets - the 01 TAG app and the 02 TRACK app - to its existing line of Intelligent Accountability (IA) products. Both of the new products are available on Apple and Android systems.
The resounding success of the American Red Cross's First Aid and Disaster apps has created a continuing demand for these simple lifesaving tools in Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world. To help meet this need, the Global Disaster Preparedness Center launched, in May, a new Universal First Aid App Pilot, which will give 17 Red Cross partners the access they need to app development tools. The Pilot app allows these partners to localize all of the content available - from language to images - and adapt it to best fit the context of the individual countries involved.
Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, is expanding its use of the RealView, LLC's CommandScope Pre-Plan technology to cover the 61-acre medical campus in nearby Maywood. This expansion underscores the school's commitment to creating a safe environment by providing critical campus and building information to first responders for use in times of emergency.
"COPsync911 arms educators with technology, not guns," said Ronald A. Woessner, COPsync chief executive officer. "The service uses global positioning system (GPS) technology to instantaneously locate and silently send a distress alert from the school to the nearest patrol vehicles and agencies on the COPsync Network."
As part of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) ongoing efforts to support state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has announced final allocations for seven FY 2013 DHS preparedness grant programs, including the Homeland Security Grant Program. These allocations, which total more than $1.5 billion, will be used to assist states, urban areas, tribal and territorial governments, non-profit agencies, and the private sector.
Developed using open standards, INTEROP-7000 enables police, fire, and rescue professionals to use commercial smartphones and tablets integrated with existing communications equipment, such as land mobile radios. Raytheon's INTEROP-7000 also positions public safety to become part of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).
"The ability for laboratories to use one device to identify almost 200 different microorganisms is a significant advance in the timely identification of pathogenic microorganisms," said Alberto Gutierrez, Ph.D., director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health at FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "Rapid identification of harmful microorganisms can improve the care of critically ill patients."
