Guest Post: By Preston Le Roy Schleinkofer Introduction to Civil Defense and Civil Defense Virginia Ever since the demise of the U.S. Civil Defense Administration in the 1990’s, the community has been largely excluded from the process of emergency management. But since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the increasingly serious threats to…
All Roads Lead to Civil Defense: Survival is a local Issue. Civil defense is the organizing and training of civilians to play key roles in a community’s survival. Another term for this, coined by Civil Defense Virginia, is “continuity of community.” The concept is simple: A community’s citizens, in partnership with their emergency management and…
“While each year the hurricane season comes to an end on November 30, the lessons from the response and recovery operations that we are performing this year, under incredibly difficult circumstances, will transform the field of emergency management forever.” – FEMA Administrator Brock Long, November 30, 2017. Building a culture of emergency preparedness is now…
Building a culture of preparedness in America President Trump released his National Security Strategy on December 18, 2017. On page 14 is a section entitled: “Promote American Resilience” (see below) which broadly addresses disaster response and resilience. We have already heard FEMA Director Brock Long discuss the need to build a true culture of preparedness…
“We have to do more pre-disaster mitigation. Pre-disaster mitigation is the key to becoming more resilient and reducing disaster impact.” – FEMA Administrator Brock Long FEMA says pre-disaster mitigation has to be a whole community effort In last week’s blog post, I discussed Brock Long’s comments to the House Appropriations Committee on November 30,…
FEMA Administrator Brock Long has it right FEMA Administrator Brock Long testified before the House Appropriations Committee on November 30, 2017 and what he said was a game changer. Here are some key points he made: “While each year the hurricane season comes to an end on November 30, the lessons from the response and recovery…
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate discusses “the 7 Deadly Sins of Emergency Management” in Stockholm, Sweden on November 28, 2017. This really hits home. To see more on emergency management click here.
We have always had hurricanes. We always will. In one very important way, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Maria were both best case scenarios. Prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans in 2005, we knew that the levy system was only built to handle a category 3 hurricane. And prior to Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico,…
Steven Bucci: Disaster Preparedness and Response One Year After Hurricane Sandy. NOTE: One reason this video interests me is that we don’t appear to apply lessons learned from past disasters. If we are this unprepared for regional disasters. we are most certainly unprepared for a national catastrophe, such as a long term loss of the electric grid. Recorded Friday…
Michael Mabee Says Government Not Prepared For Any Downed-Grid Scenarios September 13, 2013 Off The Grid News, Written by: Tara Dodrill Read it here: http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/09/13/michael-mabee-says-government-not-prepared-for-any-downed-grid-scenarios/
