Emergency Preparedness News articles from April 2005

Emergency Preparedness News archives from April 2005

So far, so good.(Slants & Trends)(Department of Homeland Security, exercises)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... SO FAR, SO GOOD, is the general assessment of Robert Chertoff's first major policy moves in his new reign as DHS Secretary. While he presides over TOPOFF 3 this week--a full-scale exercise in simulated biological and chemical terrorist attacks...

'Are we prepared?' DHS defines how first responders will answer.(Department of Homeland Security)
April 5, 2005... DHS released its Interim National Preparedness Goal on April 1 in an attempt to help responders, communities, and companies across the nation calculate what resources they need to affirmatively answer the question, "Are we prepared?" "The...

The NEARS promise: interoperable data messaging using legacy equipment.(National Emergency and Alerting Response Systems Initiative)
April 5, 2005... A national coalition of responders has set the goal of deploying an emergency data messaging system within the next year that will allow agencies to distribute incident management information to wherever it is needed in the nation, from the...

USGS Advanced Natl. Seismic System aims to aid in earthquake response.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)(United States Geological Survey)(Interview)
April 5, 2005... Earthquakes represent the single largest potential cause of casualties and damage from a natural hazard in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The agency has calculated that quakes pose a significant risk to 75 million...

Destructive potential of Midwest quake poses emergency response dilemma.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)
April 5, 2005... The U.S. Geological Survey is warning that the 4.1 magnitude earthquake that shook eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee this winter should serve as a "wake-up call" to the Midwest about the serious potential for earthquakes, the risks for...

Earth's deadliest quakes.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... The year 2004 was the deadliest for earthquakes since the Renaissance Age, according to the USGS. The death toll for earthquakes in 2004 was 276,856--275,950 of those were the result of the 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami that hit the Indian...

Government watchdogs bark a warning On TSA passenger data privacy lapses.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)(Transportation Security Administration)
April 5, 2005... With an August implementation date looming for its Secure Flight passenger screening program, TSA has a long way to go before meeting Congress' privacy requirements, according to reports from two separate government watchdog agencies. ...

Groups transcend politics in opposing 'most extreme' Patriot Act provisions.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... A classic collection of strange political bedfellows has joined forces to urge Congress to allow "the most extreme provisions of the Patriot Act" to sunset as scheduled in 2006. The new group, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances,...

Special grant program commences to fund small responder mutual aid.(EPN Special Report: Earthquakes: Preparing for the Unpredictable)
April 5, 2005... The DHS Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness has commenced the Commercial Equipment Direct Assistance Program designed to provide smaller law enforcement and emergency responder agencies with equipment that will...

U.S. Postal Inspection Service.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... U.S. POSTAL INSPECTION SERVICE has selected Prime Alert from GenPrime Inc., Spokane, Wash., to analyze suspicious substances on "white powder" calls during which the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service must determine whether a...

DHS.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... DHS has awarded an $11 million design contract to the architecture/design firm Perkins+Will Inc. for the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center at Fort Detrick, Md. The NBACC facility will include the Biological Threat...

Department of Health and Human Services.(Grants & Contracts)(Fleming & Company Pharmaceuticals)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES has awarded a $5.7 million contract to Fleming & Company Pharmaceuticals, Fenton, Mo., to manufacture 1.7 million pediatric doses of liquid potassium iodide (KI) for the Project Bioshield national...

Centers for disease control and prevention.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION have ordered $4 million in gas chromatography/mass spectrometry equipment from Agilent Technologies Inc., Palo Alto, Calif., to be distributed to state health laboratories that are part of CDC's...

TSA.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... TSA has announced plans to purchase nine Explosives Detection Trace Portal machines for $1.5 million from General Electric Ion Trak, Wilmington, Mass. TSA will deploy five new machines by the end of May to Boston's Logan International, Los...

Avian flu vaccine trial underway.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... AVIAN FLU VACCINE TRIAL UNDERWAY. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has put plans in motion for a clinical trial to investigate the safety of a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza. The H5N1 strain is responsible for...

Rural preparedness pushed.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... RURAL PREPAREDNESS PUSHED. Rural preparedness leaders say their public health system needs to be strengthened with adequate funding and human resources in order to cope with threats from bioterrorism, severe weather, and emerging diseases,...

Responders still underfunded?(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... RESPONDERS STILL UNDERFUNDED? The First Response Coalition has calculated that the $98.4 billion responder federal funding gap predicted by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2003 (EPN, July 29, 2003, p. 105) will have grown to $100.2 billion...

Revenue for 911.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... REVENUE FOR 911. All telecommunications providers that connect to 911 services--including those using Voice over Internet Protocol--should participate in funding 911 costs, according to an issue paper released by the Association of...

FEMA wildfire warning.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... FEMA WILDFIRE WARNING. Emergency managers in the Pacific Northwest are bracing for a lengthy and intense fire season, with snowpacks running 75 percent below seasonal averages and drought conditions already causing flare-ups of brush, range,...

Bioterror grants were spent; restore funding to states, Kennedy demands.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... States are spending almost all of their federal bioterrorism grants, and any delay in allocating the money is due to shortage of resources and contracting processes, the Government Accountability Office has found. Funding of the Public...

OIG faults EPA BioWatch sampling; calls for more reliable technology.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2005... The Environmental Protection Agency has not provided enough oversight of BioWatch sampling operations to assure the quality of samples taken, according to EPA's Office of Inspector General. BioWatch is the DHS-supervised early warning system...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 5, 2005... April 20: Transforming Maritime and Environmental Security, Norfolk, Va. The Conference aims to expand transatlantic cooperation among scientific, industrial, defense, and policy institutions. Contact: Anders Skandsen, Royal Norwegian Embassy,...

Taking a seat at the table.(Slants & Trends)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... TAKING A SEAT AT THE TABLE. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff signaled last week that he intends to place his department firmly in Washington's intelligence loop. Some have characterized DHS in the past as playing second fiddle to the power...

Top-down grant reform.(Slants & Trends)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... TOP-DOWN GRANT REFORM appears to be on the way from DHS to the fire house on the corner, according to a Capitol Hill source working on a bill to award funding based on risk and clamp down on spending accountability (see story, this page). He...

Senate, House bills set risk-based responder funding, accountability.
April 19, 2005... The responder community took a public lashing last week as the DHS Office of the Inspector General reported a buildup of billions of unspent disaster dollars, and both CBS's "60 Minutes" and the Washington Post examined whether the apparent...

President Bush signs law making FEMA mitigation grants tax free.(Federal Emergency Management Agency )(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Rushing across the finish line just ahead of the IRS, Congress passed and President George Bush signed into law H.R. 1134 to exclude FEMA disaster mitigation payments from taxation. The IRS ruled in 2004 that under the tax code in place,...

House panel adds $134 million to FY06 deepwater funding.(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... The House Coast Guard and Marine Transportation Subcommittee has passed a bill (H.R. 889) adding $134 million to the Bush Administration's budget request for the Integrated Deepwater Systems program to upgrade the Guard's deteriorating fleets...

TOPOFF 3 generates 'good feelings' at DHS about responder coordination.(Department of Homeland Security)
April 19, 2005... With a formal assessment of lessons learned still four to six months away, DHS officials said they "have very good feelings" about responder coordination during the largest terrorism response exercise ever conducted in the United States. ...

NIMS, NRP road show.
April 19, 2005... DHS has released the first three dates in a series of "roll-out conferences" designed to answer emergency managers' and responders' questions about the National Incident Management System, the National Response Plan and how it all relates to...

DRI calls for small firm participation in next TOPOFF preparedness drill.(Disaster Recovery Institute)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... TOPOFF 3 would have been a good opportunity for more private industries--particularly small businesses--to run their preparedness plans in coordination with responders, according to an executive from the Disaster Recovery Institute...

Nebraska opens ground-breaking unit to treat, contain infectious diseases.
April 19, 2005... Nebraska's public, private, and academic sectors have joined forces to unveil what the state's Health and Human Services System touted as the largest biocontainment unit in the country. HHSS built the unit--which is specifically designed to...

CBP issues one data rule for all commercial carriers.(EPN News Roundup)(Customs and Border Protection)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... U.S. Customs and Border Protection has consolidated the Advanced Passenger Information System reporting requirments for all commecial air and sea carriers. The CBP rule covers all DHS agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard and TSA, and...

DHS working groups tackle coordinating maritime security.(EPN News Roundup)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Working groups within DHS have embarked on fulfilling a Presidential Directive to coordinate all U.S. maritime security initiatives into a cohesive national strategy. DHS is calling on all stakeholders in maritime security to comment on needed...

NIST details 9/11 structural collapse of World Trade Center towers.(EPN News Roundup)(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Declaring it "the most detailed examination of a building failure ever conducted," the National Institute of Standards and Technology presented its analysis of how the World Trade Center towers collapsed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. ...

Grand jury indicts British nationals for plotting against financial targets.(EPN News Roundup)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Three British nationals whose surveillance activities caused DHS to raise the Homeland Security Advisory level last year in the New York/New Jersey and Washington, D.C., areas have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan on charges...

Scientists call for independent review of nuclear reactor spent fuel security.(EPN News Roundup)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... A panel of scientists has recommended that an independent organization conduct a risk assessment of the vulnerability to terrorist attack of spent fuel stored in pools at the nation's 103 operating commercial nuclear reactors. Congress...

Securing automated systems is goal of DHS-funded public/private forum.(EPN News Roundup)(Department of Homeland Security)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Securing the computerized systems that control much of the nation's critical infrastructure is the goal behind a DHS-funded collaboration between government and the private sector called the Process Control Systems Forum. Many power and...

DHS.(Grants & Contracts)(United States. Department of Homeland Security)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... DHS has awarded $135.2 million under its Transit Security Grant Program for the prevention and detection of explosive devices and biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological agents. Rail transit systems received $107.9 million of the total,...

The community action partnership.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... THE COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP is awarding seven grants of $10,000 each to Community Action Agencies to help low-income communities prepare for and respond to security threats and other emergencies. CAAs must submit an application and be able...

American Airlines.(Grants & Contracts)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... AMERICAN AIRLINES has awarded FKI Logistex, Louisville, Ky., a $14.5 million contract to integrate an inline 100 percent hold baggage screening system at American's hub in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The contract involves...

Midwest tornadoes.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... MIDWEST TORNADOES. A group of scientists out to develop better prediction techniques have discovered that tornadoes regularly form in the greater Midwest well outside "Tornado Alley"--the southern plains of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The...

Passports required.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... PASSPORTS REQUIRED. By Jan. 1, 2008, U.S. citizens as well as those of Canada, Bermuda, and Mexico will have to show a passport or other secure document to enter or reenter the United States, according to the Western Hemisphere Travel...

Bird flu quarantine.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... BIRD FLU QUARANTINE. President George Bush has signed an executive order authorizing the federal government to impose a quarantine in response to an outbreak due to "influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or...

Beef ban lifted.(Briefly Noted)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... BEEF BAN LIFTED. Taiwan lifted its ban effective April 16 on U.S. boneless beef from animals under 30 months of age, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Taiwan's market is now open to 90 percent of total U.S. ruminants and ruminant...

Port security.(Briefly Noted)
April 19, 2005... PORT SECURITY. The United Arab Emirates port of Dubai has become the 35th Container Security Initiative port, making UAE the first Middle Eastern country to join CSI (EPN, Jan. 25, p. 15). Contact: U.S. Customs and Border Control Office of...

Hazardous materials: managing the incident.(Responder Resources)
April 19, 2005... Hazardous Materials: Managing the Incident is an eight-title video or DVD series illustrating The 8 Step Process, a tactical incident management approach designed to assist emergency professionals in responding to hazmat and terrorist...

The Grey House transportation security directory and handbook.(Responder Resources)
April 19, 2005... The Grey House Transportation Security Directory and Handbook (ISBN 1-59237-075-6) includes 483 pages of regulations, legislation, security plans, consultants, manufacturers, trade shows, and publications in five transportation sectors:...

Forecasting terrorism: indicators and proven analytic techniques.(Responder Resources)(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 19, 2005... Forecasting Terrorism: Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques (ISBN 0-8108-5017-6) by Sundri Khalsa, is a "how-to" book on forecasting terrorist incidents that presents a step-by-step methodology for tracking terrorists through a series of...

Risk analysis IV.(Responder Resources)(book)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 19, 2005... Risk Analysis IV (ISBN 1-85312-736-1) includes more than 70 papers from the Fourth International Conference on Computer Risk Analysis and Hazard Mitigation. Topics include earthquakes, landslides, floods and droughts, manmade risk, and data...

Key considerations in disaster planning & management for independent agencies & brokerage firms.(Responder Resources)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... Key Considerations in Disaster Planning & Management For Independent Agencies & Brokerage Firms is the report that resulted when a work group of independent insurance agents who were affected by the active 2004 hurricane season met to improve...

Blastgard aims to literally set standard for truly bomb-proof trash containers.
April 19, 2005... James Gordon had a moment of revelation last year as the chairman and CEO of Blastgard International, a blast mitigation firm based in Clearwater, Fla., read a newspaper article while in New York City's Penn Station claiming that its trash...

'Critical deficiencies'.(explosives law reforms)(Brief Article)
April 19, 2005... 'CRITICAL DEFICIENCIES' exist in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' oversight of licensing employees to handle explosives on the job, according to the Justice Department Office of Inspector General. ATF said that the...