Will We Take the Lessons of The Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami to Heart
When I view photos and video of devastated coastal communities in Japan due to the tsunami back in March of 2011 and then read an article of a coastal community [...]
Mission Ready Packaging for EMAC Use- Tsunami Debris Field – Are You With Me?
I have been a proponent of development of an Incident Action Plan that would be agreed upon to be implemented by all parties (local, county, state, Native American, Inuit, Japan [...]
Verticle Evacuation – Best Uses?
As an Incident Commander I would call vertical evacuation a strategy if my objective was determined to be "provide for the immediate safety of coastal residents after a strong offshore [...]
12 Ways To Make a Better Emergency in 2012
Over the next twelve months, I will look at 12 predictable events and their inherent problems and offer potential solutions. We tend to have a habit of acting surprised when [...]
New Disaster Mitigation Game
This game can give Emergency Managers and Planners new tools to help educate with.
What is the Responsible Thing to Do When You Know Disaster Looms?
Some disasters are slow evolving such as hurricanes which are tracked well before landfall. Others happen with devastating suddenness such as the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan earlier this [...]
Unpreparedness for hospitals now has a clear cost which may change the perceived value of hospital Emergency Management programs.
This settlement sends a message and sets a clear precedent on how future performance of hospitals during disasters will be judged. In conducting the cost benefit assessment of disaster preparedness, [...]
Earthquake Threat to Nuclear Reactors Far Higher Than Realized
Working on New Madrid project, I read DOE reports which indicated no problems for nuclear plants in the shake zone. Scientific reports were one thing and I tend to follow [...]
Wake-Up to the Earthquake Risk: Will The 5.8 event that rattled DC really result in preparedness?
Having worked at the federal level and state level on planning efforts for a New Madrid earthquake, and following on the heels of NLE-11, I was fascinated to read the [...]
Social Media in ICS
The attached schematic illustrates how an Incident Commander could establish a Social Media Section to collect early unfolding data from an incident for use in their response operations. Overtime this [...]