Sometime this fall, the results of the TOPOFF 3 exercise will be made public. Authorities expect the after-action report to reveal—provided it isn’t sugarcoated—that, had this been an actual bioterror attack, the emergency healthcare infrastructure where the fictitious attacks took place would have collapsed under the weight of the sudden onslaught of so many sick and dying.
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The introduction of the National Incident Management System has created new challenges—and tensions—among local first responders.
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Scientists are weaving new technology into an old item of apparel, giving it a dazzling array of possibilities that could save lives in the future.
Imagine a shirt that monitors your body’s vital signsin combat conditions, detects bullet wounds and can sense the presence of chemical weapons to automatically seal, clean and decontaminate itself.
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Scientists are looking to a lowly mollusk to learn the secrets that will make the next generation of body armor.
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A look ahead at the largest and most advanced homeland security exercise to date.
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As a panicked government desperately tried to identify the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, holocaust and to learn whether additional attacks were on the way, the nation was rattled by the unnerving possibility that it also was under bioterror attack. Within weeks of the Sept. 11 attack, letters containing anthrax spores—some highly refined to make them “aerosolized”—began arriving at the offices of news media personnel and US senators.
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From lanterns to lasers, emergency response and warning has been critical to homeland security—and is getting new capabilities.
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A resource for natural disaster victims
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The presidential election is upon us, budget negotiations for the next fiscal year are underway and the last round of homeland security grants has been dispersed and, in many cases, spent. ‘Tis the season for budget prognostication FY 2005. Based on past and current trends, budget requests and a potential political power shift, where do we go from here?
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A tanker overturns on the Interstate outside a rural township; drums containing flammable chemicals are punctured in a factory; a fire at a local chemical plant requires the evacuation of nearby residents. Similar events may havehappened in your community. It’s also likely that most members of your community were unaffected or even unaware of these incidents. This is due to the planning, prevention and mitigation efforts of Local Emergency Planning Committees and the first responders who implement their policies. Since 1992, these groups have been aided through the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grant program, which awards funds to states, territories and tribal governments to support key training and planning activities.
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Everyone knows that federal money is slow in coming but no one was sure exactly where the bottleneck lay. A pair of official studies looked at the problem—and revealed some surprising answers.
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Applications for the 2004 State Homeland Security grants, administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), were due to DHS by November 30, 2003. As most first responders probably know by now, the states are required to pass through 80 percent of these funds to the local level. What you may not know is what exactly “pass-through” means, and what the implications are of your state’s pass-through approach on your ability to seek and obtain funds from the program.
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Potential grant applicants need to be aware that in fiscal 2005 all state and local preparedness grant funding will be administered by the Office of State and Local Government Coordination (OSLGC) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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Cleanup crews Monday continued battling a spreading 600-mile-wide oil spill that continues to gush from the Deepwater Horizon, the oil drilling rig that exploded and sank to the seafloor last week.
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An intense fire season has burned more than 1.5 million acres in two states, and for people in small communities such as this one, the ordeal is far from over. Click here for full story Keep Reading
A meteor streaked over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday morning, producing a blast that injured hundreds, caused minor damage to buildings and temporarily disrupted Internet communication, officials said. Read complete story here. Keep Reading
NEW YORK (AP) — The killing of six worshippers at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee brought fresh worries Sunday to the half million U.S. followers of a faith whose congregants have worried about their safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when some began targeting adherents of a peaceful religion that stresses the equality… Keep Reading
AT&T is committed to keep its customers connected during the upcoming hurricane season – before, during and after storms – and has one of the industry’s largest and most advanced business continuity and disaster response programs to make sure its networks stay up and running. No one knows when the next tropical storm or hurricane… Keep Reading