EAST COAST QUAKE: Virginia Quake Highlights Overlooked Danger: Decrepit Dams

Published 25 August 2011

Tuesday's Virginia earthquake raised fears that a Fukushima scenario would unfold somewhere on the East Coast, but experts say that earthquake pose a much greater threat: breaching decrepit dams; of the 85,000 dams in the United States, 4,000 are seriously unsafe or deficient -- and of those, 1,800 are located in areas where a breach would cause grave damage to life and property

Concerns about dam failures come to the fore // Source: qwiki.com

Tuesday’s Virginia-centered earthquake, which shook the East Coast of the United States, caused a nuclear power plant in Virginia to be immediately taken off line, and for its cooling system to be powered by back-up generators.

Many may have feared the tremor may bring about a Fukushima-like disaster, but Scientific Americannotes that Americans should be more worried about a quieter danger: tens of thousands of dams, many built before seismic engineering came of age, have the potential to release tsunami-like flash floods in the event of a seismic breach.  Read more

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY: Not Just for Private Sector Any More

Tue, 2011-07-26 02:32 PM (www.gsnmagazine.com)

Mark Fabro (left) and Anthony Di Bello

By Mark Fabro and Anthony Di Bello 

In the last several years, critical infrastructure protection has moved to the forefront of almost every asset owner’s agenda, be they in the public or private sector.

Perhaps more importantly, cyber security and its relevance to the protection of national critical assets are gaining considerable attention from Congress, the White House and the U.S. Defense Department.

Even though much of the U.S. critical infrastructure is owned by private industry, many high-value critical facilities are actually operated by government agencies. Critical infrastructure systems, regardless of who owns them, often share a tremendous amount of interdependency and interoperability, and from these interdependencies come previously unseen attack vectors.  Read more

CYBER > North Koreans testing cyber weapons on South Korea?

Wed, 2011-07-06 03:04 PM

By: John P. Mello, Jr.

Cyberwar: Not your typical DDoS attack

A series of cyber attacks on South Korean government and U.S. military Websites last March could have been North Korea testing its weaponry for a future cyber war, a major cyber security firm reported on July 5.

While acknowledging the tools used in the attacks -- distributed denial of service, malware that uses encryption and a multi-tier botnet architecture -- aren't new, their combination in the forays conducted in March are innovative. "[T]he combination of technical sophistication juxtaposed with relatively limited execution and myopic outcome is analogous to bringing a Lamborghini to a go-cart race," the report by McAfee noted.

"As such," it continued, "the motivations appear to outweigh the attack, making this truly seem like an exercise to test and observe response capabilities."

McAfee explained that the denial of service (DDoS) attacks against South Korean targets originated from computers infected with malware within that nation. Not only did the malware feed the DDoS assaults, which disrupted the service offerings of their targets, but it created a botnet controlled by a botmaster. That's not an unusual MO for botware, but these sorties had some distinctive characteristics.  Read more

FREE > Isolation & Quarantine Response Planning Toolkit

In the absence of rapid and definitive diagnostic tests, vaccines, or cures, isolation and quarantine remains Public Health's best strategy against the spread of mass illness. Public Health - Seattle & King County (Public Health) is an Advanced Practice Center for Emergency Preparedness and established this Planning for Isolation & Quarantine Response Web Toolkit to support local Public Health jurisdictions in their efforts to plan for and manage a large-scale isolation and quarantine response. The Toolkit is designed for all types of users and is separated by topic for the ease of use and navigation.

FREE TRAINING > Anhydrous Ammonia Training

This is the best training I have ever seen on anhydrous ammonia.  Please pass along to all your emergency responder buddies and who ever else might benefit from this great training!  

Photo courtesy of:  http://transcaer.com

Below is the list of contents.  Go to course page

1. Introduction
2. How To Use This Training Package
3. Student Handbook
4. Properties
5. Transports
6. Railcars
7. Emergency Response
8. Additional Materials
9. Sponsors & Partners
10. Conclusion

NUCLEAR > Nuclear Safety Journal Launched

Published 7 July 2011

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: for the third time in twenty-five years a nuclear power plant suffered a serious accident, precipitating a global review of the way to govern nuclear safety and security; a publisher of scientific journal is launching a new journal -- International Journal of Nuclear Safety and Security (IJNSS) -- which will offer a forum for the serious discussion of nuclear power plants' safety

pThree Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: for the third time in twenty-five years a nuclear power plant suffered a serious accident, precipitating a global review of the way to govern nuclear safety and security.

The 11 March Fukushima accident was especially poignant because it came during — and may well put an end to — what was correctly termed a Nuclear Renaissance: as worries about climate change and the volatility of oil prices grew, interest in nuclear power generation was rekindled.

InderScience Publishers is launching a new journal — teInternational Journal of Nuclear Safety and Security (IJNSS) — which aims to address the growing interest in, and concern about, nuclear safety.

The publisher says that the international community must learn from these accidents in order to improve international co-operation, both in terms of crisis management and prevention of risks. IJNSS will provide an opportunity to exchange information on the implications of safe and secure operation of nuclear power plants and approaches taken by countries worldwide.   Full article

Among the topics which will be covered by the new journal:

• Strategic, managerial, organizational issues; total quality management (TQM) and environmental management
• Macroeconomics, nuclear economics and business
• Technological advances, issues, innovation, hazards; role of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
• Analysis/assessment methodologies, performance measurement
• Governance, policy strategy, assessment, review
• National/international environmental protection policy; ecosystem research
• Ecological/environmental impacts; risk assessment/legal aspects of pollution
• Waste disposal strategies; clean technologies
• Energy security and risk assessment; policy, standards and regulations
• Critical infrastructures design, protection, management
• Risk assessment, control, characterization, perception, communications, models
• Integrated risk assessment and safety management
• Nuclear systems management, transport, resource development, power quality
• Public policy, regulations, governance and nuclear use; public attitudes
• Knowledge based policies and education; knowledge transfer

Security > Border Patrol uses wireless cameras originally intended to photograph wildlife

Thu, 2011-06-23 03:35 PM

By: Jacob Goodwin

Tree-mounted BuckEye Cam

The Spokane, WA, sector of the U.S. Border Patrol plans to purchase about 70 long-range wireless camera systems that were originally designed to photograph deer and other animals in the wild, but are now being used in a variety of security applications and as part of the war on terror.

The cameras will be supplied byAthens Technical Specialists, Inc., of Athens, OH, which markets individual cameras – as well as an integrated collection of as many as 30 cameras known as the BuckEye Cam CellBase – under the nameBuckEye Cam.

Joplin, MO Tornado > Two MO National Guard units assisting in Joplin

[Missouri does not have a State Defense Force; I wonder if the CERT teams have helped out any...stay tuned...-SDFBlogger]
Two MO National Guard units assisting in Joplin

Tue, 2011-05-24 10:07 AM

By: Mark Rockwell

249th Engineer in Joplin

About 140 Missouri National Guard troops are helping local authorities in Joplin, MO, in a number of missions following the killer tornado that hit the city on May 22, according to the Department of Defense and the Missouri National Guard.

The Missouri National Guard soldiers are helping with search and rescue missions at the direction of local authorities, according to a statement by the Missouri National Guard on May 23. They are expected to conduct a number of missions in the upcoming days, including emergency route clearance, communications support, door-to-door safety visits and security, according to the DoD’s Armed Forces Press Service.

Among those responding are soldiers of the 117th Engineer Team, of Monett, and 294th Engineer Company, of Carthage and Anderson, MO. Additionally, a Joint Task Force Communications Kit out of Jefferson City, MO is en route to assist local authorities, according to the DoD.  Full article

Hazmat trucks stopped in downtown Dallas

Tankers carrying hazardous materials // Source: ehow.com

City of Dallas police are enforcing city laws prohibiting truckers from hauling hazardous materials through downtown Dallas; last week the police stopped twenty-seven trucks in downtown Dallas, carrying, among other things, cyanide, gasoline, and dynamite   Read more

Critical Infrastructure Protection > A Guide for Homeland Security Instructors Preparing Physical CIP Courses

If you are in to Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), you need to read this article. It is a very long read, but well worth it.  Give's a great indepth description of CIP and where it's headed.

The eighteen Critical Infrastructure and Key Resource (CIKR) sectors are defined as:

Agriculture and Food	Water	Nuclear Reactors
Defense Industrial Base	Chemical	Information Technology
Energy	Commercial Facilities	Communications
Healthcare and Public Health	Critical Manufacturing	Postal & Shipping
National Monuments & Icons	Dams	Transportation Systems
Banking and Finance	Emergency Services	Government Facilities

The events of September 11, 2001 brought about a rapid expansion of critical infrastructure protection efforts. The first National Strategy for Homeland Security was published in 2002 and was followed by the National Strategy for the Physical Protection of Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, which replaced PDD63, in 2003. These documents expanded critical infrastructure to thirteen sectors and added five key resources and led to the publication of the first National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) in 2006, with the second edition following in 2009. Currently, the NIPP defines Critical Infrastructure as:³

Systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital that the incapacity or destruction of such may have a debilitating impact on the security, economy, public health or safety, environment, or any combination of these matters, across any Federal, State, regional, territorial, or local jurisdiction.

LEVEL OF HAZARD - LEVEL OF PROTECTION

Table 1. Recommended Resources on the Whole Building Design Guide

General Category	Specific Topics
Terrorist Threats	Blast Safety of the Building Envelope
	Designing Buildings to Resist Explosive Threats
	Retrofitting Existing Buildings to Resist Explosive Threats
	Landscape Architecture and the Site Security Design Process
	The Site Security Design Process
	Windows and Glazing
Earth Effects& Natural Disasters	Flood Resistance of the Building Envelope
	Seismic Design Principles
	Seismic Safety of the Building Envelope
	Wind Safety of the Building Envelope
Planning	Balancing Security/Safety and Sustainability Objectives
	Cost Impact of the ISC Security Design Criteria
	Threat/Vulnerability Assessments and Risk Analysis
	UFC/ISC Security Design Criteria Overview and Comparison