SEARCH and RESCUE TECHNOLOGY: Saving Victims Trapped Under Concrete

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/cirt/

New tool allow first responders to reach those trapped beneath concrete more quickly; the tool generates a high-energy jolt to create a contained hole in the concrete; a series of these holes allows the creation of an area large enough to deliver vital supplies such as food, water, and medicine to victims before first responders are able to get victims to safety.


When the twin towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, one of the challenges that first responders faced was cutting through concrete to get to victims trapped under debris — a common problem when tragedy strikes.

Breaching reinforced concrete has long been a race against time when relying on drills, saws, and jackhammers – a race which those trapped under slabs of concrete, and those who were trying to rescue them, often lost.

DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has developed a new tool to help fire departments and search-and-rescue teams better deal with such challenges in the wake of natural and man-made disasters.

In 2007 S&T led the development of the Controlled Impact Rescue Tool (CIRT), designed to cut through concrete with speed and precision. The CIRT uses blank ammunition cartridges to drive a piston that generates a high-energy jolt to create a contained hole in the concrete. A series of these holes allows the creation of an area large enough to deliver vital supplies such as food, water, and medicine to victims before first responders are able to get victims to safety.  Read more.

Tip of the Day: CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response Website

Hurricanes
Plus Cyclones, Typhoons, & Other Tropical Storms

 Hurricane Health and Safety Tip   8AUG2011 Be Prepared During a Power Outage  In case of power outage, keep an appliance thermometer in the refrigerator and frezzer to help determine the safety of food.Prepare for the Storm

• Get Supplies
  You should stock your home with supplies that may be needed during the emergency period.
• Make a Plan
  There are many steps you can take in advance to increase your safety during a storm.
  

ICE > Readies Disaster Response Teams for Hurricane Season

Wed, 2011-07-13 07:20 AM

By: Mark Rockwell

RRT deploys

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is readying response teams that would provide support to ICE and DHS facilities if hurricanes strike this summer and fall.

ICE’s Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) deploy during natural and manmade disasters, emergency situations when other federal, local or state agencies request ICE assistance.

Teams have already been deployed this summer in the Midwestern U.S. to help with recovery from flooding along the Missouri River, according to ICE. Teams from Denver, Boston, and Newark, NJ, and Boston were recently deployed to Dakota Dunes, SD to assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with law enforcement support. The team members are scheduled to provide assistance through mid-August 2011, said the agency.  Read more

SOCIAL MEDIA ROLE IN DISASTERS > JAPAN Spread of information via Twitter, post Great Eastern Japan Earthquake 11MAR2011

[This should answer the question 'To Tweet or not to Tweet during a disaster...", an obvious profound answer displayed in video...Happy Tweeting!] 

This video displays worldwide retweets of Tweets originating in Japan for one hour after the earthquake. Senders’ original Tweets are shown in red; Tweets retweeted by their followers in the hour after the event are displayed in green.

credit: @miguelrios

SOCIAL MEDIA USE DURING DISASTERS > JAPAN Personal messages (tweets) from Japan on 11MAR2011 post Great Eastern Japan Earthquake

[To Tweet or not to Tweet....]



On Twitter, we saw a 500% increase in Tweets from Japan as people reached out to friends, family and loved ones in the moments after the March 2011 earthquake. This video shows the volume of @replies traveling into and out of Japan in a one-hour period just before and then after the earthquake. Replies directed to users in Japan are shown in pink; messages directed at others from Japan are shown in yellow.

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.

Military > Pilots risk their lives in daring medical evacuation

Photo by U.S. Army 1st Lt. Alexander Babcock, 4th CAB Public Affairs

[Great article about a risky troop extraction for a medical emergency in Afghanistan on 17FEB2011, that earned two pilots the Distinguished Flying Cross.]

CAMP MARMAL, Afghanistan – Two U.S. Army helicopter pilots earned the rare Distinguished Flying Cross award June 16 for a daring evacuation of two wounded ground troops during the raid of an insurgent compound in February. Full article

FREE Course > Surviving Field Stress for First Responders

[For those of you that do not want to take the course, I have attached the 60 page  > handbook  that is of the same title.  A must have for anyone who is a first responder...]

First responders to a traumatic event are tasked with applying their expertise under incredibly stressful conditions. This webcast deals with the physical, emotional, and mental stressors first responders face when called to a technological disaster. It gives practical coping strategies and resources for dealing with stress.

Goal   To help the responder or those they assist be prepared for the stressors of twenty-first century disasters.

Objectives   Upon successful completion of the program, participants will be able to: Describe psychological stress. Explain common causes of stress. Describe the mental and physical health effects of excessive stress. Describe the social, physical, and emotional causes of first responders stress. Identify methods to cope with field related stress. Identify strategies for assisting members of the public adults and children, with their disaster-related stress in your role as first responder.

Target Audience   Health-care providers, federal, state, and local public health and emergency management officials.

image coutesy of: diseasepicture.com

Anthrax Attack Threat Persists, DHS Says

Wednesday, May 18, 2011The U.S. government must remain poised to deal with another attack involving anthrax, a senior Homeland Security Department official warned last week (seeGSN, May 9).The U.S. government must remain poised to deal with another attack involving anthrax, a senior Homeland Security Department official warned last week (seeGSN, May 9).The U.S. government must remain poised to deal with another attack involving anthrax, a senior Homeland Security Department official warned last week (seeGSN, May 9).

"The threat of an attack using a biological agent is real and requires that we remain vigilant. A wide-area attack using aerosolized Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax, is one of the most serious mass casualty biological threats facing the U.S.," DHS chief medical officer Alexander Garza said during a May 12 hearing of the House Homeland Security emergency preparedness subcommittee.

Five people died and more were made sick by the 2001 anthrax mailings. The FBI years later identified Army scientist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, but the microbiologist committed suicide before charges were filed (see GSN, April 21).

"An anthrax attack could potentially encompass hundreds of square miles, expose hundreds of thousands of people, and cause illness, death, fear, societal disruption and economic damage," Garza said. "If untreated, the disease is nearly 100 percent fatal, which means that those exposed must receive life-saving [medical countermeasures] as soon as possible."  Full article

DISASTER OFFICIALS > Use Disaster Assistance Grants Wisely

WORDS OF ADVICE FROM DISASTER OFFICIALS: USE DISASTER ASSISTANCE GRANTS WISELY

courtesy runningtree.net

ATLANTA — Disaster survivors who receive state and federal assistance payments are advised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): Be cautious, use funds wisely and only for their intended purpose. Misuse could result in loss of funds.  Full article

Historic, desperate measures to control Mississippi River

Opening the Bonnet Carre Spillway // Source: nola.com

The historic levels of water swelling the Mississippi River required the Army Corps of Engineers to take historic measures to prevent catastrophic flooding of Baton Rough and News Orleans: first, the Morganza control structure, located 186 miles upriver of New Orleans and completed in 1954 as part of the Army Corps of Engineers' broad flood-protection upgrades in the wake of the Great Flood of 1927, was opened for only the second time to allow water to flow out of the river and into the Atchafalaya basin, a designated flood relief area; the Corps says that Saturday marked the first time in history that all three floodways built by corps after 1927 flood -- the Morganza Floodway, the Bonnet Carre Spillway, and the Birds Point floodway in Missouri -- have been in operation at the same time; about 25,000 people and 11,000 structures are in harm's way, as up to 25 feet of flooding is expected in a 3,000 square-mile area of Louisiana  For full article  (2 minute read)

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

Disasters > Swollen Mississippi River to be closed for traffic as of Monday

Swollen Mississippi River to be closed for traffic as of Monday

Landsat comparison images of Mississippi flooding:
Source: esri.com

Swollen by weeks of heavy rain and snowmelt, the Mississippi River has been breaking high-water records that have stood since the 1920s and 1930s; it is projected to crest at Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 19 May and break the mark set there during the historic Great Flood of 1927; the crest is expected to reach New Orleans on 23 May; officials with the Port of New Orleans said the Coast Guard may close the river to ships as early as Monday, halting traffic on one of the world's busiest commercial waterways; barges headed south from the U.S. heartland to the Port of South Louisiana at Reserve, upriver from New Orleans, would be unable to reach grain elevators; massive ships that carry U.S. corn, soybeans, and other crops out of the country would be unable to move  Read more

First Bin Laden Revenge Strike Hits Pakistan; 80 Dead

The first terrorist revenge attack for the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was claimed on Friday after two individuals detonated suicide bomb vests at a paramilitary training facility in Pakistan. The strike resulted in 80 deaths, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, May 12).

(May. 13) - Security officials examine wrecked vehicles outside a training center for Pakistan's Frontier Constabulary, where two people detonated suicide bomb vests on Friday. The Pakistani Taliban said the attack was carried out in retaliation to the U.S. raid last week that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (A. Majeed/Getty Images).

The attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban was intended to "avenge the Abbottabad incident," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said, referring to the May 1 U.S. commando raid that resulted in bin Laden's death at a compound in the town of Abbottabad.

The two suicide attackers detonated their explosives at the primary entrance to a military training center for the Frontier Constabulary, which has been financially supported by the United States and has sent troops to fight al-Qaeda and other extremists near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Police officer Liaqat Ali Khan said 66 of those killed were recruits.

Ehsan said the Friday attack in Shabqadar would be followed by strikes targeting U.S. citizens residing in Pakistan.

An explosion at a parking lot in northwest Pakistan also caused the destruction of about 24 vehicles, including 15 tanker trucks transporting fuel for NATO into Afghanistan (Riaz Khan, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, May 13).

Even as bin Laden for years evaded a massive manhunt, he pondered ways to mount another terrorist assault in the United States as a follow-up to the September 11 attacks. His thoughts, recorded in a diary, show he focused on maximizing U.S. casualties by attacking large population centers such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The journal, other documents, data storage devices and computers were captured by U.S. Navy SEALs during their raid on the Abbottabad compound. U.S. intelligence analysts are now racing to analyze the large information cache.  Read more

Don't mess with these Orlando mall cops

This is a great article on 'reverse emerging threats' to criminals and the like...superb 'mall cops' in Florida.  

image courtesy of:   webtechpoint.com

Far from being a piecemeal operation, security at The Mall at Millennia, a luxury mall in Orlando, Florida, is a highly sophisticated operation that uses the latest law enforcement tools, techniques, and technology; 50 unarmed security officers maintain a conspicuous presence throughout the 1.2 million square foot mall; the mall also has a comprehensive network of surveillance cameras that are monitored in a twenty-four hour command center; to prepare security personnel for emergency scenarios, the department conducts tabletop exercises with local law enforcement officials every six months; the mall also works closely with local law enforcement officials to catch local thieves and participates in sting operations.   Read more

Twitter, Facebook, and Ten Red Balloons: Social Network Problem Solving and Homeland Security

Results of a Social Media type contest, with national security implications, great read, 15 mins read.

image coutesy of:  www.psfk.com

On December 6, 2009, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a competition designed to, in their words, “explore the role the Internet and social networking plays in the timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.” ¹ The competition required participating teams/individuals to find “10 8-foot balloons moored at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States.” ² Just before the competition opened, the balloons were surreptitiously floated at random locations in nine states, including: California, Tennessee, Florida, Delaware, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Oregon, and Georgia. 

Preparedness Exercises 2.0: Alternative Approaches to Exercise Design That Could Make Them More Useful for Evaluating — and Strengthening — Preparedness

Another great article written for NPS.  This document is 19 pages long and took about 40 mins to read.  Great charts/graphs and statistics.  If you are a planner of exercises...read this article.  It discusses what type of exercises produces what types of results...for inquiring minds..

As one component of a preparedness program, exercises of these varied types are seen as a versatile tool that can help contribute to achieving a variety of different goals. Though taxonomies of exercise objectives vary in the literature, most include the following:³

• Planning — Exercises provide a structure to advance planning for a particular incident scenario, identifying problems and explore their solutions in focused way.
• Interagency Coordination — Exercises can act as a venue for members of different agencies to meet and interact, to build relationships that are important to effective coordination in a real event, to identify issues potentially falling in gaps of authority, jurisdiction, etc., to test mechanisms and technologies for interagency information sharing that might seldom be used in routine events, and to identify if there are agencies “missing” from plans that would be needed at a large scale disaster, accident, or terrorist attack.
• Public Education — Exercises can act as an “event” that, by being covered by the media and discussed publically, makes it possible to teach the public about the capabilities of response systems, creates the opportunity to educate them about preparedness actions they could take, and informs them about preparedness efforts of their local, state, or the federal government.
• Training — Exercises can make it possible to expose response staff to rare incidents and their unique demands — rather than their encountering them for the first time at a real emergency. Such simulations make it possible to teach responders or volunteers specific tasks, practice equipment use, and to learn or refresh other knowledge specific to an unusual incident.
• Evaluation — Exercises have been used to evaluate emergency preparedness activities in a variety of ways. Such evaluations range from very broad, qualitative assessments (e.g., ensuring all significant issues were considered in planning) to very detailed, quantitative studies (e.g., directly measuring the patient throughput of a medical facility). More elab

Tornadoes > South's 'super tornado' outbreak may be worst ever in US history

Makes one curious as to Gaia's intentions...
"Storm forensics experts have begun to put into historical perspective the massive twister outbreak that hit Alabama and six other Southern states. The Tuscaloosa twister alone may register as the most powerful long-track tornado in US history."-csmonitor.com

Brooke Carbo helps a friend pack up what's left of her Alberta City, Alabama, apartment which stood right in the path of the deadly storm which hit the southern region of the United States. A string of powerful tornadoes caused massive devastation, killing at least 350 people.

Newscom

Disaster Recovery > Government moves quickly to help storm victims in South

Good article on tornadoes that struck southern states, worst natural disaster to hit US since Hurricane Katrina, written by Homeland Security Newswire, 2 mins read -Read more

An all-too-common scene across the U.S. south // Source: findtarget.com

So far residents have been fairly pleased with the government's response to the worst natural disaster to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina; after tornadoes touched down in seven states on Wednesday, Secretary Napolitano and other top federal officials immediately began contacting governors in the affected states; just hours after the storms had ravaged Alabama, Obama signed the declaration of disaster in Alabama and by Thursday he had done the same for Georgia and Mississippi; by Friday afternoon FEMA liaison officers had been deployed to Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee; the storms have killed at least 350 people, injured more than 2,200, and left tens of thousands homeless in seven states

Video > SDF in the News - State Defense Forces Part 4