In a field filled with so-called "security-experts", I have always found Bruce Schneier to be one of the few voices of reason on security issues. In a recent article in the New York Times, he makes the case for what we emergency managers would call an "all-hazards" approach to security. As we have learned over the years, […]
In keeping with the foolishness of April 1st, the hot story circulating on the Internet these days is about the supposed attempt by terrorists to insert explosives in breast and buttock implants. The story apparently originated with a Sun article published in March. Considering the Sun's penchant for sensational stories, I was a bit skeptical. However, what is […]
I recently had the pleasure of attending the Colorado Governor's Emergency Management Conferenceas one of the presenters. As I was wandering around the breakout rooms, I noticed a small conference room filled with communications equipment and very intense looking people. When I asked, I was told that the Colorado Division of Emergency Management had brought in an ICS […]
I've frequently said that there's really nothing new under the sun and that we can learn valuable emergency management lessons by studying history, particularly the history of crisis. We emergency managers often think almost exclusively in terms of natural disasters, a tendency that is probably as frustrating to our Homeland Security colleagues as is the […]
In my last blog, I talked about the diminished respect that the Transportation Security Agency was experiencing as a result of their reactive and ludicrous policies. I based my comments on a sampling of media reports and comments to various professional email lists and blogs. However, I overlooked a very interesting source for gauging public […]
Like many of you, I have been following the Christmas Day terrorist event and the resulting political theater that has resulted from it.What has been interesting to me is not the the event itself but rather the public outrage that is being directed at the Transportation Security Administration. As someone who has worked in local government, […]
No, this is not another one of those zombie-related blogs we've been chuckling over for the past year. It's actually about something that could help save lives in a structural collapse. Those of you who have been involved in urban search and rescue know that the likelihood of someone surviving in a collapsed structure significantly decreases after 72 […]
In today's paper there was an article about a revised report on the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. Among the criticisms leveled against the university was not issuing timely warnings about the incident. The report did acknowledge, though, that university officials hesitated in issuing a warning because of a desire not to create a panic. This […]
I haven't had the chance to see 2012 yet. I'm not particularly fond of disaster movies – I either find myself laughing at times that make the rest of the audience uncomfortable or bore my family with running commentaries. I did, however, catch a History Channel show that purported to have some science behind it. […]
My apologies for not posting for the past few weeks. I was preparing several presentations for the International Association of Emergency Managers conference in Orlando FL last week. I piloted a new workshop I've been developing on the fundamentals of emergency management programs and presented a breakout session on the use of the administrative plan (those […]