Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building and Sustaining Preparedness: A National Campaign

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Wife and I have both taken the Coumminty Emergency responce training. I even took the train the trainer program. above the director of our city teem objection. She toold me I could not take it I told her the state of Missouri said I could. So to get even she will not allow me to teach any classes. So I took on the passion of spreading the work to church or any one who wants to learn. I have found that people think it ...more »

When an area is struck by a disaster the most major thing people are in need of is power for many things from air cleaning and ac to heat and lights for searching for survivors. I am currently working on the composition of a vehicle that can supply volunteers that go into a "Disaster Area" with rechargable power units,lighting,communication units, and several other power reliant sources that are detromental to such "Disaster ...more »

Pioneering work done after the Loma Prieta Earthquake (1989) where grants were given to community-based organizations to fund activities to enhance preparedness resulted in lessons that have not been remembered nor applied well after Sept. 11, 2001. Fundamentally, the most important lesson is "make it simple, easy, and a part of everyday life." When provided 1,000-item lists of "stuff" to buy, or lists of "gotta do's" ...more »

When first-responders leave the scene of a disaster, the survivors often become overwhelmed by the trauma, shock, and stress brought about by losing their home or being displaced. The state of chaos created by disasters coupled with the lack of knowledge of what to do in the aftermath makes disaster survivors vulnerable to making uninformed decisions or falling prey to the many pitfalls that accompany post-disaster scenarios. ...more »

There use to be Manual pumps to get gasoline. If we could revise them & put one at various locations then we wouldn't need electricity to get gasoline after storms. It might even be less expensive than generators.

I am NFPA & IFSAC certified in Fire fighting & First responder.There has got to be a system set up so that we are mobilized through FEMA. Watching Sandy victims when I know we are more than qualified to do what we are trained for.Governor's have data for all their EMA offices & the First responders. We need a central system.This has been the case for years.Organization is not a strong suit for FEMA. Why haven't all EMA ...more »

Much research has demonstrated that people are bombarded with multiple forms of media. Further, the vast majority of people who use on-line resources use a search engine, like Google. Despite giving them a direct URL to a favored disaster prep info site, people will just search for info on a topic. Think about it, when was the last time you used a bookmark or typed in a direct URL into your web browser? People find all ...more »

establish an on line community support tool for people who need to relocate or leave early from a potential disaster area. Engage the community to support others who need to be empowered to act, taking a shared responsibility for their own safety. Either you are leaving early or are supporting someone who is.

www.thegolist.org.au

Schools, churches, after school venues and youth organizations are ideal target locations and groups to promote thiscampaign topic nationally. Just like fire safety and fire, tornado and earthquake drills are practiced regularly throughout the school year, national preparedness could be added as well. Young children are like sponges so they are sure to soak up all of this preparedness info. and talk it up at home. Word ...more »

Although FEMA response efforts generally focus on life safety matters, in recent years it has been burdened with rebuilding. I believe this happened because there is no one government agency that oversees construction. For example, there are agencies at state level that address workers' comp. There are state agencies that regulate licensing. There are agencies at state and federal level that address fraud. In response ...more »

FEMA funds many state/county emergency management positions. FEMA should consider adding, as part of the grant agreement, the voluntary deployment of EMPG funded personnel to assist in disaster response and recovery. First FEMA would gain a cadre of emergency management employees with knowledge, skills, experience and abilities that could greatly help FEMA perform their mission. By assigning state EMPG funded employee ...more »

The first step in a preparedness campaign should be to dtermine the behavior(s) we seek to change. Should it be "have a kit?" "Have a plan?" Perhaps. Suggest the overriding behavior change be self reliance. Suggest we develop a preparedness campaign that promotes self reliance over entitlement and unrealistic expectations.

Perhaps a more significant problem than messaging is our lack of qualified knowledge of the capabilities and assets that reside in the very neighborhoods we assume are deficient. Then, we are puzzled at the absence of success in applying our typically “needs-oriented” solutions. As a result we foster a community of residents that behave as clients dependent on the insufficient services of outside organizations. Dependency ...more »

The fact that there does not appear to be a rapid response to be able to provide temporary housing in disaster areas where people have lost their homes is not acceptable. We know these disasters are going to continue to happen, and in many cases there is ample warning time to prepare. We should think about how the armed forces must move and adapt quickly to changing conditions and events, and then applied that to natural ...more »

Over time, we need to shift focus of citizens’ response and recovery expectations from federal level to local and state/territorial/tribe levels (correct public misperceptions and inflated expectations regarding federal role in response and recovery)It is important to educate the general population on concrete steps that can be taken to minimize (mitigate) risk such as strictly enforced building codes, flood insurance ...more »

While there are many variations of 72-hour preparedness plans, none are pocket size. "The First 72" could be a basic tri-fold pamphlet (8 1/2 X 11 paper size ... similar to other products FEMA distributes) that could easily fit in a person's pocket or purse. If it was cost-effective, this pamphlet could be laminated for extra durability. This tri-fold style would create six panels; one for a cover and key points and ...more »

Take advantage of post- incident heightened awareness, focusing on the opportunity to exploit mitigation. Build on marketing or advertising experience thus far “See something, say something” is easy to remember and has borne some fruit and it will likely continue to be useful for suspicious activity and perhaps for some technical/accidental events when there may be warning signs of imminent system failure. I was thinking ...more »

It strikes me that the biggest barrier to building and sustaining preparedness is human nature. When incidents happen in rapid succession (example: repeated tornados in the Mid-West) people suffer from burnout/ disaster fatigue. When incidents carry high consequences but low likelihood or long inter-incident intervals, people dismiss the risk as being too remote and unlikely and get complacent. In my opinion, this makes ...more »

using unemployed people and surplus government and military equipment to create 3 cities of hope. 1 - rolling - has a home base which can be activated quickly and moved into lg transportation carriers to move by land. 2 - flying - lg cargo planes capable of flying city of hope. 3 -floating - use of lg retired military or commercial ships. The cities of hope would be capable of instant deployment to any location and would ...more »

I am a frequent traveler and have thus chosen to use my cell phone for contact with ADD when they call to deploy. I do not choose to leave my cell phone on 24/7. I have already had the experience where ADD called and stated, "You have 30 minutes to respond to this deployment request." Needless to say I missed the 30 minute window of opportunity. On the other hand, I am slavishly devoted to email. I would like to recommend ...more »

While not an advocate of a Federal law for everything, I think national preparedness must indeed be NATIONAL. The states have uneven preparedness mandates for schools, but schools could be the foundation of national preparedness efforts. Schools could devote an hour or two each month for some aspect of age-appropriate preparedness instruction. This information will, in my experience, find its way to the students' homes, ...more »

from my understanding the habitat for humanity was started so that victoms of a catostropic events could rebuild their own communities from with in so that the money from government funding could recirculate in the disaster zone.so the economy could recover along with the structures that were destroyed The stafford act is the law that also was designed to keep the funding in the zones that are affected..this was not the ...more »

each family will now have knowledge to give them some peace of mind in them knowing what to expect they will also be able to go online and view a three deminsionial walk through of their homes so they can make changes to make their homes more efficient green if u will [our zone organizers can also teach the family the how to assist in the aftermath with building skills {{Jimmy Carter built 100 homes in a week }} Stage ...more »

Pardon me for saying this as I'm not a vulcanologist but one of the biggest crisis we have in the US and many parts of the world is flooding. Tons of water where no place for this water to go. So,.what can we do. Let's look at this. From time to time there is another traggic event that hapenes and that is the discovery of a "sink-hole"! A sink-hole apprears in foreign countries and have appearred in the US as well. So ...more »