As part of America's PrepareAthon!, Whitfield County, Georgia, is hosting a series of preparedness activities on April 24-26, including a community wide tornado drill, a preparedness expo with emergency notification registration, and a faith-based "Praise and Preparedness" drill with area churches. The county's Local Emergency Preparedness Council partnered with local news for Public Service Announcements (PSA) and interviews, and high school students in a TV production class will develop PrepareAthon!-related youth preparedness materials and PSAs to distribute in Spanish to elementary school students.
On April 30, the Nashua Office of Emergency Management in New Hampshire will conduct a citywide tornado drill, test the Code Red alert
system, and distribute America’s PrepareAthon! materials on tornado safety. The
notification will be automatically sent to all area landlines as well as
cellphone and email users who have opted in for the service. City government
employees, local businesses, area hospitals, and community-based organizations
will participate in the drill.
As part of National Financial Literacy Month, FEMA and Operation HOPE updated the Emergency
Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK) to
guide families with financial preparedness steps to assist with disaster recovery. These steps include ensuring there is adequate insurance, a plan to pay bills, and an alternate way to access financial and personal records.
The EFFAK can be used to identify important documents, medical records, and household
contracts. When completing the kit,
include pictures or a video of the home and belongings, and store these items
in a safe place. Storing critical documents
is also one of the ten ways to participate in America’s PrepareAthon!. Participants can register these actions on the campaign website.
The 2015 EFFAK is available in English,
Spanish,
and reader
enabled English version that can be filled out online. More information about the EFFAK and other tools that can be used to prepare finances is available online.
FEMA launched a new BETA version of FEMA.gov. As part of the redesign, the following changes were made:
- Focused on getting the
content in front of the reader without any distractions.
- Added mobile compatibility
so the content can be read on any screen size.
- Increased the font size.
- Made it easier to identify
the sections of content on each page.
- Limited the duplication of
navigation links on each page.
FEMA is continuing to work on the BETA site. Comments and feedback are welcome on the FEMA blog post or via email at fema-new-media@fema.dhs.gov.
This spring, the Lessons
Learned Information Sharing (LLIS) program will make a significant change. The
LLIS.gov website will cease independent operations and will consolidate its
content with the Naval Postgraduate School’s Homeland Security Digital Library
(HSDL.org) and FEMA.gov.
One of the advantages of
this move is that LLIS.gov content such as lessons learned, innovative
practices, after-action reports, plans, templates, guides, and other materials
will be consolidated with the already substantial database on HSDL.org. This
change will allow the homeland security and emergency management communities to
find relevant information in one place. FEMA’s LLIS program will continue to
produce trend analyses, case studies on the use of FEMA preparedness grants,
and webinars relevant to the whole community. These products will be available
to the public at www.fema.gov/lessons-learned-information-sharing-program.
If there are concerns
with already submitted documents being transferred to HSDL.org, please email FEMA-lessonslearned@fema.dhs.gov
before May 15, 2015. For more information about this migration, a list of
Frequently Asked Questions is available online.
Additional questions can be sent to FEMA-lessonslearned@fema.dhs.gov.
The FEMA Individual and Community Preparedness Division is hosting a
webinar on April 22 from 3-4 p.m. ET for Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) managers to learn new strategies to develop resources for the CERT Program. The guest speakers are:
- Dave Nichols,
Program Manager for Mississippi Citizen Corps and CERT;
- Jolan Csukas,
Volunteer Coordinator for Cowley County, KS CERT; and
- Brian Maier, Chief Operations Officer for Search and Rescue Ohio.
The speakers will
share their insights and advice on how to secure resources for training
and activities, lessons learned from their experiences, and how their resource
development efforts benefitted their programs and communities. The webinar will
conclude with a question and answer session where participants will also be
invited to share their suggestions for resource development.
Interested participants can register for the webinar online. Closed captioning will be offered. Those who cannot attend the webinar can view the recording, transcript and presentation slide deck at www.ready.gov/preparedness-leader/webinar-library under the "Citizen Corps Partners/Affiliates" section.
The
Department of Homeland Security Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and
FEMA are hosting a webinar on April 28 from 2-3 p.m. ET to prepare faith-based
organizations for disaster. This webinar will provide faith-based and
community organizations with critical local, tribal, state, and national resources that
can help get communities better prepared for disasters and emergencies. Subject matter experts from emergency
management, the faith-based and volunteer sectors, and the federal government
will also answer questions about engaging the faith-based community in disaster
preparedness activities.
Interested participants can register for the webinar online. Closed captioning will be offered.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate announced the release of the FY 2015 Notice of Funding Opportunity for the
Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) Program. The FY 2015 EMPG Program
provides over $350 million to assist state, local, tribal, and
territorial governments in preparing for all hazards, as authorized by the
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The notice of funding opportunity can be found at www.grants.gov.
EMPG applications are due no later than April 24, 2015. Final submissions
must be made through the Non-Disaster (ND) Grants system located at https://portal.fema.gov.
FEMA recently posted three
Office of Response and Recovery Senior Executive Service opportunities on USAJobs: Director, National Disaster Recovery Planning, Office of Federal Disaster Coordination; Assistant Administrator, Response Directorate; Deputy Assistant Administrator, Recovery Directorate. To review the posting and complete an application, please visit www.usajobs.gov. The deadline to apply is April 24, 2015.
On
January 30, the President issued Executive Order 13690, “Establishing a
Federal Flood Risk Management Standard and a Process for Further Soliciting and
Considering Stakeholder Input.” Prior to implementation of the Federal Flood
Risk Management Standard, additional input from stakeholders is
being solicited and considered on how federal agencies will implement the new
Standard. To carry out this process, a draft version
of Implementing Guidelines is open for comment until May 6,
2015. Questions may be submitted to FEMA-FFRMS@fema.dhs.gov.
Secretary of Homeland
Security Jeh Johnson announced the release of Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Notices of
Funding Opportunity for DHS preparedness grant programs totaling more than $1.6
billion. The grant programs provide funding to state, local, tribal and
territorial governments, as well as transportation authorities, nonprofit
organizations, and the private sector, to improve the nation’s readiness in
preventing, protecting against, responding to, recovering from and mitigating
terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies. The grants
reflect the Department’s focus on implementation of an all-of-nation, whole-community
approach to the building, sustainment, and delivery of those core capabilities
essential to achieving a secure and resilient nation.
The Emergency Management
Performance Grant (EMPG) applications, announced on March 25, 2015, are due no
later than April 24, 2015. All other preparedness grant
applications – excluding Fire Grant programs – are due no later than May 19,
2015. Final submissions must be made through the
Non-Disaster Grants system located at https://portal.fema.gov.
More information on the
2015 grant guidance is available online.
Final submissions must be made through the Non-Disaster Grants system
located at https://portal.fema.gov. Further information
on DHS’s preparedness grant programs is available at www.dhs.gov and www.fema.gov/grants.
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