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FEMA encourages individuals, families, workplaces,
schools, and organizations across the nation to take part in National
PrepareAthon! Day on September 30, 2015. Extreme weather is occurring more
often across the United States, which is increasing the costs of natural
disasters. According to a recent survey conducted by FEMA, fewer than half of
Americans have discussed and developed an emergency plan with their household.
As part of National
Preparedness Month and National PrepareAthon! Day, FEMA is encouraging everyone
to develop and practice their family emergency plan to prepare for disasters
that are known threats in their communities.
National PrepareAthon! Day is
part of America’s PrepareAthon!, a nationwide grassroots campaign for action to
increase community preparedness and resilience through hazard-specific group
discussions, drills, and exercises. The campaign offers easy-to-implement
preparedness guides, checklists, and resources to help individuals,
organizations, and communities prepare for the types of disasters that are
relevant to their area. People can take these simple steps to increase their
preparedness:
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Create a family emergency communication plan. Visit ready.gov/prepare and download Be
Smart. Take Part: Create Your Family Emergency Communication Plan.
Collect the information you need, decide on the places you will meet in
case of an emergency, share the information with your family, and practice
your plan.
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Sign up for local text alerts and warnings and
download weather apps. Stay
aware of worsening weather conditions. Visit ready.gov/prepare and download Be
Smart: Know Your Alerts and Warnings to learn how sign up for local alerts and weather apps that are
relevant for hazards that affect your area.
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Gather important documents and keep them in a
safe place. Have all of your
personal, medical, and legal papers in one place, so you can evacuate
without worrying about gathering your family’s critical documents at the
last minute. Visit ready.gov/prepare and download Be
Smart: Protect Your Critical Documents and Valuables for a helpful checklist.
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Create an emergency supply kit. Be prepared for bad weather by creating an emergency
supply kit for each member of
your family. Visit ready.gov/build-a-kit for more ideas of what to include in your kit.
Visit
the America’s PrepareAthon! website, ready.gov/prepare for more information, to sign up, and to register
your participation.
Congressional Support for National Preparedness Month
FEMA appreciates the support of the Members of Congress who are serving as 2015 co-sponsors for National Preparedness Month. Throughout September, the External Affairs Bulletin is featuring statements from these members.
“Today, I'm proud to join with congressional colleagues to
raise awareness about National Preparedness.
It is important for all of us to be prepared to deal with a wide range
of emergencies, including earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, power outages, acts
of terrorism, and wildfires. I encourage
every Californian – and every American – to consider ways to proactively
protect themselves and their families, friends, and loved ones against
disasters of all kinds. Make a plan
today at www.ready.gov/september.”
Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Ranking Member, Committee
on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Homeland Security
“I am honored
to once again serve as Congressional Co-Chair of National Preparedness Month.
As Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on
Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications, I cannot stress enough
the importance of families, community organizations, and leaders taking the
simple but necessary measures to make sure they are prepared in the event of a
disaster. Thanks to the tremendous efforts from emergency planners and
preparedness officials, my community has stood strong through man-made
disasters and terrorist attacks, like 9/11, and natural disasters, like
Hurricane Sandy. This month, community leaders should work with the public to
assess, update, and drill their plans, and ensure that they accommodate the unique
needs of vulnerable populations, especially children. As National Preparedness
Month coincides with children across the country embarking on a new academic
year, it is the perfect time for schools to ensure they have updated safety and
reunification plans that accommodate all children as well.”
Representative
Donald M. Payne, Jr., Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications
“Disasters do not discriminate –
they can happen to anyone, anywhere and at any time. September is National
Preparedness Month and participating is easy. MAKE A PLAN for your family
in the event of an emergency. Have adequate supplies, such as food, water, and
medicine. Ensure that each person in your household knows what to do in
the event of an emergency, where to go and how to re-connect once you have
reached safety. This September, I encourage all Hoosiers to commit to
participating in National Preparedness Month.”
Representative
Andre Carson, Ranking Member, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency
Management
FEMA Individual
and Community Preparedness Division (ICPD) and FEMA Corps, an AmeriCorps service
program for 18-24 year olds, partnered to conduct disaster preparedness
outreach around the National Capital Region. As a part of National Preparedness Month, the ICPD and
FEMA Corps Team Alpine 2 created and executed a FEMA Corps-wide emergency communications
drill.
Since FEMA Corps teams travel around the nation and work on various FEMA
sponsored projects aiding disaster relief efforts, emergency communication
plans are essential for each and every FEMA Corps team. During deployments, teams
are frequently separated working on individual assignments, emphasizing the
need for communications plans. By being prepared, FEMA Corps teams are not only
helping themselves be ready for a disaster, but also helping set an example to
the emergency management community.
This drill built resilient FEMA Corps teams and promoted emergency
preparedness. It required all Corps members to update their team contacts and
reach out to family members to create or reevaluate their personal communications
plan. Every team received an electronic flyer that included steps on how to
conduct the communications drill, discussion questions on team preparedness,
and additional exercises on how to better prepare for emergencies at their
various project sites and lodging.
There are
currently 57 FEMA Corps teams with 472 Corps members serving throughout the
United States. More information about FEMA Corps can be found at www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/fema-corps.
FEMA Corps Members Kerry Boglin and Caitlin von Stein promote preparedness to Department of Defense employees at the 2015 Pentagon Preparedness Fair.
FEMA seeks public comments from state, local, tribal and
territorial governments, private non-profit organizations, and interested
members of the public regarding the Agency’s proposed policy describing
guidelines FEMA will follow when implementing section 705 of the Robert T.
Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act). The proposed policy
applies to all potential recoveries of payments made to state, Indian tribal
government, or local government recipients and details how FEMA will determine
whether Stafford Act section 705 bars FEMA from recovering assistance payments.
Comments are due November 2, 2015, and should be submitted online.
The
Emergency Management Institute’s (EMI) Virtual Tabletop Exercise (VTTX) program
continued to evolve and grow to meet the demands of the emergency management
community across the United States, reaching more than 7,000 participants in
Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. VTTX broadcasts addressed a variety of subjects
including a chlorine leak, an active shooter, an agricultural incident,
disaster recovery, and a critical stress management seminar.
EMI
conducts a monthly series of VTTX training using a video teleconference
platform to reach community-based training audiences around the country and to
provide a virtual forum for disaster training and
discussion. The VTTX program is designed for a
community-based group of at least ten or more personnel from local or state
emergency management organizations with representatives from other disciplines
such as public safety, public works, public health, health care, government,
administrative, communications, military, private sector, non-governmental, tribal nations, and other whole community partners.
Participants must have an appropriate site equipped with video teleconference
capability that can access FEMA.
During
FY 2015, the 74 VTTX broadcasts produced 22 different scenarios creating a
training and learning environment for 7,129 participants. The number of
agencies taking part in the VTTXs totaled 620 agencies in FY 2015, a vast jump
from 340 agencies in FY 2014. Several VTTX broadcasts were designed for
specific stakeholder training needs including Super Bowl 50 and the recent
Papal visit to the United States. Unique stakeholders this year included
utilities, volunteer agencies, professional sports, private security companies,
academia, airports, seaports, insurance companies, oil companies, and movie and
television studios.
VTTX broadcasts trained thousands of participants helping to save
costs on salaries, travel, and production time. Many agencies do not have
full-time exercise planners or facilitators, and the VTTX exercises were a
unique opportunity to learn from the experience of others. U.S. taxpayers saved
millions of dollars as teleconference technology eliminated transportation and
housing costs for FEMA, along with incremental costs for maintaining additional
classrooms and beds on-campus of the National Emergency Training Center (NETC)
in Emmitsburg, Maryland. As a result, more beds and classrooms were made
available on the NETC campus for other EMI and National Fire Academy courses.
The VTTX exercises are designed to enable the participants to practice
their knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively conduct all-hazards emergency
response, recovery, and mitigation
operations. The goal is to provide a virtual environment for participants to
improve collective performance of critical tasks for a designated hazard or
disaster affecting their community and strengthen coordination among
counterparts representing agencies at all levels of government, the private
sector, and non-governmental organizations.
EMI will conduct the following VTTX programs in early FY 2016:
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October 6, 7, 8: Cyber
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October 20, 21, 22: Public Health
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November 3, 4, 5: Winter Storms
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November 17, 18, 19: Power
Outages
To apply for a VTTX
event, please submit an email request to Doug Kahn at douglas.kahn@fema.dhs.gov or call
301-447-7645. The application deadline is four weeks prior to the start date.
Additional information on FY 2016 VTTX broadcasts is available on the EMI
Website at www.training.fema.gov/emi.aspx.
FEMA seeks comments
from state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management practitioners on
the draft FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual. The manual establishes
national damage assessment standards developed from historic lessons learned and
best-practices already in use by local, state, tribal, territorial, and federal
emergency management agencies.
The draft manual and
comment matrix is posted in the FEMA
library. Comments should be added into the comment matrix and
submitted to Mr. Ryan Buras, Senior Program Advisor, Public Assistance,
Recovery Directorate, no later than November 14, 2015. FEMA asks that comments on the manual be sent either by email to PDAmanual@fema.dhs.gov or by mail to Mr.
Ryan Buras, Senior Program Advisor, Public Assistance, Recovery Directorate,
FEMA, 500 C Street, SW, Mail Stop 3163, Washington, DC 20472.
The FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual is built using a
framework that encourages local information collection, state, tribal or
territorial verification, and federal validation. This document better
highlights and provides guidance to state, local, tribal, and territorial
governments on their role in the assessment. This version of the PDA manual
also clarifies the types of damage that will qualify under the descriptors of
destroyed, major damage, minor damage, or affected.
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