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Please join FEMA for the
first annual Voluntary
Organization Partnership Day on Tuesday, October 27 at FEMA
Headquarters, located at 500 C St SW, Washington, DC, from 9:30 a.m. – 3:30
p.m. EDT. Professionals, academicians, students, and volunteers in emergency
management, public administration, and related fields are invited to learn
about and build relationships with our voluntary, faith-based, and community
liaisons and partners. This event is co-hosted by FEMA
Voluntary Agency Liaisons (VALs), the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
(National VOAD), and the DHS
Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Opening remarks will be
delivered at 9:45 a.m. in the FEMA Courtyard. The partner exhibition showcase will
last 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. in both the Courtyard and Holiday Inn Capitol Ballroom. The
event will conclude with a Town Hall 2 – 3:30 p.m. in the Capitol Ballroom.
This unique event will
recognize and build awareness of the valuable services and support our
voluntary, faith-based, and community partners provide before, during, and
after disasters. Attendees can browse mobile response units and exhibit booths
to learn about whole of community partnerships. Additionally, visitors can
interact with comfort dog teams, chat with partner representatives, and network
with other professionals, academicians, students, and volunteers in emergency
management, public administration, and related fields. Please email AC Claud at
alfred.claud@fema.dhs.gov for
additional information.
FEMA’s
Office of Disability Integration and Coordination (ODIC) hosted a quarterly
meeting of the Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and
Individuals with Disabilities (ICC) on Thursday, October 8. Established in 2005
under Executive Order 13347, the ICC coordinates the efforts of 25 Agencies and
Departments in the area of disability-inclusive emergency preparedness.
The ICC discussed
occupant emergency planning for people with disabilities during active shooter
incidents. Daniel Rivera, Active Shooter Program Lead for the Department of
Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate gave a
presentation about active shooter incident training development at the
Department. Gay Jones, FEMA’s Office of Disability Integration and Coordination
Disability Integration Specialist, and Rebekah Tosado, DHS’s Office for Civil
Rights and Civil Liberties Senior Advisor spoke about some of the gaps in the
training that may not include individuals with disabilities or others with
access and functional needs. Also, Paul Timmons, Director of Portlight
Strategies, provided an update about the flooding in South Carolina and the
cooperative partnerships established among FEMA, Portlight, state and local
emergency responders, and local disability focused organizations.
With
winter weather just around the corner, the Emergency Management Institute’s
(EMI) Virtual Tabletop Exercise (VTTX) program will focus on a long-term
community power outage caused by weather events on November 17, 18,
and 19, 2015. The VTTX will allow participating communities to share real-time
incident preparation, response and recovery concerns and solutions with all
participants. The program continues to evolve and grow to meet the
demands of the emergency management community across the United States.
EMI
conducts a monthly VTTX series using a video teleconference platform to provide
a virtual forum for disaster training and discussion
for community-based audiences around the country. The VTTX program is designed for
a 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.
The
goals of the November VTTX are to help participants to prepare for a long-term
power outage affecting their community by exercising and enhancing the
performance of critical response and recovery tasks and improving coordination
with counterparts from local governments, other state governments, federal
agencies, private sector organizations, and non-governmental agencies. The VTTX
broadcast will begin at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) and end at 4:00
p.m. EST.
EMI will conduct the following VTTX programs for the remainder of the calendar year:
- December 8, 9, 10: Active
Shooter
To
apply to participate in a VTTX exercise, submit an email request to Doug Kahn
at douglas.kahn@fema.dhs.gov or call
301-447-7645 and cc the Integrated Emergency Management Branch at FEMA-EMI-IEMB@fema.dhs.gov or call
301-447-1381. The deadline for applying to participate in a VTTX is four weeks
prior to the start date.
Additional
information about this VTTX can be found on https://training.fema.gov/programs/emivttx.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 federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial, emergency management agencies.
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.
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, by 11:59 p.m. EST on November 14, 2015. FEMA asks that comments on the manual be sent either by email to PDAmanual@fema.dhs.gov or by mail with a November 14 postmark to Mr. Ryan Buras, Senior Program Advisor, Public Assistance, Recovery Directorate, FEMA, 500 C Street, SW, Mail Stop 3163, Washington, DC 20472.
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