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The National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children (NCMEC) directly attributed FEMA's Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) with saving the
lives of 21 children since 2012 by providing information to instantly inform citizens to
assist in the search for and in safe recovery of missing children. AMBER
Alerts are urgent bulletins issued in the most serious child-abduction cases,
and can be sent straight to cell phones via WEA without the need to download an
app or subscribe to a service.
WEA look like a text
message. If you have a WEA-enabled cell phone, you are automatically enrolled
for three types of alerts: Presidential, Imminent Threat, and AMBER. While your
cell phone may permit the settings to opt-out of receiving WEA for imminent
threats and AMBER alerts, you cannot opt out of a Presidential messages. FEMA
encourages everyone to not opt out as it could save your life or the life of a child.
NCMEC issues AMBER
Alerts through FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) to WEA
on cell phones since December 2012. To find out if your mobile device is
capable of receiving WEA alerts, contact your cellular service and for more
information on WEA alerts, visit www.ready.gov/warning-systems-signals.
FEMA Region 9 (R9) established an El Niño Task Force charged with
preparing the regional office and its partners for the impacts of El Niño. The
task force consists of subject matter experts from the R9 office as well as
other federal, state, local, tribal and community partners. On December 9,
2015, the task force released its Severe El Niño Disaster Response plan and
convened a Regional Interagency Steering Committee (RISC) meeting in Northern
California to exercise the plan.
The task force evaluated the core capabilities needed to prepare for,
respond to, recover from, and mitigate against El Niño related incidents that
could occur across the office’s area of responsibility. They focused on interpreting
data in areas of California, Arizona, and Nevada that have proven to be historically
vulnerable to develop risk projections of current El Niño events. The task force then used these projections to
develop an Executive Decision Support Guide /Response Plan, and an interactive
flood decision support tool to assistR9 leadership in making critical decisions
during all phases of an incident from pre-incident, incident onset, response,
and recovery.
The Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) exercise allowed the task force to
exercise the response plan and its flood decision support tools. During this
exercise, participants identified issues, gaps, and shortfalls that could
enhance the plan. The task force leveraged best available data from predictive
modeling and other analytical tools to keep senior decision makers informed
throughout potential El Niño events.
Members of the media were invited to attend portions of the ROC and participate
in a Virtual Telephonic Press Conference, including a question and answer session with
Regional Administrator (RA) Robert Fenton. More than 200 reporters requested copies
of the task force’s report or took part in the media opportunities.
For
more information about El Niño, including the best and most current information
and resources needed to be ready for this weather event, visit www.fema.gov/el-nino.
 R9 RA Robert Fenton speaks to reporters at the El Niño press conference.
FEMA’s National
Continuity Programs’ (NCP) Continuity of Operations (COOP) Division, and the
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Protection and Programs
Directorate’s Office of Infrastructure Protection’s Emergency Services Sector
(ESS) partnered to form a working group that will collaborate to better assist
local governments and industries in developing effective continuity plans and
programs.
The NCP COOP Division
provides the foundation for ensuring the constitutional government under all
conditions and ensures that federal executive branch departments and agencies,
including FEMA, continue to perform their mission essential functions and
primary mission essential functions during a wide range of emergencies. Global
events, including natural disasters and terrorist attacks, reinforce the need
for the federal government to develop partnerships with other non-federal
government entities and private sector owners and operators. These partnerships
assist with: identifying continuity needs for local jurisdictions; exchanging
continuity information, ideas, lessons learned, and experiences; and sharing
tools and programs.
The COOP/ESS working
group is comprised of Government Coordinating Council and Sector Coordinating
Council partners, and will begin in January 2016. The working group goal will
be to further COOP and ESS continuity outreach through one-pagers,
hosting/presenting at various conferences, hands on teaching and webinars. For
more information, please contact ESSTeam@hq.dhs.gov.
FEMA is hosting a "Partnership
Resources to Help Prepare Houses of Worship for Emergencies"
webinar on December 16, 2015 from 2:00 - 3:15 p.m. ET to help connect
faith-based and community organizations with federal government tools,
resources, and partners to better prepare their houses of worship for all
hazards, including active shooter incidents. This webinar is a collaborative
effort between the DHS’s Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood
Partnerships, a center of the White House Office of Faith-based &
Neighborhood Partnerships, and FEMA.
For more faith-based resources, recorded
webinars, and training, please visit www.fema.gov/protecting-houses-worship.
FEMA’s
Emergency Management Institute (EMI) is offering a virtual tabletop exercise (VTTX)
on January 26-28, 2016, involving a chlorine contamination scenario. The VTTX is
public health focused and addresses contamination recognition response and recovery
efforts to assist affected communities. The exercise allows participating
communities to share public health details regarding protective zones,
protective actions, personal protective equipment, hospital triage, latent
effects, decontamination issues pertaining to patients, environmental concerns,
and re-entry.
EMI
conducts a monthly series of VTTXs using a teleconference platform to reach community based training audiences around the
country providing a virtual forum for disaster training. The design of the VTTX is for a group of ten or more
representatives from state and local Emergency Management Community of Practice.
Participants must have an appropriate site equipped with video teleconference
capability.
The goals of the VTTX are to test
the participants’ knowledge, skills, and abilities to conduct all-hazards
emergency response and recovery effectively. The VTTXs also enable coordination
response operations with counterparts from Federal agencies, state and local
governments, private sector organizations, non-governmental agencies, and other
whole community partners. The VTTX occurs 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. ET.
EMI will conduct the following VTTX programs in February and
March:
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February 9, 10, 11, 2016: Cyber scenario (course number V0015B)
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February 23, 24, 25, 2016: Tornado scenario (course numvber V0005A)
- March
8, 9, 10, 2016: Tornado scenario (course
number V0005B)
- March
22, 23, 24, 2016: Flood scenario (course
number V0007)
To participate in a
VTTX, submit an email request to Doug Kahn at douglas.kahn@fema.dhs.gov or
call 301-447-7645. Please send a courtesy copy email to the Integrated
Emergency Management Branch at FEMA-EMI-IEMB@fema.dhs.gov or
call 301-447-1381. The deadline
for applying to a VTTX is four weeks prior to the start date. Additional
information is available at https://training.fema.gov/programs/emivttx.aspx.
FEMA's EMI, in
partnership with the DHS’s Office of Academic Engagement, FEMA Region VII, and
U.S. Fire Administration, will present a webinar titled "Tools for
Creating Campus Resilience" on December 16 from 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET.
The webinar will discuss ReadyCampus, the DHS Campus Resilience Pilot Program
for Colleges and Universities. This student-centered program brings together
many prominent organizations, private sector, and local volunteer organizations
to teach general preparedness and the U.S. Fire
Administration's Campus Fire Safety Program to students and staff. Natural, technological, and health
hazards could all affect daily campus operations. Institutions are encouraged
to regularly review, update, and exercise their emergency plans.
Participants should register
in advance for the online webinar. Closed captioning will be provided.
FEMA’s Federal Insurance
and Mitigation Administration released FEMA’s Leadership
Intent to implement the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS). The
Intent describes the framework FEMA is proposing to implement for Executive
Order (E.O.) 13690 and the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard. E.O. 13690 provides
federal agencies flexibility to choose from one or more approaches to identify
an elevation requirement above the base flood elevation. Additionally,
E.O. 13690 amended E.O. 11988 to set forth a higher level of resilience for
activities where even a slight chance of flooding is too great. The Intent
outlines FEMA’s approach to standardize its use of the multiple elevation
requirements above the base flood elevation.
Continuing our
commitment to an open, collaborative, stakeholder-focused process in
implementing the FFRMS, FEMA is sharing this framework for public comment on
FEMA’s website. Public comments received will continue to inform the regulatory
and policy development process. For more information,
visit
www.fema.gov/federal-flood-risk-management-standard-ffrms or send
comments by December 17, 2015, to FEMA-EO11988-13690@fema.dhs.gov.
FEMA
is seeking public comment on proposed changes to regulation describing FEMA’s
Individual Assistance (IA) declarations criteria. FEMA published the proposed
rule in the Federal
Register, and is seeking comments by January 11, 2016.
The Sandy Recovery Improvement Act (SRIA) requires FEMA to review, update and revise,
through rulemaking, the factors it uses to measure the severity, magnitude, and
impact of a disaster. The proposed rule, which has a 60 day public
comment period, is intended to provide more objective and clear IA declaration factors and speed the declaration process,
including FEMA’s recommendation to the President on whether a major disaster
declaration authorizing IA is warranted.
The proposed rule largely expands and clarifies
current factors and aligns them with the data presently collected to support
the evaluation process and adds additional data sets easily accessible by states.
FEMA reviewed the current factors and the proposed rule intends to revise the
current factors by including: State Fiscal Capacity and Resource Availability,
Uninsured Home and Personal Property Losses, Disaster Impacted Population
Profile, Impact to Community Infrastructure, Casualties, and Disaster Related Unemployment.
Comments are due on January 11, 2016, and can be submitted
online.
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG) opened for applications on Monday, December 7, and will close on Friday, January 15,
2016, at 5 p.m. ET. Grant guidance for this program is available at www.grants.gov and www.fema.gov/firegrants/afggrants/index.shtm.
The “Get Ready Guide” may also be useful for potential applicants and is provided to answer
questions and to help prepare grant applications.
The Department of
Homeland Security Appropriations Act, (Pub. L. 113-76) provides
$306,000,000 in AFG Program funding to assist fire departments and
nonaffiliated ambulance and emergency medical service organizations meet their
firefighting and emergency response needs. The AFG Program enables these
organizations to obtain the tools and resources necessary to more effectively
protect the health and safety of the public and emergency response personnel.
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