Upon the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United
States, several leadership changes took effect in Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA). To ensure there is no interruption in the delivery of FEMA’s critical
mission, the career successors assumed acting positions immediately following
the Presidential Inauguration ceremony on Friday January 20, 2017. Mr. Robert Fenton is serving
as the Acting FEMA Administrator and Mr. David Grant is serving as
the Acting FEMA Deputy Administrator.
Since joining FEMA in 1996, Mr. Fenton had a significant
role in numerous large-scale response and recovery operations in the United States,
and has responded to almost a 100 Federal disasters, including Hurricane Katrina,
the four Florida Hurricanes of 2004, the Southern California Wildfires of 2003
and 2007, the Super Typhoon Pongsona in Guam, and the 9/11 World Trade Center
terrorist attacks. He has worked both in the regions and at Headquarters. Mr. Fenton served as the Deputy Associate
Administrator in FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, prior to his
appointment as Regional Administrator for Region 9 in 2015.
Mr. Grant has served as FEMA Associate Administrator for
Mission Support since 2015, after workings FEMA’s Chief Procurement Officer. He
is an experienced leader, having acted as Chief of Agency-Wide Shared Services
for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) where he provided oversight and
direction to key operational and administrative divisions in support of IRS tax
administration, oversaw a staff of approximately 3,000 employees, and managed a
budget exceeding $3 billion in support of more than 100,000 IRS employees.
FEMA’s Acting Leadership looks forward to working with all of
you in the weeks ahead. We are committed to ensuring that the Agency
remains focused on the mission and the work that we do. We are incredibly proud
of the many successes we’ve accomplished together – and those that we will
achieve in the future.
For a full list of new acting leadership. Please go to FEMA.gov.
The Navajo Nation is the second Tribal Nation to become an
alerting authority, authorized to use FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and
Warning System (IPAWS). The nation’s public alert and warning infrastructure,
IPAWS, provides resources for public safety officials to deliver a single alert
simultaneously through multiple communication devices, saving time when it
matters most and reaching as many people as possible to save lives and protect
property.
The Navajo Nation comprises 27,000 square miles over three
FEMA regions and states: New Mexico (Region 6), Utah (Region 8), and Arizona
(Region 9). Now, Navajo Nation officials can use the free, internet-based
tool to issue severe weather alerts,
abducted children (or AMBER) alerts, and other public alerts and warnings.
In the aftermath of a recent child abduction investigation, a
multiagency task force that included the Navajo Nation Division of Public
Safety reached out to FEMA for IPAWS assistance. After an IPAWS demonstration
by FEMA officials in December 2016, the Navajo Nation this month became only
the second Tribe to be an IPAWS alerting authority, the first being the Cocopah
Nation in Arizona.
More information on how Tribal governments can sign up for
IPAWS can be found here.
At the end of 2016, FEMA finalized the Pre-Disaster Recovery
Planning Guide for State Governments. This Guide is the first in a series of
three that will be released in the next year that will include a guide for
local governments and a guide for tribal governments.
FEMA designed these planning guides to help states and
territories prepare for recovery by developing pre-disaster recovery plans that
follow a process to engage members of the whole community, develop recovery
capabilities across State government and nongovernmental partners, and
ultimately create an organizational framework for comprehensive state recovery
efforts.
A pre-disaster recovery plan, and the inclusive process used
to develop it, establishes resilience through state-level leadership and
structure, forms communication channels, and builds whole-community
partnerships to support recovery efforts.
The Guide provides useful information that will support the
preparation of state agencies to more easily adapt to new post-disaster roles
needed to manage new or modified sources of state and Federal recovery
resources.
You can view the Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for
State Governments by clicking here. For
any questions regarding this guide, please reach out to cpcb-rsf@fema.dhs.gov.
FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) will offer a
webinar series that provides an overview of the use of cases in teaching
emergency management higher education programs. The webinar will be held February
8, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. EST
The third webinar in the Emergency Management Teaching
with Cases series will focus on teaching considerations, and will examine
preparing to teach a case; important instructor functions and techniques
associated with case teaching; and, typical problems and “fixes.” This session
will provide an appreciation for many of the fundamentals needed for effective
use of case methods. The fourth webinar in this series will be held in March.
EMI is looking for several volunteers who would be
interested in offering a case example to help illustrate these important
aspects of preparation and “running” a case. Please contact Jane (jkushma@jsu.edu) or
Jean (Jean.Slick@RoyalRoads.ca)
prior to the webinar if you would like to volunteer.
To participate in this webinar, please register here.
For additional information: Contact Wendy Walsh at wendy.walsh@fema.dhs.gov
Emergency Management Institute
Offers Hurricane Virtual Tabletop Exercise
FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) Virtual Tabletop
Exercise (VTTX) program will offer six sessions of a hurricane scenario on March
21, 22, 23 and April 11, 12, 13. The VTTX helps communities prepare
for the upcoming hurricane season using historical events and recovery
actions. The application deadlines are February 21 and March 14
respectively. Content is the same each day, and participants would attend
only one session. The VTTX involves key personnel discussing simulated
scenarios in an informal setting and can be used to assess plans, policies,
training, and procedures.
The VTTX will occur 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. ET on each of
the days listed above. To participate, send an email to Doug Kahn at douglas.kahn@fema.dhs.gov
or call 301-447-7645. Also, send a courtesy copy email to the Integrated
Emergency Management Branch at fema-emi-iemb@fema.dhs.gov or call 301-447-1381. Additional
information is available at https://training.fema.gov/programs/emivttx.aspx.
SAFER Grant Program Application
Period is Open
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released the
Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER)
Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). The Department of Homeland Security
Appropriations Act, 2016 provides $345,000,000 for the SAFER Grant Program for
the Department to assist fire departments and volunteer interest organizations
to increase the number of trained, "front line" firefighters
available in their communities.
SAFER grants provide financial assistance to help fire
departments increase frontline firefighters. SAFER offers grants to support
activities in two categories- Hiring of Firefighters and Recruitment and
Retention of Volunteer Firefighters. The authority for SAFER is derived from
the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974, as amended (15 U.S.C.
§2229a et seq.).
The notice of funding opportunity document provides
applicants with the details of the requirements, processing, and evaluation of
an application for financial assistance for both of these activity areas.
The NOFO and technical assistance documents for this program
are available at www.grants.gov,
and at http://www.fema.gov/staffing-adequate-fire-emergency-response-grants.
The application period will close on Friday,
February 10, 2017 at 5 p.m, ET.
Grant Program to Prepare
Communities for Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks
The grant application period for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Program to Prepare Communities for Complex
Coordinated Terrorist Attacks (CCTA Program) is currently open. The
CCTA program provides $35.94 million to state, local, tribal, and territorial
jurisdictions to improve their ability to prepare for, prevent, and respond to
complex coordinated terrorist attacks in collaboration with the whole
community.
The application period will
remain open until February 10, 2017 at 11:59:59 p.m. ET.
The FY 2016 CCTA Program Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)
is located online at: http://www.fema.gov/grants as well as on http://www.grants.gov
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number 97.133.
If you have any questions, please contact FEMA’s
Intergovernmental Affairs Division at (202) 646-3444 or at FEMA-IGA@fema.dhs.gov.
Applications Open for Integrated Emergency Management Courses
FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) conducts
Integrated Emergency Management Courses (IEMC's) throughout the year and across
the country. The four-and-a-half day training course is designed specifically
for communities, providing both lecture and exercise-based training focused on
response operations for a disaster or emergency that could happen in their
area.
IEMC's courses simulate realistic crisis situations that
emergency operations center personnel and community leadership/elected
officials may encounter during disasters or other events. Also, the course
enhances the skills of participating officials and provides a forum to evaluate
the effectiveness of their specific emergency policies, plans, and procedures
to protect life and property. The course’s target audience includes:
state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government personnel; their SLTT
elected and appointed officials; supervisory, operations, and emergency support
personnel; nonprofit organizations; the private sector; law enforcement personnel;
firefighters; attorneys; public information officers; planners; and more.
IEMC classes are principally delivered at FEMA’s EMI at the
National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland; however,
delivery may also occur in the community. If your jurisdiction is interested in
applying for the program and obtaining information on the application process
and its timeline, please visit http://training.fema.gov/iemc/. The deadline for applications
is February 15, 2017. Questions should be directed to FEMA-EMI-IEMB@fema.dhs.gov.
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