Situational Awareness & How to Obtain It | Domestic Preparedness Photo: ©iStock.com/vanbeets
Preparedness

Situational Awareness & How to Obtain It

by Jason Pagan -

Emergency management is a dynamic field filled with numerous personalities managing ever-changing environments. Some emergency managers handle disastrous events on a yearly basis compared with others who go their entire careers without facing a single disaster. They maneuver unique political landscapes, manage robust emergency management offices, or work in offices of one. In any setting, one of the critical tools found within the emergency manager’s toolbox is maintaining situational awareness.

 
Preparedness

Crisis Leadership – Doing More With Less

by Terry Hastings -

During a crisis, leaders must be able to adapt and operate in an uncertain environment. In doing so, leaders are required to make more consequential and challenging decisions with less information and less time to decide. They also have fewer options to consider and likely garner more scrutiny for their actions. This examination of key case studies provides current leaders with lessons learned from effective and ineffective leadership decisions in the past.

Resilience

Trauma Lessons Learned From a School Shooting

by Robert C. Hutchinson -

At the end of the school day on 14 February 2018, a former student entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) in Parkland, Florida, and committed a mass murder on the campus that forever changed numerous lives and an entire community. During the attack, 17 students and staff were killed and another 17 were injured. Approximately 3,500 students and staff were not physically injured, but most definitely affected by the active shooter attack.

Commentary

Building a Healthy & Resilient Community

by Catherine L. Feinman -

A healthy community is a resilient community. From pandemic threats to school shootings, crisis events continue to affect the health and wellbeing of the surrounding human population long after the crisis ends. These health effects can then weaken a community’s ability to cope with future disasters. As such, physical, psychological, environmental, and technological factors all play key roles in determining how well a community prepares for, mitigates, responds to, and recovers from a disaster.

Preparedness

Gene Drives – An Emerging Terrorist Threat

by Richard Schoeberl -

Conventional acts of terrorism will likely never fade away, and advancements in technology will continually raise concerns for governments and global security practitioners. The increasing threat and possibility of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) use is evolving. Terrorist groups are actively seeking materials and the expertise to manufacture and utilize those materials in future operations. One of the frontiers in terrorism today involves a developing technology known as “gene drives.”

Commentary

Podcast: Hurricanes & Islands – One Year Later

by Andrew Roszak -

During September 2017, two major Category 5 hurricanes impacted the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than one year later, the scope, scale, and magnitude of Hurricanes Irma and Maria are still being felt. DomPrep Advisor Andrew Roszak recently sat down to conduct a podcast with Chance Lindner of the U.S. Virgin Islands Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to learn more about the state of recovery and how EMS is seeking to deploy a community paramedicine model to better serve the needs of the islands.

Updates

Ad Hoc Student Team Wins Hackathon With Innovation in UAS Detection

A group of five graduate students, from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), across the physics, electrical engineering, and defense analysis departments came up with a new way to acoustically detect small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) when they participated - and won - the Army Futures Command’s “A-Hack-of-the-Drones” hackathon.

Sandia Microneedles Technique May Mean Quicker Diagnoses of Major Illnesses

When people are in the early stages of an undiagnosed disease, immediate tests that lead to treatment are the best first steps. A technique using microneedles able to draw relatively large amounts of interstitial fluid – a liquid that lurks just under the skin – opens new possibilities. The new method’s larger draws could be more effective in rapidly measuring exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents, as well as diagnosing cancer and other diseases.

Download the ShakeAlertLA Earthquake Early Warning App Now

The City of Los Angeles, under the oversight of Mayor Eric Garcetti and built on the ShakeAlert system developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, has released ShakeAlertLA, a mobile application that sends alerts to users within Los Angeles County that an earthquake of greater than magnitude 5.0 or Level IV intensity has been detected and that they may soon feel shaking.

Ground Breaking New Saliva Diagnostic Test Set to Help Eliminate Malaria

ERADA Technology Alliance have announced the imminent launch of a world first diagnostic saliva test for malaria. The saliva-based diagnostic tool, to be marketed by ERADA as a Saliva-based Malaria Asymptomatic and Asexual Rapid Test (SMAART) for subclinical infection, is set to transform malaria detection worldwide in the fight against one of the globe’s most deadly diseases.

Strategic National Stockpile Preparedness Course

The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) Preparedness Course is a five-day course designed to give federal, state, and local officials information on how to best plan and prepare for a public health emergency and how to use and manage the Strategic National Stockpile in response to a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or technological accident.