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Are You Ready? September is National Preparedness Month and a great opportunity for your household, business, or community to focus on preparedness. It is recommended that all Americans have an emergency supply kit and an emergency plan, and be informed about the different emergencies that can happen in their area and the appropriate responses.

Note: The following text is a quote: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 National Preparedness Month Check out the Secretary's White House Blog post from this morning about National Preparedness Month. Building a Ready and Resilient Nation Today marks the beginning of National Preparedness Month, an opportunity for our nation’s families and communities to discuss their plans if they were faced with an emergency. Protecting the United States from threats like terrorism, natural disasters, and infectious diseases is a shared responsibility and everyone has an important role to play. This effort starts in our own communities. By talking to your neighbors, friends...

The most remarkable thing about civil unrest is that there hasn't been more of it. Politicians are making a hash of this country—and much of the rest of the civilized world. We know it. They know it. They know we know it. But we don't feel we can do anything much to stop them. That right there is the pre-condition for civil unrest—when people are frustrated and politicians are nervous. Worse, that was how things stood before last fall's crash. Before pols on both left and right launched the biggest mass transfer of wealth in history—transferring our wealth (what we...

"Our entire emergency management team has a role to play when it comes to preparing for and responding to the next disaster," said Administrator Fugate. "One of the most important parts of that team is the public. The more prepared the public is now, by getting an emergency response kit, making an emergency action plan, and getting a skill, like CPR, the stronger our emergency response team will be."

[H]am radio operators will test their emergency communications capabilities with amateur radio clubs across the nation this weekend. The field day, the culmination of National Amateur Radio Week, known as the Nationwide Emergency Communications Drill, is intended to give the public a glimpse of the services amateur radio operators provide and a chance to meet the operators themselves. "In a disaster, when phone lines, cellphones and the Internet are all down, ham radio operators will be on the job," said Jon Clark, president of the Antelope Valley Amateur Radio Club. The club will set up at the north end of...

SAN DIEGO -- SNIPPET: "Wiseman isn't alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hard-core survivalists."

http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/programs/Copy_of_press_release_0046.shtm Homeland Security Advisory System Current Threat Level April 24, 2009 The United States government's national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow. For all domestic and international flights, the U.S. threat level is High, or Orange. See the Transportation Security Administration for up-to-date information on items permitted and prohibited on airlines. Recommended Activities All Americans should continue to be vigilant, take notice of their surroundings, and report suspicious items or activities to local authorities immediately. Everyone should establish an emergency preparedness kit and emergency plan for themselves and their family, and stay informed about what to do during an emergency....

Note: The following text is a quote: Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101 A Guide for All-Hazard Emergency Operations Planning Overview The FEMA Comprehensive Preparedness Guide, CPG 101 provides general guidelines on developing Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs). It promotes a common understanding of the fundamentals of planning and decision making to help emergency planners examine a hazard and produce integrated, coordinated, and synchronized plans. This Guide helps emergency managers in State, Territorial, Local, and Tribal governments in their efforts to develop and maintain a viable all-hazard EOP. CPG 101 continues the more than 50-year effort to provide guidance about emergency operations planning...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53628 Disaster Preparedness Exercise Trains 500 Guardsmen in Puerto Rico By Army Staff Sgt. S. Patrick McCollum Special to American Forces Press Service PONCE, Puerto Rico, March 25, 2009 – An underwater earthquake triggers a tsunami as a terrorist cell is discovered producing dangerous chemicals. If there was a time to call the National Guard, this is it. Fortunately, these scenarios are only a simulation at Vigilant Guard 2009, an exercise under way here that tests the capabilities of more than 500 Guard members from five states and territories to handle disasters and...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09030071.htm Thursday, March 12, 2009 Christian Security Expert Jeff Hawkins says Churches not Immune from Random Acts of Violence, Need to be Prepared By Michael Ireland Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- A pastor shot to death during a Sunday morning service, a policeman and two soldiers killed in Northern Ireland, a shooting rampage that killed ten in Alabama, and 15 murdered by a disgruntled student in Germany. Random acts of violence affecting and forever changing the lives of those around the victims who have been gunned down in...

Ready for Ready for recession How long would the food supply in your home last without grocery shopping? A couple days? A few weeks? A year? Mormons, who store a year's supply of food in their homes, might top the Boy Scouts in the "Be Prepared" department. "The Lord tells us, if you are prepared you don't have to fear," said Marie Whitaker of Henryville, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Stroudsburg. You don't have to be Mormon to plan for tight times. It is simple advice anyone can follow. Whitaker says her stash...

VIDEO: "Disaster Preparedness From Ready.gov" VIDEO DESCRIPTION - Snippet: "Three steps on how to prepare for an emergency or disaster."

DALLAS — As far as the Boy Scouts of America is concerned, knowing how to confront a bully is now as important as mastering a slip knot. For the first time in the 97-year history of the nation's largest youth organization, newcomers must show they have learned Scout-approved ways to avoid being pushed around and called names, if they want to advance through the ranks. Shaken down for your lunch money? Tell the bully how it hurts. Called a crater face? The 2008 Boy Scout Handbook recommends this comeback: "So what if I have a face full of zits. What's...

Source: University of Oxford Date: August 21, 2007 San Andreas Fault Likely Much More Destructive Than Current Models Predict Science Daily — High-speed ruptures travelling along straight fault lines could explain why some earthquakes are more destructive than others, according to an Oxford University scientist. In this week’s Science, Professor Shamita Das suggests that ruptures in the Earth’s surface moving at 6km per second could make future earthquakes along California’s San Andreas fault much more destructive than current models predict. A box canyon on the San Andreas fault: High speed ruptures travelling along the straight section of the fault could...

Minor League Baseball and Boy Scouts Step Up to the Plate to Encourage Families to Prepare for Emergencies http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1175712102184.shtm Release Date: April 4, 2007 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 2007 Season Participating Minor League Baseball Teams and Schedule of Ready Games (PDF, 2 pages - 10 KB) Minor League Baseball and the Boy Scouts of America are teaming up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Ready Campaign for the fourth consecutive year to educate and encourage Americans to prepare for emergencies. Forty-nine baseball teams are joining many local Boy Scout councils in stepping up...

TRAPHILL, N.C. (AP) -- Search teams combed mountain terrain Sunday for a 12-year-old Boy Scout who disappeared during an outing. About 10 scouts and the adult leaders of Troop 230, from Greensboro, noticed that Michael Auberry was missing between 12:30 p.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday in Stone Mountain State Park, officials said. The troop had gone on a hike earlier Saturday, and the boy and an adult stayed behind, said David Bauer, a ranger with the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was not immediately clear why they stayed behind. After the troop returned and ate lunch with Michael and the adult,...

Wife and two daughters of senior editor James Kim found in Oregon; search is still on for James Kim, who left the car on foot two days ago. The wife and daughters of missing CNET senior editor James Kim have been found alive and airlifted to a local hospital, authorities announced at a press conference in Merlin, Ore., Monday afternoon. James Kim left the car on snowshoes two days ago to seek help and has not been found, the official said. The search for him continues. According to the official speaking at the news conference, the conditions of Kati, Penelope...

Scouting survives: Even in high-tech age, youths learn to 'Be prepared'http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=144116 Sunday August 6, 2006 by CANDICE BOSELY candiceb@herald-mail.com TRI-STATE - These are a few of their favorite things: Cell phones and cookies, iPods and pop-up tents, video games and wilderness badges. Seeing teenagers - and children even younger - talking or sending text messages on cell phones, fiddling with mp3 music players and playing video games are common sights. Girl Scouting and Boy Scouting might almost seem passé, given the associated images of camping, surviving in the wilderness and sleeping in wooden cabins at camp. But it's not antiquated...

Scout `angel' recalls fiery horrorhttp://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1153173011551 http://tinyurl.com/jfma3 JIM COYLE Jul. 18, 2006. 06:01 AM Long before there were Guardian Angels, pressing their largely unasked-for services upon a largely unreceptive city, Toronto had guardian angels of a more popular and fetching sort. And, happily, I had reader Glen Bonham to remind me. Recently, after the death of a retired harbour police officer who played a role in the long-ago drama, I wrote about the burning of the cruise ship Noronic at the foot of Yonge St. in 1949, and the death of 119 passengers in an inferno that gave downtown Toronto the...

FORT LEE, Va., June 5, 2006 – Military families are being encouraged to "load up their pantries" as the Defense Commissary Agency launches an awareness campaign encouraging military families to keep nonperishable foods, water and other necessities on hand for emergencies. Defense Commissary Agency posters on the tell shoppers to stock up for this hurricane season, which started June 1.   DeCA is teaming up with the Armed Forces Emergency Services Branch of the American Red Cross to raise awareness of disaster preparedness throughout the military community. The "What's in Your Closet?" campaign kicks off this month and is intended...

SAN FRANCISCO - City residents should prepare to survive at least three days without help if disaster - from an earthquake to a terror attack - strikes, according to the city's Office of Emergency Services. A city-sponsored Web site, http://www.72hours.org, includes lists of everything well-stocked San Franciscans should keep in their home and cars to be ready for the next big emergency when power, running water and telephones may be unavailable for days."If Hurricane Katrina didn't prove it to you, I don't know what will," Mayor Gavin Newsom said recently at a news conference unveiling a citywide public awareness campaign...

Well-stocked kits of supplies would not have helped tens of thousands hit squarely by Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches -- where destruction was utter and irresistible. Nonetheless, have a personal survival plan. This isn't about survivalist obsessions with Armageddon. This is about just-in-time America's apathy and procrastination -- the expectation you can hop in the car and go to the store anytime you need something. And if disaster occurs, the government will be Johnny-on-the-spot. After all, that's what you pay taxes for, right? But the government's best-kept yet most obvious secret is this: If it fouls up (and it...

Bountiful, Utah (AP) -- Jody Hawkins buckled and collapsed as she climbed into a sheriff's truck, convinced that authorities were about to tell her that her 11-year-old son had been found dead four days after getting lost in the Utah wilderness. Instead came the shocker: Her boy was found alive. And not only that, but he was unscathed. "I really didn't think he could survive that long in the wilderness," Hawkins said, her voice breaking at times. "When they told me Brennan was still alive and in good shape, my brain still cannot comprehend that." Jody and Toby Hawkins described...

The LDS Church who believes strongly in self reliance. Spencer W. Kimball, one of the deceased presidents of this church said, "No true Latter-day Saint, while physically or emotionally able, will voluntarily shift the burden of his own or his family's well-being to someone else... Maintain a year's supply. The Lord has urged that his people save for the rainy days, prepare for the difficult times, and put away for emergencies, a year's supply or more of bare necessities so that when comes the flood, the earthquake, the famine, the hurricane, the storms of life, our families can be sustained ...

Philadelphia’s Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council self-destructed last week. Its executive board voted unanimously to include "sexual orientation" in its nondiscrimination code. The outrageous move came after years of intense pressure from radical homosexual and atheist rights groups in the area and nationwide. The Philadelphia Council is the third largest local council in the country, serving 87,000 boys and men. It is an unfortunate addition to a list of councils that have eagerly given the finger to the Boy Scouts of America and its associated moral codes. Last year, San Francisco and Boston became the first branches to reject...

Jewish World Review Feb. 13, 2003 / 11 Adar I, 5763 Surviving a Chemical attack, Part I: Act fast By Scott R. Burnell http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | (UPI) Common sense is more helpful than expensive equipment for the average citizen when it comes to responding to a terrorist attack using chemical agents or even a simple accident at a chemical plant, officials and medical specialists told United Press International. Chemical warfare falls into three basic categories, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The compounds can affect the central nervous system, skin, mucous membranes or the lungs.Nerve agents, with names like...

Structural Designs to Reduce the Effects of Terrorist Car Bombs on Buildings and Architectural Glazing FULL ARTICLE HERE On April 19, 1995, in a time span of about three seconds, an 1800 kg car bomb blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The bombing resulted in the death of 168 people and hundreds of injuries. Even though this bomb was placed three to five meters away from the building, one side of the building collapsed. This collapse and flying shards of glass, not the blast, caused 80% of the deaths in the bombing [Prendergast, 1995]. Bombings...