 Hello and welcome to Homeland Responder. Homeland Responder is brought to you through the facilities of the Homeland Security Training Network and is being distributed over government and commercial information networks. Homeland Responder is designed as an awareness level training tool that presents weapons of mass destruction and public safety awareness information to assist in the planning, training and preparation of emergency responders. The broad spectrum of subject matter in Homeland Responder is meant to apply to a wide audience of local, regional, state and federal agencies. The perception of the inherent dangers and complex threats facing this country has changed significantly in recent years. These threats continue to cross a broad spectrum of contingencies, from acts of terrorism to natural disasters to other man-made hazards. Because all carry the potential for severe consequences, these threats must be addressed with a unified effort. Planning is an essential component to successful prevention and mitigation of a WMD incident. Stacy Phillips talked with local and federal emergency planners to learn how to design and implement a successful WMD plan for your jurisdiction. It's chaotic. I mean, if you don't know what the expectations are from each other, it's chaotic. Those first few minutes and an hour are going to be highly critical because you're going to start to develop an understanding that should have been developed months or days before when you've sat down at the same table. The issue that we face now with weapons of mass destruction has only raised the importance of good planning. Having a plan, having any plan is better than trying to make this up as you go along. The idea of doing pre-planning is critical to an effective response. For years, emergency services responded to incidents of all types, both man-made and natural disasters. And that's not to say that departments, agencies have not had some types of experience with terrorism response. America's communities that we protect expect us, first responders, to be prepared to interact together. The community needs to be confident and have an understanding that their responders are prepared to meet that threat. The purpose of a response plan is to enhance the ability of your jurisdiction to prepare for and to manage incidents with a more comprehensive approach. This new approach must be addressed with increased awareness, preventive measures, and robust preparedness. Effective communication between every organization within the response community will be one of the most important elements during the planning process. We went to Sterling Heights, Michigan to talk with the Director of Emergency Management, Bob Johnson. What is the purpose of a WMD response plan? WMD response plan, in my mind, offers the emergency responders a document, a policy procedure document that can be used for training as well, especially with terrorism. Terrorism is a very unexpected phenomenon to some degree, and because of that, we do need those policies and procedures in place. You can have all the plans that you want, and when they're sitting on the shelf, they're not going to do you any good when the disaster happens. The purpose of a weapons of mass destruction response plan is to think about what particular issues or requirements exist that are unique to a WMD incident. Most communities have good emergency operations plans. They've thought about the kind of requirements that they're going to have, about what the needs are that maybe aren't forthcoming within the community and where they're going to have to get additional assets, when and if a community is unfortunate enough to experience a weapons of mass destruction incident. The stakes are just much higher and the problems are much more complex. The purpose of the response plan is not unlike most response plans, to be prepared for a specific type of incident or incident. What's different today for America's first responders, it's a term that if misunderstood can be problematic for agencies. Agencies need to respond with a much more wariness today when they suspect no or have been verified. It is a WMD incident because the responders themselves responding to help the community do not want to become victims themselves. A WMD well-planned response plan can help enormously keeping from that to occur. To accomplish the goals of a response plan it needs to integrate all incident management activities from pre-incident awareness, prevention and preparedness to incident response and post-incident recovery. It is important that your planning process includes all disciplines that will participate in the response. Establishing a team approach to the emergency planning process captures valuable best practices between agencies and is critical to the success of the plan. You can't miss by being too inclusive in the process of planning, you really can't. In order to have a successful response we need to marshal all the assets that the community has to bring to bear. So things like obviously law enforcement and fire rescue, emergency medical, hazardous materials units will be first on the scene and be front and foremost. But in addition, public works, the people who have to be concerned about the infrastructure in that community that will certainly be affected. But more than anything else, medical assets. I'm not just talking about the first responder, emergency medical folks as critical as they're going to be and as overwhelmed as they could potentially be. But the hospitals, other healthcare facilities in the community, all of those, the entire public health structure is going to be tested. In the city of Sterling Heights, we utilize federal, state, local agencies and departments, the private sector, healthcare, local chamber of commerce. And we looked at what would happen if a terrorist event occurred in this city, bringing everybody together because it would involve, as well as the schools, it would involve anybody in the community, plus the residential community. We have a successful terrorism attack in this country and it really doesn't matter what kind of attack, whether it's biological terrorism, whether it's even a seren gas attack or even a radiological dispersion device, they're going to test our emergency medical system as it hasn't been tested in this country since 1918 when we had the influence of epidemic. Medical folks need to see themselves as responders now and as integral parts of the emergency community. And that's one of the things that we're working on very hard at FEMA these days. Coordination and communications begins from people getting up behind their desk or wherever they work that are responsible for different agencies and meeting one another personally, understanding if you're the police chief and I'm the fire chief that we're on a first name basis. If the sheriff's department and the fire department and that agency's arena of influence or response are strangers, communications are going to be extremely different. If you're not familiar with the health service's primary responsible people in that agency to meet them at an incident that has WMD impact, it's too late. That's part of the planning process. That's part of agencies and jurisdictions working collectively together that understands each other's missions, what that requires of each other and how you're going to closely coordinate those local assets, those local resources that you have, who's responsible for particular type incidents, where those connections, those lines of communications flow and it doesn't occur in the street. That's the operational side. And again, if you sit down and write a plan yourself, it will absolutely fail. You bring people together, you find out, number one, what are their needs because everybody has needs. It doesn't matter who's on the team, they all have special needs. How should the communication be opened up between different agencies in order to make sure that a response plan is effective? I think what you need to do is sit down and map out who some of the stakeholders are and bring them together in a room and start talking about how you're going to develop a WMD plan, how you're going to respond and at the same time say to the people that are sitting in a room, what other people do you think that we need to interface with and use this cascading process? We think in these small terms that it's police and fire and emergency services and hospitals and we forget about transportation and we forget about some of the other elements in the community. We are at one meeting where they brought in a representative of the water department who started to discuss about all these small pumping stations they had and how they protect those and how they would respond. And then we started to get in other civic groups that were right in the neighborhood because police department couldn't drive by and see what was happening in these facilities so they said maybe we need to involve some of the neighborhood groups because these neighbors are driving by this pumping station three and four times a day. Maybe they need to be brought in and understand how they can support the plan and what would happen if this pumping station was lost. While the primary responsibility for initial incident response remains at the local level, using locally available assets for prevention or response may also require federal, state and private sector resources and the most dangerous and complex threats. Non-governmental organizations including volunteer and faith-based groups provide essential services to victims. Volunteers enhance community coordination and action. Private business and industry collaboration with government and other organizations are essential for protecting and restoring critical infrastructure and the event of an incident. The Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and again I'm leaving out people, volunteer groups of any kind. We have a special emergency patrol with the police department, neighborhood watch groups. We go into communities and we bring the public sector, police fire emergency services and other aspects of the public sector together with business so they can start joint planning process so they get to know each other, how they're going to respond, what are the expectations, what are the maybe assumptions that are incorrect, what are the areas of shortfall that they can't meet. So we bring them together and we start them talking about that the way they would respond. So if there is an incident it's not the first time they've met each other. We look to the Salvation Army, we look to the Red Cross, we look to those other agencies that you don't work with that often unless you're in an area with severe hazards. When you come to a WMD event you're going to be dealing with the psychosocial effects of your public, your emergency people, you're going to need feeding, you're going to need sheltering. Every aspect of those volunteer agencies will probably come into play and the jurisdiction who is not dealing with them now needs to do that right now, not when the disaster happens or the WMD event occurs. Private voluntary organizations, non-governmental organizations can be key and I just tell you from a personal experience that as a federal official in disasters oftentimes I'm limited by what I can do to respond. I'm limited by the law under which a federal response is authorized and who I can help and what assets I can move and relying on organizations like the Red Cross and Salvation Army and so forth. They can do things that I can't do. They can help people and get quickly into places that federal agencies and either local government agencies can't do. How do we make sure that people who come there have business being there and that we don't have a lot of well-intentioned folks showing up that really can become part of the problem? What is the most important message that you hope this interview will convey? The most important message I would like to convey is bring the community together, bring business together, bring the civic groups together because if there's another WMD event or that may happen, similar to the anthrax and like that, that the way we're going to work through it is the more people that understand what the planning process is, what their role in that the plan may be, the better off we're going to be in the long term because we know that if there's a WMD event that it's going to be long duration and the public resources are soon going to be tapped out and exhausted and they're going to need support from the whole community. So get together and talk about how you're going to respond to an event. It is important to incorporate existing procedures and response protocols into the planning process. The planning team should focus on how the existing plans are meshed into emergency response plans and how existing plan shortfalls can be addressed. It is also important to understand how the different response agencies will perform their duties and how they will contribute to the overall mitigation of the emergency. While a WMD event is going to be different, the processes, procedures, people, equipment and systems that we're going to use to respond to that are going to be the same. The firefighters, the police officers, the medical personnel, emergency medical folks are going to be doing essentially the same thing they're doing in any kind of a no notice, no event disaster. They practice these, they are excellent at their jobs and they know how to do it. And so knowing that we're going to be using the same systems and the same people and so forth to respond to a WMD incident, we can take the existing plans and just add and flesh out where we need to to deal with the special considerations that come up when you have to deal with a terrorist event. What you need to do is the police or the fire needs to get together with the business and say, do you have an emergency plan in place? More than likely, if it's any good-sized business or progressive business, they're going to say, yes, we do. And the next question is, well, what is your plan? And what do you expect us to do? It can be as simple as what I saw in my prior life as Director of Security and Fire and Motor Company is if there is an event and police and fire arrive at the scene, where are we going to meet you? Because you've never been in this million square foot facility, probably, or if you have, you've probably forgotten what it's about. So I need to know where to meet you and where we can link up and get this event managed. How does the National Response Plan affect local planning? The National Response Plan for us is another support document. We need to know how the federal government, because there's so many agencies that will come in on a WMD event, we need to know how they have set up their procedures. For instance, the FBI will probably set up what they call a different EOC from what we may set up. We need to know that, so we're not wasting time and effort on trying to determine who's in charge and who's not in charge. All the other agencies that the federal government have available to us are addressed within that plan, so you have to have a knowledge of it. You don't necessarily work from it, but the knowledge will gain you time and save a lot of effort when they do show up on the scene. If you begin to add the numbers of people at a local incident that has a national impact, it can only be a coordinated response that has a system that everyone understands, understands how they fit into that system, that understands whether they belong in planning, logistics, operational or finance, whether they belong at the strategic level, decision-making level of the system. You cannot articulate that from one person, because if it becomes large, when the National Emergency Response Plan or the Federal Response Plan, which is now being defined as the National Response Plan, we're talking about the resources of the federal government arriving through the state, normally through the Emergency Operations Center of the state and being deployed at the local level. Successful implementation of your plan is critically dependent on information sharing. Each response organization has unique skills and expertise that they can bring to bear on the problem. Preventing an incident from ever occurring reaps far more dividends than simply reducing the cost of post-incident response and recovery. Awareness, prevention and preparedness efforts need to be given the same emphasis as that of response and recovery domains. Building the professional relationship that leads to effective communication during high-stress response operations is a process that starts with the development and exercising of a response plan. What is the role of the chairperson and some of the other members on the committee? We call the chairperson the champion. Every group needs a champion. When you're dealing with terrorism, which is a multifaceted type of hazard, you need somebody who will champion the cause. For many years, I believe the mental attitude of the American public was that it wasn't going to happen. And even when it did happen, it's not going to happen again. So this person is somebody who can pick up the telephone and say, we're having this meeting. Here's our purpose. We'd like you to attend. Somebody who will bring groups together, a facilitator. I think in developing a response plan, what you have to look at and most importantly is who are the stakeholders? Who are the people in your community if an event happens, will be involved and who you will need to contact and call upon for support? To get all those organizations to work coherently and cohesively together requires a wide-ranging emergency preparedness effort. It cannot be occasional meetings with just dialogue. It takes the development of looking at your jurisdiction and seeing what targets are a possible threat for terrorism. Be able to plan for those and what kind of events could occur in there. And then what each individual organization's role will be. Then either have tabletop exercises or full exercise using those volunteer organizations during those exercises so they can experience what worked and didn't work because when in the event something does occur that falls under WMD, it's no time to practice then. You have to perform. And the only way you can perform is to plan and to exercise and then to coordinate that exercise and lessons learned and go back to the table again to refine your operational policy. I hear from other jurisdictions that they don't have the time to do this, they don't have the money. And again, I don't believe that nor do the people involved in our groups. We have spent absolutely no money except for the time spent at the meetings. But what has come from this from, again, the private sector, a developing PowerPoint programs for experts who are already out there in the field, developing vehicles that are available, maybe sitting in a yard someplace and the company doesn't know what to do with them like our armored vehicle or the command van. Most private sector want to be a good neighbor. And so when you tie that in and then the private company says, well, state police, would you like to use that as well? Oh, sure. Federal agencies, if you're in there, sure. So what you're doing is you're working on that common goal and the resources, the expertise that are there. The process for doing emergency planning is really pretty simple. It's not all that complex, the principles involved. You look at the risks you're facing and what the potential impact that those risks can have, then you look at what kind of assets are going to be required to respond if one of those threats should be carried out. And then you look at what your assets are and the planning comes in when you try and decide how to deal with the shortfalls in areas. If we had this event, we would need this much medical assets to respond to it. We only have this many beds in the community. Where would we take these people? How would we get them there? What else would be going on that might prevent us from moving them along the roads and things like that? But it's really the process of thinking about second and third order effects of what will go on in a disaster. The fact that not all assets that you think will be available, how do you deal with the fact that they may have been damaged in the process and you'll have to find those resources elsewhere. Understanding of what the incident command system is all about is rolled into the NIMM system, which is just being unveiled again, if you will, at the federal level, because as incidents become more prolific or incidents occur that affect communities, counties, parishes, and states, that resources that come, it becomes an enormous system. Knowing what you're facing, knowing what the impact of a successful attack would be is the only way that you can really do good planning. If you don't know what you're facing, you can't think about what the assets are. You know, we spent a lot of time in this country talking, trying to prevent attacks, and that's as it should be. That's clearly the preferred approach. We don't want them to happen, but we also have to have systems that are smart that can fail well and so that we know how that we're going to be able to respond, we're going to be resilient, and we're going to be able to protect our communities after an event has happened and recover from those events, and that's what your response plan needs to be. Two of the most important WMD plan components just mentioned were cooperation and communication between the various agencies. We've been reminded that a critical and unique aspect of an effective WMD response plan is interagency cooperation before, during, and after the event. Additionally, when gathering the team, you have thought to the many less obvious aspects of the response. For those jurisdictions needing assistance with developing an emergency response plan, there is training available. Just some of the federally sponsored training offered is the FEMA Emergency Management Institute, Texas Engineering Extension's National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center, and Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice. Later in our program, a tribute to firefighters who were killed in the line of duty. This is the Homeland Responder calendar of events. The International Association of Fire Chiefs is sponsoring Fire Rescue International 2005. This event will be held August 11th through the 13th at the Colorado Convention Center. September 7th through 10th, the National Institute of Justice will sponsor the 8th Annual Crime Mapping Research Conference at the Western Savannah Harbor in Savannah, Georgia. September 11th through 14th, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be sponsoring Detector Sensor Research and Technology for Homeland and National Security at the Knoxville Convention Center. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and CDC will be sponsoring the Advanced Personal Protective Equipment Conference October 16th through 18th at the Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center in Blatsburg, Virginia. The Marriott San Diego Hotel and Marina will host the Technologies for Public Safety and Critical Incident Response Conference October 31st through November 2nd. This conference is sponsored by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. The conference will highlight the technology and training tools currently available and being developed for the first responder community. The 2005 4th Annual Homeland Security Conference will take place at the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid North in Albuquerque, New Mexico November 16th through the 18th. This has been the Homeland Responder Calendar of Events. The Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT program, can provide valuable volunteer first responder resources on a community level to enhance the overall effectiveness of both a disaster type emergency response plan and a WMD response plan. CERT teams are often able to respond more quickly than professional agency response teams and provide assistance that allows them to do their assigned jobs more efficiently and effectively. Now, through our feature, CERT, the other response team, you will discover the advantages of forming a CERT program in your community. A hurricane tears through a Florida town. Roads are blocked and communication lines are severed. Who will provide disaster relief until professional responders can get there? The Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, is a group of volunteers trained for immediate aid following a disaster where professional responders are delayed or overwhelmed because of the event. The idea of using everyday citizens to lend a hand to their community after a tragedy was founded by the Los Angeles California Fire Department in 1985. The CERT concept was born in California, the Los Angeles City Fire Department. At one point in time, looked at the potential disasters that they face, their capabilities and limitations, and decided that in a major event, they would not be able to provide services to all the people that needed them. And at that point in time, they did a very brief thing, I believe, is they went out to people and said, hey, we do have certain limitations in terms of being able to provide services to all the people, especially after, say, a major earthquake. And then they didn't stop there, though. They said, recognizing that, we have a solution. We are going to go into neighborhoods and workplaces, and we're going to train people in response skills that people can use to try to help themselves and each other following a major event until help arrives. The Los Angeles Fire Department began looking at a number of things based on some earthquakes that had taken place in the California area. And they traveled to Japan and looked at the way Japan handled citizen response to various hazards, particularly earthquakes and hurricanes. And then they looked at some things that happened in Mexico City. In Mexico City, some volunteers tried to help out after a serious earthquake there. Many of them ended up being casualties, being killed or injured. And what they had looked at was, how can we better prepare citizens to deal with this? They have to deal with the critical items that need addressed after especially a catastrophic event like an earthquake or a hurricane or anything for the communities around the country. The first thing is to assess what's going on. What are the likely events to occur in your community? And that's what LA did, and theirs was earthquake. Well, what are we going to do in an earthquake? From that, they realized that they're going to have some priorities. They had to assess the community. And it was possible in that assessment that their resources were going to be overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, it was likely, especially in a catastrophic earthquake. And its citizens would have to take care of themselves. They looked at developing a well-rounded program that addressed a number of issues, medical light search and rescue, small fire suppression. That would help the citizenry be able to be more fully prepared and able to respond in the critical 24, 48, 36 hours after an event. The daunting task of bringing relief immediately after a tragedy can be trying. However, CERT members are well equipped to help others and assist professional responders in their community's time of need. Over the next two years, the CERT program aims to double the number of participants with over 400,000 individuals completing the 20-plus hours of training to expand the program throughout the United States. The CERT members have a general rescue aid if there's any kind of catastrophe in the public. And they're not to replace the professional rescuer, but their main role is when a disaster of any sort, be it a tornado or a hurricane, is going to tax the professional rescuers to the point where we're not going to be able to make it into the neighborhoods to take care of everyone's need. That's when the CERT members step in. I've been trying to put out small fires. I have something in my kit that helps me do that, cribbing. We could do cribbing that's supporting buildings to get people from underneath structures. We can take things that are handy. For instance, the door and back view, pieces of wood, and use that to support whatever it is holding a person down underneath the structure. We can't get at them to help them. CERT teams go into a disaster area with CERT tasks, which may be medical, it may be a search and not necessary rescue, but search and notifying the rescue authorities. And triage, sorting out the worst of the patients and the least harmed. And they have to have ways to report this information back to the emergency operation centers. If they happen to be amateur radio operators also, this is a very great asset. In major disasters, amateur radio becomes a key part of the communication systems. In the instance of the Hurricane Charlie, the cell phones were out, the police systems were out, their trunking system was down. We came in as amateur radio operators and re-initialized our system. We have repeaters. If they were damaged, we quickly repaired those, got those back on the air, so the local amateurs could use those for communications. We've had these CERTs people in conjunction with the fire department help us with the other storms that had come through. They worked in our emergency operation center and they helped in some of the clerical end of the operation where they could help support us and take firefighters out of that role so they could go into the field and actually do the job of rescuing. And also when we were done, they helped with the damage assessment. And I'll tell you what, we thanked them for it because it really assisted us. A CERT program can be huge in a community's overall disaster preparedness plan. However, starting a CERT program will take a commitment of time and resources from all parties. The first step in beginning a CERT program is contacting a sponsoring agency, like a local emergency management office, fire or police department. After that, members will have to be recruited and trained. Part of the CERT's program is taking these people who are going to step to the plate and say, I will help my neighbor and giving them enough training that they don't get hurt themselves trying to help their neighbor and it empowers them. As of late, we had an emergency response in the fire department to one of our adult living communities. And it just so happens, one of our CERT teams is focused there. And some of our CERT members showed up and the professional rescuers that were on scene implored those CERT members to help evacuate the structure because there was a gas incident occurring at the time. And when the first surviving fire truck showed up on scene, there was only three members to mitigate the situation. And when they implored the CERT members, they didn't have to start the evacuation themselves. They could deal with the gas problem. So in that way, they stepped to the forefront spontaneously and assisted the fire department. People may have some immediate needs following a disaster. There are going to be unlimited resources to meet those needs. And really the bottom line is we want people to be able to do some things that may save lives and protect property until help arrives. I mean, some of the skills that are taught in the CERT program are very basic, but vitally important for people to know not only following a disaster but in everyday life. For instance, in the fire suppression or fire safety module, we teach how to use a fire extinguisher. And people should know if there is a small, manageable fire in their home and they're not in the other resources available that they may have the capability of putting that fire out, being able to turn off utilities, being able to turn off gas, are useful skills for people to know. And we want to be able to empower them to be able to make a good decision about what they can do to help themselves in certain situations. The basic training we receive through our search class enables us to help our neighbors in time of need. If there's a major disaster, we can go into the community and help those that need help. We are trained in putting out fires and searching rescue at first aid. We've even taken a course in CPR and we're all equipped to do that. We teach them search and rescue. There is a wide, it's a 20-hour program and emergency first aid triage, how to assess the situation, how to assess a building, how to assess the environment to determine what's safe and what's not safe, whether to proceed, whether to stop, those sorts of things. If you have the training and then you are given the tools, then you are effective. And as a rescuer, I mean, you have gone from being just a lay member of the population to being basically a rescuer, somebody who is going to step to the forefront during an emergency and provide help as opposed to somebody who's going to show up and would like to help and has no ability. I think with anything you learn, if you don't use it, you lose it. So after a cert member completes the local training program, which in the FEMA curriculum is 20 hours, we really do recommend that the sponsoring agency really try to be innovative in how they use the cert members by conducting activities or exercises that the cert members can participate in and use their skills. We also recommend that beyond the 20 hours of basic training that they offer some supplemental training, perhaps something in CPR or the use of an AED or traffic control. Again, it's something that they need to determine in terms of the cert program what kind of uses the cert members might be to them following a disaster and then provide some training that would be useful for them to have. For instance, let me give you an example. Sheltering is a big issue after a disaster. And many communities see the cert members because of their commitment and interest in being actively involved will provide shelter training to these members so that if shelters are open, the cert members can be a volunteer pool that they can call upon to help staff those particular shelters. It's like anything else. If you don't use the skill, you lose the skill. So what we're trying to do is trying to help by setting up scenarios and having monthly training to keep them interested and keep them involved because like any other organization, if you just stop, then it stops. Cert can be an effective and valuable asset to a community in the aftermath of a catastrophic event. However, training, equipment, and other resources can tax a local district's budget. Support from state and federal agencies like Citizens Core and the Federal Emergency Management Agency which provides a core curriculum for cert trainers and recruits. These programs go a long way in getting a cert program off the ground, but ultimately is the willingness of a local community to realize the importance of starting a cert program. The superintendent of the Emergency Management Institute was able to observe this training program and saw the benefit of trying to make this a national program and giving it an all-hazards approach, not just an earthquake-oriented approach because all communities face certain hazards that could overwhelm response capabilities, tornadoes, hurricanes, and so on. And so the FEMA contacted the Los Angeles City Fire Department and said, we think you have a great idea. Do you mind if we take it national and we got permission from the Los Angeles Fire Department to do that and we developed training materials and began to conduct training to trainers here at the Emergency Management Institute and that was back in 1994. And we've been very successful in helping grow the concept over the last 10, 11 years. Our fire department saw that that program was out there and decided that we were going to go ahead and try and get involved in this thing. And we applied for a grant and a grant was given to us and we had the financial backing then to begin this community-based program. And we were given the information to begin teaching the class and we utilized it. We put together a couple of instructors who learned the material. We started our first class and bought the equipment for the people who went through the class and next thing you know, we're in the search business. It's important for any community to start or initiate a search program, first of all, to allow folks to understand they have a role in this because everyone does have a role in any kind of emergency management that they have some power, that they're empowered to be able to do something. They're not helpless victims. There's something they can do to help themselves. It tends, though, as a by-product of that kind of training of getting people together, of helping them understand that there are things they can do that it's important for them to look out for each other and it actually starts to bring them together as a community. If you want to look at it, it puts the unity back in community. It helps them understand that we're all part of this and we can look out for each other. If a community's thinking about putting a search together team together, I think it's a most excellent idea because these people are an invaluable asset. They've helped us in many, many ways that we didn't think about when we first started. At first, it was just a program we were getting involved with because it seemed to be the right thing to do and then after we did it, we knew it was the right thing to do. As with any beneficial organization, CERT goes the extra mile to help its community. And although it takes a good deal of time and effort, CERT members will tell you that the sacrifice they make is worth it while local, state, and federal officials say that CERT volunteers are invaluable to their communities. It's one of those things where you get a good satisfaction from helping your fellow man or your neighbor. It's like stopping to help someone with a flat tire. It doesn't take much for you to help them, but they're so grateful for having that help. So if you can help your neighbor, if you can help a friend, you get a lot of satisfaction from that. I'm here to help people. That's what I do. That's what I've always done. You know, I used to say 9-1-1, but I am 9-1-1. That's the way I live. The work that they do, the dedication that they have, the commitment that they have to demonstrate in order to stay with the CERT program, taking their time off to a 10-20 hours worth of training, keep attending refresher training after that, keep the skills alive, help out in the community is absolutely incredible. And our thanks and our gratitude is all we can offer. People that decide to participate in the program really are making an investment in their community and really showing their willingness to be involved. And they really deserve a lot of credit for taking their valuable time and being willing to invest in their community through the CERT program. The CERT program is a most excellent program and I hope that it continues to go on and doesn't fall through the cracks of government because these people have stepped to the plate and said I will be my neighbor's keeper. And that's pretty valuable to me. CERT volunteers bring a whole new realm of capability to any community. They keep the community alive in a sense after a catastrophic event. They help minimize the damage. They help bring people together. They help organize emergency response. It's a way of allowing citizens to become very involved as we all should be with our community. The thing that made me feel the best about this entire experience with Hurricane Ivan is that unfortunately someday it may happen in our hometown. And the thought that people like us may come to assist us makes me smile on the inside because I know that we came with every good intention and we hope that God forbid if it ends up being us that other good CERT people might show up to give us a hand in our hour of need. Los Angeles's forward thinking and development of this program will enhance and greatly increase the ability to respond quickly and effectively. Forming a CERT program in your jurisdiction can make your professional responders and your overall response more effective during any significant event, WMD, or natural disaster. In our next segment, Homeland Heroes, we capture the annual tribute in Emmitsburg, Maryland, recognizing those firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the lives and property of others. I have not visited anywhere in the world, not only just the United States, where a community, whether it be a village, a city, a town, a state, a national government, after 9-11 has not looked at their disaster management people, their first responders, and what have you, to ask the question, what if it happens to us and are we ready? This is where simulation is absolutely essential and such a powerful device to train our first responders, to train the healthcare providers, to deal with a mass casualty that has weapons of mass destruction involved. Preparing emergency medical personnel to treat victims of a mass casualty incident can be difficult. Sure, using dummies and actors might be helpful, but without using real subjects with actual injuries, the community would be in the dark concerning their ability to treat the flood of casualties from such an event. Now first responders and their medical comrades can replicate the treatment of patients during a casualty or mass casualty event with true-to-life accuracy. This technology is called the Human Patient Simulator. Essentially what it is is a medical mannequin that we have instrumented and then we have laid as a foundation the entire human physiology and cardiovascular system and we've embedded that in software. On top of that on the mannequin itself we've instrumented it to the point where it actually has pulses, heart sounds, breath sounds, a working airway that we can actually shut down, eyes that blink and react to light, bleeding. All of that, all of those end effectors are what we call them. Signs and symptoms of injury is all tied automatically to a base physiology. So effectively what we can do through software is we can design the patient age, gender, health condition. We can then lay on the circumstance, the trauma, the sudden event, weapons of mass destruction, a gas attack if you will. As the team responds to that patient they have the responsibility to treat the patient as they would any live patient and that patient will react just as you and I would react to the treatment. As every first responder and healthcare provider knows, a disaster is not the time to experiment with treatment options on patients with multiple symptoms. In addition, the large number of potential casualties means time will be a factor. Until the development of the human patient simulator, mass casualty training exercises have been unable to address the treatment of patients. Human patient simulators now enable a community's response team to make assessments and treat patients. That's the ultimate tipping point in any mass casualty. It is not the single patient. It is the multiple patients coming at the triage and the authorities and the medical team all at once are coming in waves with simulation with patient simulation linked together that we have that we have the capability at many. Now we can actually stage that mass casualty. We can handle single patients. We can do mass casualties. We now have the capability to give them the power to truly do consequence management. And the feedback has been through a number of prototypes and pilot programs is that this is the best training device that they've ever had rather than studying in a classroom rather than working with static mannequins or even actors pretending to be affected. They now can treat a real patient with real conditions and they can see that condition all the way through to success. Human patient simulators mirror human response in many medical procedures like CPR, medication, ventilation and catheterization. So the first responder in medic get a real sense of the conditions they will face if an actual mass casualty event should occur in their community. This makes the human patient simulator a viable tool in training for mass casualty events. Wherever medicine and first responders and medical and healthcare personnel have life threatening situations simulation is the absolute best technology and methodology for learning, training and conditioning yourself so that when you face a life threatening situation you can react instinctively rather than have to think about what you have to do. For more information on how you can receive Homeland Responder for educational use visit the Homeland Responder website. The nation's firefighting heroes when tragedy strikes they risk their lives to save others. Homeland Responder visited the Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg, Maryland to show you how these brave men are recognized and honored for their ultimate sacrifice. Now for our exclusive Homeland Heroes feature honoring Fallen firefighters. Hey, can you see Remembering Fallen firefighters across the nation that's what the Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg, Maryland is all about and although the administration changed from government to private to better support programs for the victim survivors honoring those who have valiantly stepped into the line of fire to protect the lives of others has been going strong for 23 years. So 1992 United States Congress created the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and they charged the foundation with doing two things to honor all firefighters killed in the line of duty and secondly to help their families rebuild their lives. Prior to that it was being administered by the United States Fire Administration. In 1992 when it was created there was just a staff of one and basically what the main purpose at that time was to run the National Memorial ceremony that's held in Emmitsburg at the National Fire Academy that's always the weekend with fire prevention week and that is where the nation comes together to recognize and honor all the firefighters that have been killed in a previous year. All across the nation you will hear the sound of sirens and bells to honor fallen firefighters. Honor Guard units and bagpipers will open the memorial service it is a procession to honor America's bravest and their families. The weekend event featured the pageantry of grateful Americans and loved ones paying tribute to the memory of last year's firefighters who gallantly sacrificed their lives while performing their duty. Distinguished guests spoke about the bravery of these fallen heroes and all firefighters. When a firefighter falls in the line of duty we all feel that loss within our departments our communities the fire service and as a nation. When a firefighter loses his or her life in the line of duty we the members of the fire service not only lose someone who has proven heroic we lose someone who would have continued to make a difference in our service. I can tell you that I am honored each and every day that I cross the paths of firefighters across this great country. I am honored because of the valor of their duty that they chose to go forward so selflessly and put the lives of their friends and of their neighbors and frankly of people they don't even know before their own. For it is a rare and noble cause that we recognize the heroes unswerving devotion to their fellow firefighters and on wavering commitment to protecting at any cost people and residents they do not even know this allegiance to the fire service family this loyalty this devotion inspires all of us all of us to contribute to the greater good of this great nation. Firefighters call to become heroes call to become rescuers and call to be servants or the fellow citizens. The memorial blossomed with the traditional placing of the presidential wreath next to the monument. The monument is a majestic structure a bronze Maltese cross sits atop a seven foot stone cairn an external flame representing the spirit of firefighters burns at the base of the cairn a plaza shaped like a Maltese cross surrounds the monument. Richard Glenn Lupe another representative of all those brave and caring American heroes who protect us in our homeland and who have now been called home to God. The ceremony continued as the ultimate sacrifice of last year's deceased firefighters was appreciated by the presentation of a folded American flag to their survivors. Then the highlight of the event the unveiling of the plaque listing the previous years firefighters killed in the line of duty. It rests with all the other plaques in the memorial. Almighty and ever living God we thank you for this opportunity to honor our fallen firefighters. We thank you for their examples of dedication and devotion to duty. We ask you today as we take leave of this service to be with their families friends and fire departments. Give them renewed strength to meet the challenges that they face in the future. We ask that you protect all firefighters who continue to labor in their chosen professions of saving lives and protecting property in dangerous and oftentimes thankless situations. Thus another annual ritual of honoring a year of fallen firefighters for their unselfish and heroic service came to an end. Similar to other emergency responders firefighters shine in hazardous situations and valiantly risk their own lives to perform their duty of protecting lives and property. For more information on any of the stories featured or agencies mentioned in this program visit our website at www.homelandresponder.org and while you're on the Homeland Responder website be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter and take a moment to thank those organizations who are underwriting this continuing program. Also you can help ensure that we are meeting your learning needs by providing your comments. We thank you for joining us for this edition of Homeland Responder. We look forward to seeing you next time.