 Coming up on Homeland Responder. This is the untold story over here. Devastation as far as the eye can see. Absolutely nothing, nothing but a concrete slab. It's tales of survival and lessons learned in Gulfport, Mississippi. I don't think any of us had in mind the magnitude, the destruction, the level of destruction that we were going to suffer. Also on the program. You know, I don't lost everything. Evacuees find a world of difference between the Superdome and the Astrodome. Once you get a job assignment, you're done with it. Come back over here if you want another one. It's a volunteer success story. It's amazing that they did it. And a reason to take a closer look at how one organization did everything right. They were so appreciative. It was, I couldn't believe it. All that coming up on Homeland Responder. To this edition of Homeland Responder, I'm John Eastman. Through the reach of the Homeland Security Training Network, this program comes to all kinds of people, from local, state and federal first responders, to ordinary citizens who someday might find themselves in extraordinary situations. That someday has already come for the people of our Gulf Coast states. It came with the killer winds and high waters of Hurricane Katrina. We begin in Gulfport, Mississippi, a place that didn't receive much media coverage, but did receive the worst of Katrina's muscle. It was a storm surge that washed this old tug-of-shore 36 years ago, and it's here that she's sat ever since. A landmark and a reminder of the power of Camille. There's the aftermath of Camille. That's the yacht harbor right there. It probably looks like that now. For years, citizens of past Christiane, Mississippi have remembered Camille as the mother of monster storms, the benchmark of how bad a hurricane could get. But in the ruins of the old community antique store, it's Katrina, not Camille, which now sets the benchmark and the watermark. This is the top of the stench, and I'm not sure what these ceilings are. They're probably what, 12, 14 feet? The storm surge of Katrina did what Camille couldn't do, destroy the town of past Christiane. In a nearby neighborhood, homeowners Alex and Blair Lambert are trying to move forward. On this day, university students from Ohio are helping the Lamberts with the demolition and cleanup. They're just doing it with love in their heart, and they're just helping us gut the house. Take down the sheet rock, take down the insulation. The winds of Katrina barely touched this house. It was the water. When we walked in, we had a water line of about, I guess, seven feet. But my next to a neighbor who rode the storm out told me that at one point the water was over the roof. As bad as the damage is here, imagine being this shop owner. When Jean Hines McDaniel returned from evacuation, she found her store the knitting nook reduced to a concrete slab. Oh, my goodness, it's gone. As for what happened to her inventory, take a closer look at any of the debris piles lining the streets. You can see up and down the city is the storm, because there's yarn on everything, but we couldn't, there was nothing salvaged. Then there's Jamie Jenkins, another property owner who came home to find nothing but ruin. Look, here's the Amp to Brooks guitar. That little guitar of hers. Jenkins finds a few treasures in the rubble, but the rest is just a broken reminder of what was. Had a carport that extended off to the north side, which you can still see some of the remains from the timbers that are still standing from the house, which essentially is the only thing that really survived the hurricane. It would be understandable if Jenkins became wrapped up in his own tragedy. All that hard work of prepping those walls and painting them all gone in a matter of seconds. But for better or worse, Jenkins hasn't had much time for self-pity. I just kind of had to leave that behind. I had to take care of my duties here. And it was difficult here the first, probably, week. Yes, in addition to being a man who's lost most of his material possessions, Jenkins is a firefighter. And in the nearby Gulfport Fire Department, there are many just like him. I had 25 firefighters lose everything they own. And, you know, when 25 firefighters lose everything they own, not only are you talking about total devastation of your community and all of the infrastructure in your community, but the personal impact that it has on each and every one of your firefighters. A seasoned veteran of numerous storms, Chief Pat Sullivan thought he knew what to expect. How could anything be worse than Camille? I don't think any of us had in mind the magnitude, the destruction, the level of destruction that we were going to suffer. Gulfport's Katrina response is a tale of duty, sacrifice, and lessons learned. We'll have more on that when we return to our story. But first, we'd like to take a moment to honor the heroes who watch over us every day. The following tribute comes from the files of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. We hope that in sharing this story, you'll do your part to honor the courage of those who knowingly put themselves in harm's way. When Captain John Taylor saw that his fellow firefighter Ray Rubio was entangled and trapped in a burning basement, he didn't run. Taylor called a May Day and then stayed, trying against all odds to free Rubio. Because of the wreckage in the basement, rescuers arrived too late. In submitting her husband's name to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, Charlene Taylor remembers her husband as someone who won the Heroism Award during his 32 years on the Philadelphia Fire Department. He served in the Army Reserves and was a humble man. He will always be remembered by all who knew him. John had a great heart. And so it is that Homeland Responder joins the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation in remembering Captain John D. Taylor Jr., Engine 28, Philadelphia Fire Department. A humble man and a heroic firefighter whose concept of sacrifice knew no bounds. Captain Taylor was just one of the firefighters to be honored at the recent National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend in Emmitsburg, Maryland. We'll have a full look at that event later in the program. But first, it's time for a Homeland Challenge. Incidents such as Hurricane Katrina test our responder's readiness. Part of that readiness hinges on knowledge and use of the National Incident Management System, or NIMS. Are you NIMS knowledgeable? Let's find out with the first of our challenge questions. Borrowed directly from the NIMS Study Guide, prepared by FEMA. Ready? Here goes. A series of tornadoes has struck in the Midwest, causing a path of destruction across several jurisdictions in one state. Most mutual aid agreements cannot be activated because all available resources are being used for the response. Attaining and allocating outside resources to support the incidents would be coordinated best by using A. Local EOCs. B. An area command. C. A multi-agency coordination entity. The answer. C. Multi-agency coordination agencies are a combination of resources that are integrated into a common framework for coordinating and supporting domestic incident management activities. If you did okay with that one, maybe you're ready for a tougher one. The incident command system, or ICS, requires that each individual involved in incident operations be assigned only one supervisor. Is this an example of A. Manageable span of control. B. Integrated communications. Or C. Accountability. The correct answer? C. For effective accountability, ICS requires that each individual involved in incident operations be assigned only one supervisor. This concept is also known by the term unity of command. If you had trouble with any of these questions, maybe it's time to do a refresher. The NIM self-study guide is available on FEMA's website. Go to training.fema.gov. We'll have more Homeland Responder challenges later in the show. Now it's time to return to the storm-ruined region of Gulfport, Mississippi. You've already seen the magnitude of the impact in Gulfport and the surrounding areas. Now it's time to see how a fire department working in the most challenging conditions tries to keep it together while everything around them falls apart. When devastation is this complete, it goes far beyond the sense of sight. The smell, you just can't imagine the smell because it was rotting and it was dying. The it that Fire Chief Pat Sullivan refers to is poultry, hundreds of thousands of chickens that came crashing in with all the rest of the cargo. You see where it's great? That was these containers that we think were bobbing in the water. We think that they were hitting against the tree, so that gives you an idea of how high the water actually got. Rotting poultry, open sewage, every hazardous material you can think of, all floating around on top of what were people's homes. What you don't see here is the five houses that are on this block right here. What you see is pile of debris and you see where they've cleaned it up. You see where it's gone. But you don't see different individual houses. True, it's hard to imagine the idyllic seaside community that was here just a few weeks ago. Just like it must have been hard for Chief Sullivan to imagine what was coming his way. You know, I told you that we're ready for it and that I think we're as ready as any community could be. This area's disaster preparedness plan was probably better than most communities. After all, it had been tested and refined in numerous storms, going all the way back to the infamous Camille. You don't have an event this size and be prepared for it. District Chief Jamie Jenkins, who you met earlier, describes the days following the storm. It was difficult. Early on our objectives weren't real clear. We weren't really sure, you know, what to do right off. We knew we had to get the roads cleared, but I don't think we really knew what the effect of the infrastructure for this area was at that point. The most important part of that infrastructure, communications. We didn't prepare for a total loss of communications. As with this hazardous materials response, communications play a vital role. We've got another bottle here, plastic container that looks like about two gallons. It's communications that ensure adherence to the incident command structure without communications. Everything that you can think of that makes you a good communicator, we lost. We didn't have it. Two-way radios, cell phones, pagers, fax machines, all down. I wasn't able to get to the people that I needed to communicate with, and subsequently there were guys out there that didn't have the direction that they needed. The only way that they were really able to activate us is if they saw us out on the road and were able to summons us, or if they had a police officer that was out and about and they could get us activated or called some way like that. Had it been just the communications failures, that would have been enough. But when your deputy chief that you had planned on being there and that you would have faith-to-faith communication, when his house has blown up because of a tornado and he's not here, and the next deputy chief that you're depending on who would be the secondary one that you would be communicating with, his house is flooded and he's not here. And the mutual aid that you're counting on from other departments, it's not there. Every community that we depended on from mutual aid was affected as much as we were affected, if not greater. Yet despite all the obstacles, firefighters were able to bring aid and relief to countless victims. We had a lot of work to do. We were out working with chainsaws, 8, 10, 12 hours a day, clearing roads, clearing debris, making sure we could get our vehicles to places. We had guys that knew that their homes were destroyed. There wasn't any question. But they've lost everything. They didn't go leave and start digging through their debris. What they did was they stayed and worked and said, you know, there'll be a time when I can deal with that right now. The people out there need me more than anything I can do at my own home. So they stayed and did that. Perhaps it's that spirit of sacrifice and dedication that now has Chief Sullivan so determined. I'm not going to allow this to defeat me in order to defeat this department or defeat this city. Which brings us to station number 7, or what used to be station 7. I've got at least three fire stations that may be completely destroyed. One that is completely destroyed, there's nothing left of it of course. And then two others that are so heavily damaged that I probably won't, we'll probably end up tearing them down. When the rebuilding is done, Sullivan wants to make sure the response plans are as new and strong as the stations themselves. That means improving the lines of communications, especially when technology fails. What do I do if I've lost all my phones? How do I do runners when I'm not used to doing runners? It also means making sure the lower ranks are ready to make their own decisions when they're cut off from central command. And it can't be just the fire chief making those calls because there's no way in a disaster this large that he can oversee it all. Sullivan plans to beef up his department's use of the National Incident Management System. NIMS helps first responders stay coordinated and connected. I think that you've got, the NIMS has to fall in every facet of it. It has to be at every level. It can't be we do it on just the big events or just the huge events or just a small event. It has to be at all events. And finally comes the issue of how to deal with ordinary people who suddenly find themselves in the role of first responders. They knew they had to help their neighbor and they were going to help their neighbor. And if they're going to do that anyways, then we in the fire service and we in public safety need to help them do it the right way. And they'll teach them how to do it the right way and then utilize them, put them to work. Sullivan plans to redouble his department's efforts to train and utilize volunteers in the style of the National Citizens Board Program. There are times when you physically can't get to the people that need the help and that when it boils down to it, the citizens have to take care of themselves. Coming up, we'll take a look at how the school system played a vital part in the Katrina response and recovery. But first, it's time for our Homeland Who's Who. In this edition of Homeland Who's Who, we take a look at someone who began his career as a rescue firefighter. He rose through the ranks of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, first as a rescue firefighter, then as a rescue lieutenant, then battalion commander, division chief and several other executive roles before finally serving as chief of the entire department. As chief, he oversaw the response to major events such as Hurricane Andrew and the crash of ValueJet Flight 592. Since then, this person has risen to a role of national prominence as a U.S. Fire Administrator. Just recently, he's taken on an even larger role. Can you guess who we're talking about? Times up, our Homeland Who's Who is our David Paulisen, Administrator for the United States Fire Administration since 2001, and now the Acting Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. President Bush asked Paulisen to step into the role after Michael Brown resigned amidst dissatisfaction with the Hurricane Katrina response. If you correctly guess the Homeland Who's Who, now it's time to really test your responder IQ with another Homeland Responder Challenge. In Homeland Responders' look at the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the Fire Chief of Gulfport, Mississippi, cited one principal weakness in their response and recovery. We didn't prepare for a total loss of communication. Their communications were down. Our communications were down. I don't think we have enough time to put all my thoughts down on communications. Katrina wiped out all of the Fire Department's communications platforms. Here's the question, true or false? A better understanding of NIMS could have helped the department with their communications woes. The answer? False. NIMS recognizes that technology standards are key to facilitating interoperability and compatibility of major systems. It's all about integration. However, when those communication systems are down altogether, there's not much left to integrate. Kudos to the Gulfport Fire Department for doing the best they could in the worst of circumstances. Next question. The response to Katrina put a national spotlight on exactly who is responsible for our preparedness in the face of disaster. To find the answer, one need look no further than the NIMS guidelines. If you're familiar with what NIMS says, you should be able to fill in the blank. Preparedness is the responsibility of blank, which are responsible for coordinating their activities among all preparedness stakeholders. Is the answer, A, federal agencies, B, state governments, C, individual jurisdictions? If you answered A or B, you need to do some reading. NIMS says preparedness is the responsibility of individual jurisdictions. State and federal agencies are supposed to provide assistance and resources, and that's the way it worked in Gulfport. It's always, how can we work together? How can we coordinate together? What do you need from us? And that's it for this segment of Homeland Responder Challenge. When disaster strikes, many of our nation's schools play a double role. They serve as evacuation shelters for those who couldn't or wouldn't leave the area. In the following segment, we return to the Gulfport area to see how one school system received a crash course in survival. Okay, safe metric system from the Guilmerville-Middle School. As a teacher at the Guilmerville-Middle School, Kathy Gilmour is in her element. She attended the same school many years ago, back when she was a student. And then I became a teacher, and I've been teaching at that school for 32 years. This would be just like any other day at the Iberville-Middle, except for one small matter. This isn't the Iberville-Middle School. This is. At one point, the school was covered by 8 feet of water. After Katrina, the school is just a shell. There's nothing there but concrete floors and concrete walls. Everything's gone. Every teaching supply, every television, everything that we had is gone. The bookshelves, the walls are stripped down to the bare walls. No bulletin boards. Nothing is there. How are you supposed to convert from, say, kilometers to hectometers? And so, Kathy Gilmour's class is now temporarily relocated and attending on a split shift. The same is true for many other schools in Harrison County. This is a map of Harrison County, the whole county, and the colored area is a map of Harrison County School District. School Superintendent Henry Arledge gives us a laser-guided tour of the impact of Katrina. This is Pineville Elementary School. It had two feet of water in it during Katrina. Window walls blown out. Covering 451 square miles, Harrison County School District is the fourth largest in Mississippi. Before the storm, we had 13,300 students. After the storm, we now have 10,900 and some odd number of students. Of that 10,900, we have 465 students that are new to the area. Arledge estimates he's still got about 2,900 students who are displaced and attending schools in other areas. He's also got employees to worry about, 1,700 of them. We have 284 school employees that lost their home. We have 36 that don't have a site to put a trailer on if they had a trailer. Henry Arledge, yes, okay. Arledge is working to get financial relief for impacted employees and to fast track the enrollment of students no matter where they come from. This is the recovery mode, but only a few weeks ago, Arledge and the district were in disaster mode with 15 of the schools functioning as emergency shelters. We've gone through emergency crisis training with the State Department of Education. The district had also sponsored FEMA training. Most of the training was for the principals who are required to manage their schools turned shelters. If you're going to ask them to leave their families, to leave their homes, to come to a shelter that's unbearable conditions after a hurricane, then you need to do everything you can to help them, to train them, to pay them, to turn the time in for FEMA, to do everything you possibly can for those employees. Arledge also took the unusual measure of inviting the National Guard to come stay at the shelters instead of setting up camp. I've got military units to come in. Number one, they protect your property. Nobody's going to bother you if you've got a military unit there. And they go out of their way to assist and to help you. The shelter system worked, but Arledge admits the school system learned some lessons along the way. Potable water is a problem. Drinking water is a problem. Food is a problem. That needs to be pre-stored at these sites. In the future, Arledge wants more on-site rations and emergency generators for when the shelters go dark. In the meantime, the focus is on some return to life as it was before Katrina. We expect the DIY middle school probably to be nine or ten months reconstructing at the minimum. Hopefully we'll have it back online by next August when schools start. And that will be a welcome day for Cathy Gilmore, her students, and all the other people who look to the schools as a safe haven. Raise your hand if you know what DECA means, numerically speaking. So far, we've shown you how a disaster can test a region's ability to prepare, endure, and recover. When we return, we'll show you how that same disaster tested a program that may become a model for the rest of the nation. But first, here's a look at what's coming up on the Homeland Responder calendar. This is the Homeland Responder calendar events. The Government Video Expo takes place at Washington D.C.'s Convention Center November 30th through December 1st. If you create video training for your department, this show will bring you up to speed on the latest media gadgets. The National Association of Health data organizations will hold their 20th anniversary meeting December 5th through the 6th at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington D.C. On December 6th and 7th, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and Microsoft will team up for a fire service technology symposium. The event will be held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington. The American Public Health Association will be holding their 133rd annual meeting and exposition December 10th through the 14th at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The American Correctional Association will be holding its annual Winter Conference January 8th through the 12th. The theme of this year's meeting, Corrections, Contributions to a Safer World. And finally, the Firehouse World Exposition and Conference is set for February 19th through the 23rd at the San Diego Convention Center. The show bills itself as five days of education to train and educate fire, rescue and EMS professionals. This has been the Homeland Responder calendar of events. If you have an item for the calendar, please send them to info at homelandresponder.org. We've all seen the images, busloads of New Orleans evacuees escaping the horrible conditions of the Superdome and making their exodus to the relative comfort and safety of Houston's Astrodome. But now, Homeland Responder is going to go beyond those images and share the story you don't know. It's a story of dedication, foresight and of a program that may become a model for the rest of the nation. First, Sylvia Celestine had to face the misery of Katrina. You know, I lost everything. Then, she and her family had to face the misery of the Superdome. We went to the Superdome and the Superdome was the worst, nastiest place I've ever seen in my life. I would never ever want to go there again. Now, under the bright lights of Houston's Astrodome, Sylvia and her family have finally found a moment's peace. God is good and I'm here. I just have to move my head. I'm not sleeping outside. If you watch the regular news reports, you know some of the story. You know that more than 30,000 evacuees fled the chaos of New Orleans and arrived in Houston by busloads. But ask yourself this. How did Houston do it? How did they absorb a small city of people literally overnight? I'm going to get out of here by 4 tomorrow. I'm going to try and get it scheduled and go see my family. For Mark Sloane, time with the family has been almost nonexisted. He names the moment that started it all. When the governor's office of emergency management said Harris County is now taking the lead to receive 25,000 citizens of New Orleans that are located in the Superdome and we're going to build a city and be ready for them in eight hours. Turning Houston's Reliance Center into Reliance City meant finding people to run the city. And finding people to run the city meant turning to Mark Sloane, the coordinator of Harris County's Citizen Corps. We put together an email that asked, please respond, how many can we get? It was a lesson learned because when I hit send I was receiving 1,000 emails an hour and crashed my email system, took out the website which is not the intention. What does it take to crash a server? How about a ready made army of thousands of volunteers well trained and just waiting to lend a helping hand? We had received an email from the White House shortly after September 11th, USA Freedom Corps initiative in President Bush's efforts to create a spirit of volunteerism in America where every citizen would be asked to contribute 4,000 hours, two years of their life to service to others. As the executive head of Harris County, Judge Robert Eccles' office took the challenge seriously. Harris County's commitment to the Citizen Corps concept meant they were ready to roll as the buses rolled in. It was about 10 o'clock on the first night we were waiting for the first bus that we realized that there were not just a couple but 60 or more buses that were going to be coming in and we only had about 70 volunteers. But the number of volunteers quickly mushroomed thanks to people like Bill Clements. Well, I responded over the weekend because it was a weekend and I had the opportunity and the time to put in. Clements' action isn't as impulsive as it sounds. Long before Katrina he trained as part of the Citizens Emergency Response Team, or CERT. CERT is an important arm of Citizen Corps. It's the CERT training that prepared Clements to handle just about any situation. Everybody's eating. Having volunteers is one thing. Knowing what to do with those volunteers is another story. When volunteers first began arriving on the scene when I was here, when I first became involved, the volunteers would come in and say, I have a skill to do this or I can do that or I just want to do something. And we just simply said go over here and start doing it. That was only a few days ago. Now the machine is well oiled and growing by the minute. Alright, good. So far we've been able to process through 37,372 volunteers since this operation started. At meetings like this one, the job is to make sure that all the Citizen Corps parts are working as a whole, even as the needs keep changing. Are we starting? Five a.m. We've got to be open. Well, because 5.30 we can't do anything. So we want to tell all of our volunteers that they can get in at five o'clock. Yes, sir. I need a logistic paper. Okay. Two. You want two? Preferably four. Okay. For night shift. This walk-in request is typical of an environment that deals in unpredictable demands. Good logistics are vital. What we do is we ensure logistically that everything gets to the location it has to get to. No matter what item somebody needs, whether it be a volunteer or it needs to be a cot or it needs to be a generator, it can be so many different items, we ensure that it gets to the right location. To better understand how needs and volunteers are brought together, perhaps it's best to see the whole thing through the eyes of an inductee. Volunteer Tori Williams agreed to let us shadow her through the process. I'm here to volunteer. Volunteer here before? No. Okay. Picture ID. First of all, when they enter the door, we ask them to sign in. They have to show an ID. They have to be over 18. From that point they go to orientation. Hi, my name is Todd Miner. I'm a volunteer just like you. At orientation, Tori spies a friend. Both she and Jen receive a crash course in Life at Reliant City. Once you get a job assignment, you're done with it. Come back over here if you want another one. After orientation, it's on to the staging area. Okay. I need 10 people to give out water for the elderly people. And now it's like waiting for the right partner at the dance. How long will it take for Tori and Jen to find a job that suits their interest and abilities? Okay, I need 10 volunteers that are administrative types with the ability to walk a lot. We'll find out how Tori and Jen fare in a moment. And we'll learn more detail about how the Harris County Citizen Corps might serve as a national model. But first, an update on a story we brought you in the last edition of Homeland Responder. During our look at Disaster Preparedness Month, we brought you the story of Pods, an on-demand storage company that found it was vulnerable in times of crisis. The question that we all ask ourselves is, would we be prepared if a hurricane hit this part of the country? Pods management empowered their staff to come up with a Disaster Preparedness Plan. As part of this process, we've put together a rapid response team where we can deploy people from all over the country, into a community to quickly distribute Pods to those people that need them. And then along came Katrina. To see how the preparedness plan worked, we visited a franchisee whose warehouse and inventory were devastated by the storm. Pods rapid response stepped in, supplied me with trucks, started shipping Pods to us just as quick as they could from Florida, Peoria, Illinois. The company also filled in the communications void, bringing a mobile command post complete with wireless laptop. Which was a godsend. I mean, we would never have done anything if it hadn't been for that. Which leaves this business in the position of scheduling a large number of new customers at a time when other businesses have shut their doors entirely. Earlier in the program, we shared the story of a Philadelphia firefighter who died in the line of duty. In truth, his is just one of many tales of sacrifice and valor from 2004. We now take you to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where every year the nation's fire service honors all their fallen heroes. The memorial weekend is so many things. A chance to meet other survivors. A chance to get back just a little of what was lost. A chance to grieve alongside people who understand what those tears really mean. A chance to sit down with groups of people and discuss the grief that they're feeling. And that there are other people who've experienced it and understand where they are. This is extremely important for the families to be here. And also the families that come from the past. Every year we have families who lost firefighters years ago come back to help those new families coming in. And it's almost like a regeneration. It helps them get through that. They understand there's other people who have gone through the same type of thing. It's part of the healing process, so I think it's extremely important that they be here. And yet, this weekend requires incredible bravery. Consider that each one of these luminaries is created by the child of a fallen firefighter. Imagine having to go up and light that candle. Jared Michael Moore, Fair Mountain Township Fire Department. And then there's the walk that no firefighters family should ever have to make. Each family has given an American flag that flew over the United States Capitol and the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial. And a red rose signifying the relationship with the foundation also signifying the importance of the relationship with their lost firefighter. This year, the same walk will be repeated 107 times. Daniel E. Elkins, Los Angeles County Fire Department. The service won't make all the pain go away. When they leave here this weekend, they go back to what some would consider a normal life. But is it? Not with their loved one gone, it's not. But it will answer the one question that few would ask out loud. Does the loss of my loved one, my husband, my daughter, my wife, my nephew, my son, did it really count? Does anybody notice? My community did, but who else? These firefighters have given their lives protecting this country. It's extremely important that we come here to support those families and give them the honor they're due. In addition to paying tribute to fallen heroes, the hope is that this weekend will also raise awareness of a broader issue. How do we stop these firefighter fatalities from happening? The 16 initiatives we put in under the Everyone Goes Home campaign is vitally important for every fire department to look very carefully at those and see what they can do in their town to protect their firefighters. The dream is, is that this would become a memory, that we didn't have to do this anymore. Now it's time to go back to the Lone Star State, where a true shining star is emerging, in the form of Harris County's Citizen Corps program. After a few false starts... Everybody, come to food, car, baggage, whatever. Tori and Jen have found a volunteer assignment that seems to fit. Pick up ten volunteers please. In the staging area, we pretty much take the ones who've been there the longest for the next assignment if they're able to do it. What we're doing is all along the wall is we're closed, it's been sorted by size, girls, boys, you know, men's, women's, small, medium, large, extra large. Our two volunteers will be doing duty in the donations and distribution warehouse. We are going through about 40 or 50 cases of diapers twice a day. We are going through clothes at an unbelievable rate. We are receiving clothes at an unbelievable rate and they're not building up. Today, the big item is 4,000 pairs of back-to-school shoes. Now it's a matter of dividing them up, putting them on a truck to the other shelters and passing them out. You know how you're going to do it? I have not a clue, but I will in a couple hours. As a matter of policy, the Red Cross doesn't normally accept or manage donated goods. So why does this warehouse exist? Because this room was set up by three ladies. Unbeknown to anyone, Red Cross, the city of Houston County, Harris County, they went ahead and started taking donations and set this whole room up. And so, the Red Cross assumed operation of what turned out to be a high functioning and much needed enterprise. And it's amazing. They did it and I don't know what their background is, but they do a great job, whatever it is. The Red Cross, an established organization and Citizen Corps, the new kids on the block, coexist and benefit from each other by design. We didn't start a new entity. We brought in the United Way and the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and the school superintendents and the police and firefighters. What we found when we started to establish the initiative itself was that although the different member agencies thought that we all knew which agency was charged with what responsibility both in preparation during and after disaster, in fact what we found is that there wasn't as much clarity as we would have liked. Which means that the smooth operation you see here might not have existed had it not been for the Citizen Corps style of inclusion and preparation. But this resource was built over years. It just doesn't happen because you have an impact. We planned way back in 2003 to put together a website that would allow people to log in, to learn how to be better prepared, more aware, link them to the appropriate sites through FEMA to the National Citizen Corps and a variety of other organizations that already exist. Each of these entities of course has their own policies and procedures for what they're responsible for during a disaster. But to be able to share that and to meet and greet each other on a regular basis so you're establishing those relationships with all of the entities that may be involved in a disaster such as this was crucial. It's that spirit of pre-planning and partnership that allows immediate mobilization in times of crisis and the continuous influx of volunteers like Tori Williams. This is men small? No, I think those are children. Like little boys. Multiplied Tori Williams by 40,000 others just like her and you begin to get a feel for the size of this volunteer effort. In a matter of 18 hours we were able to go from nothing to being up with a shelter that ultimately held 30,000 people. Few of those 30,000 probably know much about Citizen Corps but they do know gratitude. Gratitude for all the strangers who've been so willing to lend a hand. Oh, they're so sweet, they're lovely, they are good. They ask you do you need anything? You say yes, they go get it. They sit on the top to you, they try to comfort you, you know. It's real good, you know. They don't do, you know, they're not nasty people, they don't have the nasty attitudes or anything. They're trying to do the best, they do the comfort us. Evacuese are touched by the presence of the volunteers and vice versa. They're kids. The kids are the most amazing thing that's out there. They come up and they'll say thank you, they'll hug you. You can see in their eyes that it's in the past but it's still fresh in their memory. To say that the volunteers are hooked is an understatement. It hadn't been like they get here and work a couple hours and leave. I mean, they just don't want to leave because they come back and ask for another assignment. And I mean, you can look at them and tell they're exhausted. Well, I'll just fold clothes, I'll do something easy. You know, I know they need me, they just don't want to leave. Where are you from? Seattle, fantastic, thanks for coming down. Of course, the goal in all this is to transition the evacuees out of Reliant City and back into a more stable existence. But even as the operation begins to wind down, thoughts are already turning to what this all meant. To judge Robert Eccles, it proves that Citizen Corps does make a difference. But the beauty of it is every city can do what they want. But what they might look at is say, at this program and say, you know, what would have happened had New Orleans had a active, involved Citizen Corps to help identify people, get them out of their homes. To Mark Sloan, it means that you can make a difference. You can do something. You can help in any way that you can. All you have to do is understand what your own capabilities, your own abilities are. And if you do that, you can benefit. To Tori Williams, it means she did make a difference. They were so appreciative. It was, I couldn't believe it. And to the evacuees, the difference means everything. I'll say God bless them and God bless me and appreciate everything that they did for me. Many of the volunteers we talked to during our Houston visit described the Citizen Corps effort as one of the best things that's ever happened to them. Our hope is that people just like you will be inspired to action and might share that same inspiration with others. If you need a little jumpstart, here's information on how to order your own copy of today's program. For more information on how you can receive Homeland Responder for Educational Use, visit the Homeland Responder website. As you've seen so far in the program, no matter how prepared you think you are, you can always do better. It's in that spirit we offer our final Homeland Responder Challenge. Are you ready? Our final Homeland Responder Challenge centers on Citizen Corps. We've shown you how the formation of a high functioning Citizen Corps program made all the difference in Houston, Texas. Had it not been for that program, volunteers wouldn't have been able to mobilize us quickly and efficiently to absorb all the evacuees from New Orleans. Here's the question. In what percentage of emergencies is a firefighter, EMT, or police officer the first person to respond? Here are your choices. A. 95% B. 46% C. 32% D. 5% The answer? First responders can't be everywhere. And we're finding that our statistics say that 95% of all emergencies, they're at the bystander or the victim himself, is the first person to respond. That puts the answer for traditional first responders at D. 5%. Which leads to our next question. Vips is one of the key partners of Citizen Corps. Vips stands for A. Volunteers in Police Service B. Vanderbilt Institute of Policy Standards C. Voters involved in Policy Standards D. Volunteers in Public Service The answer? A. Volunteers in Police Service The goal of Vips is to enhance the capacity of state and local law enforcement to utilize volunteers. To find out more about Vips, go to policevolunteers.org It seems that our first responders are in a perpetual race to outthink the bad guys and to stay one step ahead of what nature can throw their way. To do that, they need an edge. And that edge comes in the form of technology. Here's an insider's glimpse at some of the latest gadgets. What's new in the world of law enforcement technology? Let's shine a little light on the subject. This is our M2 flash cam. It's a flashlight that records audio, video, infrared, and takes up to 2700 snapshots. This gadget isn't just a cool idea. It was born from real world needs. I was a police officer for five years myself. And we always are looking for new technology. And when I was in law enforcement, I thought it would be great to have a product that we could go to a domestic with a bar fight and accident and be able to take video and audio and everything along with having the flashlight with us. The M2's thermal imaging feature allows the officer to spot a possible suspect no matter how dark it is. The camera can record an hour and 20 minutes of high resolution video or produce still images. We have a little camera up in the top left, which means if I hit the select button, we just captured an image. And with the image being captured, it stamps the serial number of the flashlight and the date and time that the picture was taken. The officer benefits from a digitally recorded record of everything that took place. A lot of people say, Jesus, this is one of the most revolutionary products that law enforcement has ever seen, which is very gratifying for us to hear that, especially myself as being one of the people that came up with the idea. Next stop, how about a product with a new twist? Literally. This is a video prop 300, where it does a handheld unit. This probe system not only allows officers to look inside tight spaces, the operator can manipulate a joystick to hook and twist the end of the probe, allowing officers an amazing range of vision. One peek under the door, and the SWAT team knows how many people are inside and the number and location of the weapons. In cases of suspected explosives, the probe is ideal. For the safety of the officers to pull it out, now they know that they have explosives, now they're going to make the decision either to try to take it apart or to dispose by putting it in the tank and blow it up. The probe includes a wireless transmitter with a range of 14 miles. The last stop on our technology tour finds an item that may not be as showy as the others, but it's just plain smart. Okay, what we have here is a mobile command post. It's a command post that you can basically collapse down into something that's extremely portable. It could be thrown in any truck of any vehicle. Setting up the mobile command post is similar to setting up a folding cardboard table and just as fast. The case is watertight. Inside you'll find a battery powered light, a magnetic dry erase board and a liftable desktop with storage underneath. The unit is priced under $1,000, a fraction of the cost of a traditional field command post. Our thoughts were we wanted to put everything into one small package that anybody could afford. As you've seen in this program, disaster can strike in even the most peaceful of places and test the preparedness of those who think they've already seen the worst. Homeland Responder hopes you're never put to the test, but if you are, we're there with you to get you ready before disaster strikes. For all of us here at Homeland Responder, I'm John Eastman saying thanks for watching and reminding you that we're all Homeland Responders. So be involved and be safe. So long.