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| UVU Students with members of the Struga, Macedonia fire department |
Wednesday, February 07, 2018
UVU students meet Macedonian firefighters
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Monday, January 08, 2018
Cyber Storm VI: National Cyber Exercise
The Cyber Storm exercise series is the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) national, biennial distributed exercise entirely focused on cyber incident response. Mandated by Congress, these exercises are part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to assess and strengthen cyber preparedness, examine incident response processes, and enhance information sharing among federal, state, international, and private sector partners. Each Cyber Storm event builds on lessons learned from previous exercises and real world incidents, ensuring that participants address relevant and timely challenges.
Cyber Storm exercises give the cyber incident response community a safe venue to coordinate and practice plans, response mechanisms and recovery tasks, as well as to build and maintain relationships. Most importantly, the exercises provide the community with the opportunity to identify strengths and areas for improvement, incorporating those lessons into operations to help reduce cyber risks to the nation.
The high-level objectives of Cyber Storm VI include:
Cyber Storm VI is scheduled for Spring 2018. The exercise will focus on the critical manufacturing and transportation sectors, with participation from the information technology and communications sectors; law enforcement, defense, and intelligence agencies; state, local, and territorial governments; and international partners. For more information, email cyberstorm@hq.dhs.gov.
To review the final reports from previous Cyber Storm exercises, visit https://www.dhs.gov/publication/cyber-storm-final-reports.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Public sentiment and discourse about Zika virus on Instagram
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| The Aedes aegypti mosquito spreads the Zika virus, as well as dengue fever and chikungunya. |
Instagram can be used to identify incorrect information
about health issues and help health professionals correct misleading or incomplete
information. University of Pennsylvania researchers in the September 2017 issue
of Public Health showed how using keywords or hashtags public health
professionals can get real-time information about public preparedness and
response to diseases.
The researchers used the keyword #zika to identify 500
images posted on Instagram from May to August 2016 about public sentiment on
the Zika outbreak. They found that 60% of relevant posts included misleading,
incomplete or unclear information about the virus and many images (51%)
expressed fear and negative sentiment.
Of the 500 images tagged with #zika, 342 (68%) contained
content actually related to Zika. Of the 342 images, 299 were coded as ‘health”
and 193 were coded as ‘public interest’.
Health images related mainly to transmission (43%) and prevention
(48%). Transmission-related posts were more about mosquito-to-human
transmission rather than human-to-human transmission. Mosquito bite prevention
was more of a concern than safe sex prevention. The most targeted audience were
women (36 of 38 images).
Images were coded by three reviewers who collected
contextual information about sentiment, image type, content, audience,
geography, reliability and engagement.
Reference: Seltzer, E.K., E. Horst-Martz, M. Lu, R.M.
Merchant. (2017). Public sentiment and discourse about Zika virus on Instagram.
Public Health. Vol. 150, pp. 170-175.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2017.07.015 Retrieved from http://www.publichealthjrnl.com/article/S0033-3506(17)30244-5/abstract
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/zika-virus-what-canadians-travellers-need-to-know-1.3424064
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Friday, July 21, 2017
Preparedness tips for a wildfire and for people with disabilities
Prepare
Your Home for Wildfire
 Where there is
smoke, there could be fire! Wildfires can occur anywhere, any time of the
year, and destroy homes, businesses, and natural resources.
According to the National Fire
Protection Association’s Firewise Communities Program, more than
$1.9 billion was spent on wildfire suppression in 2016.
However, you can
prepare yourself, your business, and where you live in the event you may
experience a wildfire emergency. Get started by:
·
Watching the
Federal Emergency Management Agency’s wildfire animation – When the Fire
Starts.
·
Reviewing
your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy to ensure you have the adequate
coverage for your property and personal belongings.
·
Removing
flammable items, such as firewood piles and portable propane tanks, within 30
feet of all structures and discarding any dry or dead vegetation from up to
100 feet around your home.
·
Learning and
practicing evacuation routes from your home or business to an area that is
not affected by the wildfire. The best action to protect yourself and your
family is to evacuate early and avoid being trapped.
Wildfires can occur any time of the
year, but are especially prevalent during the dry season. Make sure you
prepare ahead of time by checking out Prepareathon's
How to Prepare for a Wildfire Guide.
|
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Preparedness
for Parents
 Have you heard? National
Parents’ Day is Sunday, July 23. In observance of this
occasion, we encourage family members to help parents prepare for
emergencies. Prepareathon and the Ready Campaign highlight several ways
to prepare for the unexpected.
Some of these actions include:
·
Creating a
family emergency communication plan - Your family may not
be together when disaster strikes, so it is important to plan for how
you will connect with each other.
·
Preparing infants and
young children for emergencies - Learn the emergency
plans for their daycare or school.
·
Getting
college-age kids Campus Ready
- Gather information on the emergency procedures for their school or dorm.
·
Practicing
your emergency response plan - Making emergency plans is
great, but practicing your plan by conducting drills will help your
family’s response time when seconds count.
Disasters can be stressful for kids.
Try to make emergency planning fun for children in your family. Visit www.ready.gov/kids for
exciting games, quizzes, and other resources to help young children and teens
understand the importance of emergency preparedness.
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|
Preparedness
for People with Disabilities and Others with Access and Functional Needs
 The 27th
anniversary of the Americans with
Disabilities Act is Wednesday, July 26. Individuals and caregivers
for people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs are
encouraged to evaluate their necessities in the event of an emergency and
create an emergency plan unique to them.
The Ready
campaign shares several easy ways to create an emergency plan tailored for
specific needs:
·
Collect
information – Create a paper copy of
the contact information including phone, email, and social media
information for your family, friends, caregivers, neighbors and other
important people or service providers.
·
Share your
emergency plans – Tell your employer and trusted
people in your support networks where you keep your emergency supplies, what
you need, and how to contact you if the power goes out.
·
Practice Your
Plan – Dedicate time to practice your
emergency plan with your support network, just as you would with a fire
drill.
For more great information on how to
make your emergency plan, visit Ready’s Individuals
with Disabilities page.
This information is from the FEMA's Individual and Community Preparedness e-Brief for July 20, 2017.
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HSDL Critical Releases in Homeland Security [July 2017]
|
Every two weeks, the Homeland
Security Digital Library identifies a targeted collection of
recently-released documents of particular interest or potential importance.
[Login to the HSDL is necessary to open some documents.*]
|
|
·
Bad Bots: The
Weaponization of Social Media
College of William and Mary; Project on International Peace and Security
·
Big Data: A Twenty-First
Century Arms Race
Atlantic Council of the United States. Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security; Thomson Reuters
·
Fentanyl: A Briefing
Guide for First Responders
United States. Drug Enforcement Administration
·
How Do Education and
Unemployment Affect Support for Violent Extremism?: Evidence From Eight Arab
Countries
Brookings Institution. Global Economy and Development
·
How al-Qaeda Survived
Drones, Uprisings, and the Islamic State: The Nature of the Current Threat
Washington Institute for Near East Policy |
|
The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation’s premier collection of homeland security policy and strategy related documents. It supports local, state and federal analysis and decision-making needs and assists academics of all disciplines in homeland defense and security related research. The HSDL provides quick access to thousands of important U.S. policy documents, presidential directives, and national strategy documents as well as specialized resources such as theses and research reports from various universities, organizations and local and state agencies. *If you received this message and do not have an HSDL account, you may request one. Those with access are automatically subscribed to Critical Releases in Homeland Security. |
Friday, July 14, 2017
Prepare your family financially for a disaster
|
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
Saturday, March 04, 2017
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
Community Powered Disaster Recovery: Caitria and Morgan O'Neill at TEDxB...
Caitria & Morgan O'Neill. (2012, September 23). How to step up in the face of disaster. TEDxBoston. https://www.ted.com/talks/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_the_face_of_disaster#t-540954
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
San Bernardino shootings news coverage
Los Angeles radio reporter Steve Gregory (iHeartMedia/KFI AM 640) got his first tips of a possible shooting at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center about 10 minutes after the shooting occurred. He started to drive toward the area, making calls and texting to verify that an incident was happening.
His calls to the San Bernardino police were unanswered. In the meantime people were calling into the talk show at his station and the social media was a buzz. He arrived north of the Center and got out looking for the staging area for reporters. As he stood there with other journalists, behind a California State Police line, people started walking by toward buses. "Don't talk to reporters," they were told by police escorts.
In the meantime, Jarrod Burguan, chief of the San Bernardino police department, and every available police officer were at the conference rooms of the Inland Regional Center. What they saw was a scene of carnage with 14 dead and 22 wounded county government employees who had been attending a training and early Christmas party. The perpetrators, two hooded people, had fired 100 rounds from two guns in three minutes.
At about 11 a.m. 9-1-1 calls started coming into the police dispatch center saying people had been shot. Because of the absence of the regular PIO, Chief Burguan assigned the deputy PIO, a traffic sergeant to handle the press. They established a staging area for reporters south of the Inland Regional Center.
The sergeant starting taking reporter questions, most of which she couldn't answer. As she got radio reports and phone calls, she was able to provide sketchy details of the incident. More details about the incident were made available at a press conference held about 1 p.m., attended by Chief Burguan, the county sheriff, and representatives of the FBI and ATF. Burguan patiently answered reporter questions, repeating details several times as new reporters arrived on the scene. Regular press conferences were held throughout the day.
When Steve Gregory discovered he had gone to the wrong end of the crime scene, he worked his way around the area arriving just in time for the first press conference.
In the first hours of the shooting, police dispatchers received 300 calls an hour. Two were answering phone calls and two others were handling the police radio. One of the calls led to the identification of the suspects car, a dark SUV rental with Utah plates.
Thirty to 40 police had responded to the scene. In cooperation with other agencies, they searched the buildings associated with the center and helped vacate some 200 county employees who worked there. Firefighters and paramedics and other health care treated and transported the wounded.
Buses were called and employees were moved to a central location for questioning and family reunion.
The suspects were soon identified. One was Syed Farook was a county employee who had attended the training, but left at about 10:30 a.m. A SWAT team went to his home in Redlands, using cell phones so that their movements couldn't be traced on police radios.
Case Study: Journalists invade home of terrorist suspects
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| LA Times photo of journalists inside the home of Syed Farook |
The invasion was seen on live television. And was soon criticized.
"You have a contaminated crime scene now," CNN legal analyst Paul Callan told host Wolf Blitzer. "They've turned a crime scene in a terrorist mass murder into a garage sale." In a suitably weird twist, states Collins, at the moment of the criticism CNN was airing a split screen with footage from inside the home, showing laundry baskets, documents, toys and other personal effects.
Questions for study: As the police department PIO, what would you do in this situation? How can you provide journalists coverage while protecting the integrity of the crime scene?
Source: Collins, Scott. (2015, December 4). Media criticized for live TV coverage from home of San Bernardino shooters. Los Angeles Times online. Retrieved from
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-media-coverage-home-san-bernardino-shooting-shooters-20151204-story.html
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
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