In late May, FEMA/DHS released an updated version of Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 201. For those not familiar, CPG 201 is designed to guide communities and organizations through the process of the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA). This is the third edition of a document that was originally released in April 2012. … Continue reading An Updated Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 201 (THIRA/SPR)
Earlier today FEMA dropped the latest version of the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) doctrine. Doing a quick comparison between this new version and the previous (2013) version, I’ve identified the following significant changes: They replaced the ‘Elected and Appointed Officials’ mentions within the document with ‘Senior Leaders’. This makes sense, since often … Continue reading NEW: 2020 HSEEP Revision
I hope everyone is settling into the new year nicely. One of the things I started off this year doing was going through CPG 101 and providing input to FEMA for the update of this foundational document. (note: if you haven’t yet, get your comments in now as the deadline is soon approaching!) CPG 101, … Continue reading Thoughts on How to Improve the Planning Standard
Earlier this year, FEMA released guidance on the Community Lifelines. I wrote a piece in the spring about integrating the concept into our preparedness and response activities. Last month, FEMA issued updated guidance for Community Lifeline Implementation through Toolkit 2.0. In this update, FEMA cites some lessons learned in actually applying the Lifeline concept in … Continue reading An Updated Community Lifelines Toolkit and Relationships to Incident Management
A few days ago, Homeland Security Today posted an article titled FEMA Creates Pilot Program for Long-term Emergency Management. It seemed intriguing, so I took a look. The article is pretty much verbatim (no fault of HS Today) from the press release posted by FEMA of the same title (linked to in the article). Needless … Continue reading A FEMA Pilot Program? Maybe?
The 2018 National Preparedness Report was released last week. For the past few years, I’ve provided my own critical review of these annual reports (see 2017’s report here). For those not familiar with the National Preparedness Report (NPR), it is mandated by the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA). The information is compiled by FEMA … Continue reading Reviewing The 2018 National Preparedness Report
A few days ago, FEMA published its after action report (AAR) for the 2017 hurricane season. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that last year was nothing short of devastating. The major hurricane activity revolved around Hurricane Harvey (Texas), Hurricane Irma (Caribbean/South Atlantic coast), and Hurricane Maria (Caribbean), but domestic response … Continue reading FEMA’s 2017 Hurricane Season AAR
Today’s FEMA Daily Digest Bulletin announced the release of Core Capability Development Sheets which are intended to help jurisdictions build or sustain each capability by integrating: Available training courses Capability targets for the THIRA Nationally typed resources Partners to support development of capabilities Exercise support and guidance to validate capabilities Assistance from the FEMA National … Continue reading New Release: Core Capability Development Sheets
A recent class of FEMA’s Emergency Management Executive Academy published a paper titled Are We Prepared Yet? in the latest issue of the Domestic Preparedness Journal. It’s a solid read, and I encourage everyone to look it over. First off, I wasn’t aware of the scope of work conducted in the Executive Academy. I think … Continue reading Measuring Preparedness – An Executive Academy Perspective
One of the searches that has most often brought people to my blog over the last couple of years has been POETE. In case you forgot, POETE stands for Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising. If you conduct an internet search for POETE, there are very few relevant results. Along with a few of my … Continue reading In a POETE State of Mind
