Interesting innovation from the WFP - CipCip is "humanitarian twitter" -
a micro-blogging service used within the WFP.
http://talksahana.com/2009/05/26/cipcip-the-humanitarian-twitter/
According to the WFP's DELIVER project:
"Already we have had our first user 'Ciping' from Maputo, Mozambique. We
have live streamed meetings so that we could remain working our desks
while one of our team 'Cip'd' updates."
source:
http://wfpdelivers.blogspot.com/2009/05/cipcip-it-is-not-what-you-do-but-who.html
Long gone are the times where you put a knowledgeable person somewhere and she or he could do the job. Our work has become so complex, time-critical and crucial to saving lives that "collaboration" with others has become a must. Not only with external parties like donors, government counterparts and other NGOs/UN agencies but also internally within the organisation.
"Information" is a key part of the collaboration. Accessing and sharing information a must.
And data is everywhere. From corporate servers, to Access databases in field offices, to Excel spreadsheets somewhere on individual computers. There is not one bit of information that exists, which is not in a digital form, apart from the feeling of the sand between your toes on a romantic summer evening.
The data exists. But is hardly made accessible let alone shared.
With the DELIVER project we aim to make the information, essential for moving 4.7 million tons of food annually, available to all those who need it. And more.
One of the key goals of DELIVER is the collection, analysis, storage and dispatch of time critical information, generated by systems, people or by public sources.
Imagine you are in a security constrained emergency operation, let's take Goma 6 months go. You need to monitor the constantly changing environment. In one hour:
* a crowd is amassing by your warehouse, blocking trucks to leave. Riots possible.
* the rebels are rumoured to have attacked an MSF truck on the route to Bukavu
* 550 new IDPs arrive at the border of town, news reported by a CARE driver
* retreating government troops are confiscating cars and motorbikes
* the port captain has fled, and people looted his office, making the facilities unusable
* UNHCR dispatches the latest IDP figures.
* 10 trucks are waiting at the Rwanda border, apparently some paperwork went astray
* the Belgian government told the press they will fly in a C130 with relief goods, but it seems HQ is not aware yet.
This stream of information comes from HQ, the Goma radio room, the press, the security office, and your counterparts in other NGOs. It comes by Email, telephone, satphone, and VHF radio. Oh and add CNN, BBC and the rumour mill for a good mix.
How about if we could funnel all of that information into one big information pipe with just short messages and with links where to find the full information? What if the system could split up that stream of information, and dispatch it - dependent on the subject - to different audiences (logistics, security, programme, etc...) either via SMS or a real time display on computer - like Skype messages?
Well, we might just have done that.
Please welcome CipCip (pronounce "TJEEP-TJEEP", Italian for Twitter) to the DELIVER family. CipCip is a joint effort by an underground team of information management people, who wish to remain unanimous. ;-) OK, you can call us "Geeks".
CipCip, is like Twitter, but internal to our organisation. Access is restricted, and new users are added by invite-only at this time.
When we talk about Twitter, everyone rolls their eyes, and thinks of a 13-year old getting up in the morning and Tweeting "I need a new hair-cut".
We are thinking more in terms of:
* "!pakistan Gov. of PAK now estimates total number of IDPs in SWAT to reach 2.5 million (press conference)"
* "!news ICRC releases press release stating they get no access to refugees in North Sri Lanka"
* "!earlywarning Who has the link to the latest OCHA report on DRC?"
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
IAEM-SC Philadelphia University Chapter is now on Facebook
IAEM-SC Philadelphia University Chapter is now on Facebook
This can be an integral part of communication with alumni, new
students and current students. IAEM-SC has a national group site and
several student chapters have also set up group sites.
For additional information, contact the DMM office or Robert Buzzerd
This can be an integral part of communication with alumni, new
students and current students. IAEM-SC has a national group site and
several student chapters have also set up group sites.
For additional information, contact the DMM office or Robert Buzzerd
Friday, May 22, 2009
Interested in Obtaining your AEM/CEM
Fellow Students,
Are you interested in obtaining your Associate Emergency Manager or
Certified Emergency Manager credentials before leaving school but you
are just not sure how to go about it, then join Christian Lanphere,
Second Vice President of the IAEM USA Student Region on June 8, 2009
at 1:30 p.m. (1300 hrs) EDT.
Please see the attached letter for more information or you can find it
on our website at http://www.iaem.com/students.
You can join the conference call at 1-877-643-6951, code is 21082304#.
Several days before the conference call, look in your email or on the
IAEM student website for the necessary handouts to follow along on the
call. Bring any and all questions that you may have.
On behalf of the IAEM USA Student Region we look forward to your participation.
-Christian Lanphere, CEM
Second Vice President, IAEM USA Region
Are you interested in obtaining your Associate Emergency Manager or
Certified Emergency Manager credentials before leaving school but you
are just not sure how to go about it, then join Christian Lanphere,
Second Vice President of the IAEM USA Student Region on June 8, 2009
at 1:30 p.m. (1300 hrs) EDT.
Please see the attached letter for more information or you can find it
on our website at http://www.iaem.com/students.
You can join the conference call at 1-877-643-6951, code is 21082304#.
Several days before the conference call, look in your email or on the
IAEM student website for the necessary handouts to follow along on the
call. Bring any and all questions that you may have.
On behalf of the IAEM USA Student Region we look forward to your participation.
-Christian Lanphere, CEM
Second Vice President, IAEM USA Region
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Quick-Look Report: New York City Bombing Plot, May 20, 2009
Quick-Look Report: New York City Bombing Plot, May 20, 2009
Who:
* Three American citizens and one Haitian national were arrested Wednesday evening, May 20, 2009, for plotting to commit terrorist attacks in and around New York City
* All four lived in Newburgh, New York, about 70 miles from New York City
* The men, James Cromitie, aka Abdul Rahman, David Williams, aka Daoud and DL, Onta Williams, aka Hamza, and Laguerre Payen aka Amin and Almondo, all are recent radical Islamic converts with no ties to any international terrorist groups
* At least one of the individuals (Cromitie) has family members in Afghanistan
What:
* On May 6, 2009, the men purchased what they believed was three IEDs, each containing over 30 pounds of C-4 explosive and a Stinger missile in Stamford, CT from an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant; each of these devices were fake and the explosives inert, but the men believed them to be authentic and in working order
* The group planned to attack the synagogue and community center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx with two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs)
* The men planned to drive back to Newburgh, New York and detonate the devices remotely using cellular phones, while simultaneously using the Stinger missile to attack planes at the Air National Guard Base
When:
* Arrests made on Wednesday evening, around 9pm EST on May 20, 2009
* In April 2009, the men identified their targets and began conducting surveillance; Cromitie and Williams also purchased a 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol for use during the planned attack
* The FBI continued to monitor the group and in October 2008, they actively sought to acquire improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
* The FBI had been monitoring the group of men beginning in June 2008, after Cromitie unknowingly met with an FBI informant
Where:
* Three targets: a Jewish Synagogue, a Jewish community center, and the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport 60 miles north of New York City
Notes:
* At least one of the men expressed a desire to join Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based terrorist group
* The men conducted surveillance including photography when planning their attack
* The group appeared to have little knowledge of explosives and IEDs
Sources:
BBC News
ABC News
Associated Press
UK Telegraph
Bloomberg
New York Times
Who:
* Three American citizens and one Haitian national were arrested Wednesday evening, May 20, 2009, for plotting to commit terrorist attacks in and around New York City
* All four lived in Newburgh, New York, about 70 miles from New York City
* The men, James Cromitie, aka Abdul Rahman, David Williams, aka Daoud and DL, Onta Williams, aka Hamza, and Laguerre Payen aka Amin and Almondo, all are recent radical Islamic converts with no ties to any international terrorist groups
* At least one of the individuals (Cromitie) has family members in Afghanistan
What:
* On May 6, 2009, the men purchased what they believed was three IEDs, each containing over 30 pounds of C-4 explosive and a Stinger missile in Stamford, CT from an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant; each of these devices were fake and the explosives inert, but the men believed them to be authentic and in working order
* The group planned to attack the synagogue and community center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx with two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs)
* The men planned to drive back to Newburgh, New York and detonate the devices remotely using cellular phones, while simultaneously using the Stinger missile to attack planes at the Air National Guard Base
When:
* Arrests made on Wednesday evening, around 9pm EST on May 20, 2009
* In April 2009, the men identified their targets and began conducting surveillance; Cromitie and Williams also purchased a 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistol for use during the planned attack
* The FBI continued to monitor the group and in October 2008, they actively sought to acquire improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
* The FBI had been monitoring the group of men beginning in June 2008, after Cromitie unknowingly met with an FBI informant
Where:
* Three targets: a Jewish Synagogue, a Jewish community center, and the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport 60 miles north of New York City
Notes:
* At least one of the men expressed a desire to join Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based terrorist group
* The men conducted surveillance including photography when planning their attack
* The group appeared to have little knowledge of explosives and IEDs
Sources:
BBC News
ABC News
Associated Press
UK Telegraph
Bloomberg
New York Times
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
All Disasters Are Local
New York Times
May 18, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
All Disasters Are Local
By STEVEN T. GANYARD
Washington
AMERICA seems to have dodged a bullet with the swine flu epidemic — yet this was more the result of the virus being less deadly than feared rather than of any government coordination.
Despite billions spent since 9/11, we are still not well prepared to react to disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks and natural disasters — a fact Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has been frank about in her brief time on the job. She has ruffled feathers by criticizing a $25 million national-security exercise the department undertook in 2007 as being too expensive, too unrealistic and “too removed from a real-world scenario.” But her frustration is well founded and indicative of larger fundamental flaws.
The big problem is that coordination among state and local governments and Washington has been only incrementally improved in recent years. The national exercise system is broken, focusing too much on senior officials and neglecting training at the state and local levels. There is a better way.
Several years ago, while in command of a Marine air group in Southern California, I looked for ways for us to help local authorities during a natural disaster. What I found was a disturbing lack of coordination among city, county and regional agencies, and independent organizations. Marines had the training to be of great help in, say, an earthquake, but it was not clear where we would fit in with all the other agencies involved.
Since every government agency is given a budget for training, we wondered why we didn’t all train together. We found our first partners in the City and County of Los Angeles. Together we devised a collaborative disaster response training event we called Golden Phoenix. Each year since 2006, we have undertaken a realistic and detailed disaster exercise that plays out over several days and involves disparate organizations dedicated to a common goal — saving American lives. The 2006 and ’07 Golden Phoenix events simulated the effects of devastating earthquakes in Los Angeles and Orange County; last year’s operation involved a mock bioterrorism attack on San Diego that evolved into a widespread medical emergency.
From the start, a key has been making participation voluntary and open to any organization, public or private, willing to use its own funds. Because we didn’t ask for complete control or mandate performance benchmarks, we found plenty of groups eager to participate and willing to experiment. We had hospitals, green-energy firms, software developers, communications groups and aerospace companies — even an international cargo-shipping line — as well as nongovernmental groups like the Red Cross involved.
We also found that there are economies to be had in this collaborative approach. Golden Phoenix 2008 involved more than 150 local, state, federal, tribal, academic, nongovernmental and private sector entities, yet it required no additional spending outside the various groups’ training budgets (well, except for $535 spent on coffee and doughnuts).
Golden Phoenix is based on the premise that, like politics, all disasters are local. That is, improved safety and security for the people of St. Louis is best created in St. Louis, not Washington. More attention needs to be paid to the local and regional levels if we are “to prepare for and respond to natural and man-caused disasters with speed, skill and effectiveness,” as Ms. Napolitano said in her confirmation hearing.
In responding to crises, the most persistent problem is that of collaboration — people with information and equipment who are unable to share it with those who need it most. The means to effective collaboration is social networking and exploiting the natural mutual attractions of communities with common interests.
Federal agencies, however, often rely on the sort of top-down, set-piece exercises Secretary Napolitano rightly denounced. Usually intended to validate broad protocols with mandates to meet fixed goals, they induce fear of failure and rarely allow — much less encourage — experimentation. Participants are usually reluctant to try new techniques because of a risk of institutional embarrassment. Worse, performance in formal exercises is often tied to future financing; thus the threat of lost jobs or promotions discourages adaptation and modernization.
The Marines in my unit overcame any fears on the part of other participants by earning their trust and acting as a neutral third party. We functioned as social lubricant and catalyst, not dictating terms or seeking to control, but rather creating trust in exercises in which there was no penalty for failure. In one instance, a senior California official expressed amazement that we were able to get police officers and sheriff’s deputies, members of two cultures often at odds, to collaborate. As one Los Angeles Police Department captain said, “You have helped us more in one day than the feds have in 10 years.”
The personal relationships created by Golden Phoenix have had a real payoff: they have been instrumental in combating California wildfires, improving communications between government agencies and rescue workers in Los Angeles, even saving a climber’s life on Mount Whitney. Two participants — Angel Flight West, which provides free air travel for those with severe medical problems, and Project K.I.D., which aids children during natural disasters — formed a partnership to pre-screen pilots who can be at the ready to reunite children and their parents separated by disaster.
The degree of personal trust at the tactical level, not money or machines, is the single most important determinant of how well communities will deal with threats and disasters. But these relationships must be established in training so that first responders are not handing out business cards to one another on the way to the disaster. In addition, preparation can sort out any questions as to what the military’s proper role will be in a disaster and spare us the sort of legal haggling that helped hamstring the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
In Golden Phoenix, because we are not tied to performance, we have been able to conduct diverse experiments that directly address the needs of citizens affected by disaster, like how to deal with large displaced populations, surges in patients arriving at hospitals, and reuniting families after a disaster. In the middle of an exercise in which a port had been contaminated by a bio-weapons attack, I watched as a ponytailed neuroscientist gathered his impromptu team — a software engineer, a medical researcher and a firefighter — in the back of a Marine helicopter to work on an innovative solution for urban decontamination.
In another instance, we discovered that the adapters we had wouldn’t connect civilian radios with military ones, which work on their own frequency bands. So a Marine, a firefighter and a civilian Navy employee hopped in a truck, purchased some parts from a local electronics store and, working in a tent pitched beside a hot and dusty desert airport, built a cable adapter that finally established civil-military communications. It was a $25 solution to a multimillion- dollar problem.
That on-the-fly breakthrough came in handy in fighting fires outside San Diego in 2007, when the cable was used to help establish civil-military interoperability.
If our simulated attack had been an actual disaster, people might have died before communications were restored. Solving these and more complex problems before a disaster occurs will not come from doing senior-level “table-top” exercises but from hands-on training at the regional and local level.
In responding to disasters, Americans must look beyond government for help. Most of the critical infrastructure of the country is in private hands, and much of humanitarian relief is provided by local churches and relief charities. We need "whole of society" not just "whole of government" responses.
Golden Phoenix made clear that state and local officials do not want imposed, top-down solutions. They prefer what they would find at a local hardware store: readily available tools and materials, and assistance from experts who can help them find their own solutions. The federal government can be most helpful by providing what state and local officials are often short of in an emergency: transportation, communication bandwidth and portable electric power. Generally, other kinds of federal “help” can be disruptive.
In encouraging local and regional training, the new administration has a chance to make the American people safer and government more effective — without increased spending. Secretary Napolitano clearly sees the need, but it is going to take a willingness to challenge entrenched bureaucracies and listen to new approaches and ideas. Unlike the swine flu, our next national emergency might not take care of itself.
Stephen T. Ganyard is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and Marine Corps fighter pilot.
May 18, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
All Disasters Are Local
By STEVEN T. GANYARD
Washington
AMERICA seems to have dodged a bullet with the swine flu epidemic — yet this was more the result of the virus being less deadly than feared rather than of any government coordination.
Despite billions spent since 9/11, we are still not well prepared to react to disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks and natural disasters — a fact Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has been frank about in her brief time on the job. She has ruffled feathers by criticizing a $25 million national-security exercise the department undertook in 2007 as being too expensive, too unrealistic and “too removed from a real-world scenario.” But her frustration is well founded and indicative of larger fundamental flaws.
The big problem is that coordination among state and local governments and Washington has been only incrementally improved in recent years. The national exercise system is broken, focusing too much on senior officials and neglecting training at the state and local levels. There is a better way.
Several years ago, while in command of a Marine air group in Southern California, I looked for ways for us to help local authorities during a natural disaster. What I found was a disturbing lack of coordination among city, county and regional agencies, and independent organizations. Marines had the training to be of great help in, say, an earthquake, but it was not clear where we would fit in with all the other agencies involved.
Since every government agency is given a budget for training, we wondered why we didn’t all train together. We found our first partners in the City and County of Los Angeles. Together we devised a collaborative disaster response training event we called Golden Phoenix. Each year since 2006, we have undertaken a realistic and detailed disaster exercise that plays out over several days and involves disparate organizations dedicated to a common goal — saving American lives. The 2006 and ’07 Golden Phoenix events simulated the effects of devastating earthquakes in Los Angeles and Orange County; last year’s operation involved a mock bioterrorism attack on San Diego that evolved into a widespread medical emergency.
From the start, a key has been making participation voluntary and open to any organization, public or private, willing to use its own funds. Because we didn’t ask for complete control or mandate performance benchmarks, we found plenty of groups eager to participate and willing to experiment. We had hospitals, green-energy firms, software developers, communications groups and aerospace companies — even an international cargo-shipping line — as well as nongovernmental groups like the Red Cross involved.
We also found that there are economies to be had in this collaborative approach. Golden Phoenix 2008 involved more than 150 local, state, federal, tribal, academic, nongovernmental and private sector entities, yet it required no additional spending outside the various groups’ training budgets (well, except for $535 spent on coffee and doughnuts).
Golden Phoenix is based on the premise that, like politics, all disasters are local. That is, improved safety and security for the people of St. Louis is best created in St. Louis, not Washington. More attention needs to be paid to the local and regional levels if we are “to prepare for and respond to natural and man-caused disasters with speed, skill and effectiveness,” as Ms. Napolitano said in her confirmation hearing.
In responding to crises, the most persistent problem is that of collaboration — people with information and equipment who are unable to share it with those who need it most. The means to effective collaboration is social networking and exploiting the natural mutual attractions of communities with common interests.
Federal agencies, however, often rely on the sort of top-down, set-piece exercises Secretary Napolitano rightly denounced. Usually intended to validate broad protocols with mandates to meet fixed goals, they induce fear of failure and rarely allow — much less encourage — experimentation. Participants are usually reluctant to try new techniques because of a risk of institutional embarrassment. Worse, performance in formal exercises is often tied to future financing; thus the threat of lost jobs or promotions discourages adaptation and modernization.
The Marines in my unit overcame any fears on the part of other participants by earning their trust and acting as a neutral third party. We functioned as social lubricant and catalyst, not dictating terms or seeking to control, but rather creating trust in exercises in which there was no penalty for failure. In one instance, a senior California official expressed amazement that we were able to get police officers and sheriff’s deputies, members of two cultures often at odds, to collaborate. As one Los Angeles Police Department captain said, “You have helped us more in one day than the feds have in 10 years.”
The personal relationships created by Golden Phoenix have had a real payoff: they have been instrumental in combating California wildfires, improving communications between government agencies and rescue workers in Los Angeles, even saving a climber’s life on Mount Whitney. Two participants — Angel Flight West, which provides free air travel for those with severe medical problems, and Project K.I.D., which aids children during natural disasters — formed a partnership to pre-screen pilots who can be at the ready to reunite children and their parents separated by disaster.
The degree of personal trust at the tactical level, not money or machines, is the single most important determinant of how well communities will deal with threats and disasters. But these relationships must be established in training so that first responders are not handing out business cards to one another on the way to the disaster. In addition, preparation can sort out any questions as to what the military’s proper role will be in a disaster and spare us the sort of legal haggling that helped hamstring the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
In Golden Phoenix, because we are not tied to performance, we have been able to conduct diverse experiments that directly address the needs of citizens affected by disaster, like how to deal with large displaced populations, surges in patients arriving at hospitals, and reuniting families after a disaster. In the middle of an exercise in which a port had been contaminated by a bio-weapons attack, I watched as a ponytailed neuroscientist gathered his impromptu team — a software engineer, a medical researcher and a firefighter — in the back of a Marine helicopter to work on an innovative solution for urban decontamination.
In another instance, we discovered that the adapters we had wouldn’t connect civilian radios with military ones, which work on their own frequency bands. So a Marine, a firefighter and a civilian Navy employee hopped in a truck, purchased some parts from a local electronics store and, working in a tent pitched beside a hot and dusty desert airport, built a cable adapter that finally established civil-military communications. It was a $25 solution to a multimillion- dollar problem.
That on-the-fly breakthrough came in handy in fighting fires outside San Diego in 2007, when the cable was used to help establish civil-military interoperability.
If our simulated attack had been an actual disaster, people might have died before communications were restored. Solving these and more complex problems before a disaster occurs will not come from doing senior-level “table-top” exercises but from hands-on training at the regional and local level.
In responding to disasters, Americans must look beyond government for help. Most of the critical infrastructure of the country is in private hands, and much of humanitarian relief is provided by local churches and relief charities. We need "whole of society" not just "whole of government" responses.
Golden Phoenix made clear that state and local officials do not want imposed, top-down solutions. They prefer what they would find at a local hardware store: readily available tools and materials, and assistance from experts who can help them find their own solutions. The federal government can be most helpful by providing what state and local officials are often short of in an emergency: transportation, communication bandwidth and portable electric power. Generally, other kinds of federal “help” can be disruptive.
In encouraging local and regional training, the new administration has a chance to make the American people safer and government more effective — without increased spending. Secretary Napolitano clearly sees the need, but it is going to take a willingness to challenge entrenched bureaucracies and listen to new approaches and ideas. Unlike the swine flu, our next national emergency might not take care of itself.
Stephen T. Ganyard is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and Marine Corps fighter pilot.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Command Considerations for Terror Response
Command Considerations for Terror Response
Under an integrated response plan, and the national incident management system, first-responders at the command level must be able to manage terror scenes. This means enabling effective rescue of the injured while assuring the security and safety of first-responders and receivers. This interactive seminar provides lessons learned from Israel, integrated into an American environment, to address such concerns as secondary threats, safe staging, ingress and egress, and adversary interdiction.
Both the Israel Police and the Magen David Adom (Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross) have been interdicting and responding to suicide bombing attacks for many years. The tactic of the adversary has adapted to the constant improvement in the counter terror techniques and countermeasures of the Israelis. Aaron Richman, former captain in the Israel National Police (Jerusalem Precinct), paramedic, and Homeland Security instructor, will present case studies on mass casualty terror events inside Israel. Richman will address attacks of which he commanded the response, as well as suicide bombings with strong lessons learned for first responders and receivers.
Emergency services, managers, and the private sector can gain tools and knowledge to assist in designing policies and procedures for various responses to such incidents, as well as understanding as to the dangers associated with operations in such an environment.
To register, please visit: http://itrr.openfireacademy.org
Under an integrated response plan, and the national incident management system, first-responders at the command level must be able to manage terror scenes. This means enabling effective rescue of the injured while assuring the security and safety of first-responders and receivers. This interactive seminar provides lessons learned from Israel, integrated into an American environment, to address such concerns as secondary threats, safe staging, ingress and egress, and adversary interdiction.
Both the Israel Police and the Magen David Adom (Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross) have been interdicting and responding to suicide bombing attacks for many years. The tactic of the adversary has adapted to the constant improvement in the counter terror techniques and countermeasures of the Israelis. Aaron Richman, former captain in the Israel National Police (Jerusalem Precinct), paramedic, and Homeland Security instructor, will present case studies on mass casualty terror events inside Israel. Richman will address attacks of which he commanded the response, as well as suicide bombings with strong lessons learned for first responders and receivers.
Emergency services, managers, and the private sector can gain tools and knowledge to assist in designing policies and procedures for various responses to such incidents, as well as understanding as to the dangers associated with operations in such an environment.
To register, please visit: http://itrr.openfireacademy.org
Monday, May 18, 2009
Drill PATH
Emergency lights flashed in the early-morning chill, streets were sealed off, and within minutes, firefighters and police officers had raced through the smoky PATH tunnel beneath the Hudson River to reach the darkened train. They quickly began evacuating the 150 passengers, many with red smears on their faces and bodies. Some were put in steel carts and wheeled back to the station at the World Trade Center.
And the officials running the operation on Sunday morning made sure that nobody thought it was the real thing.
Operation Safe PATH 2009, an exercise involving about 800 emergency workers from multiple agencies, coordinated a response to a simulated explosion aboard a PATH train.
The drill emphasized the need for the agencies to work side by side on both first aid and intelligence gathering, said Commissioner Joseph F. Bruno of the city's Office of Emergency Management.
Officials were aware of the possible sensitivity of residents to the sight of flashing red lights and squadrons of emergency workers at ground zero. That concern was amplified three weeks ago, after office workers rushed into the streets when they saw one of the planes used as Air Force One flying over Lower Manhattan, Staten Island and Jersey City, accompanied by fighter jets, in what turned out to be a photo session.
Mr. Bruno said that scare highlighted the need for advance notice of Sunday's drill. Announcements were sent to the news media, community boards, and to those who have signed up to receive alerts from the city's emergency-notification system.
"That particular incident pointed out the need for people to know as much as possible," Mr. Bruno said. "We would not want folks to wake up and see all this equipment and wonder."
Police officers were stationed behind sawhorses, telling pedestrians there was a drill and diverting them away.
With PATH service shut down for much of the morning, a train was positioned about 1,200 feet into the tunnel on a westbound track. Smoke machines were activated and about 150 volunteers were made up to look bloodied and injured: a glass shard jutted from a forehead; a forearm was scraped raw. They then took seats on the train, with other seats occupied by mannequins.
The "explosions" occurred about 8 a.m.
The security of the PATH trains and tunnels has long been a concern. There are about 250,000 passenger trips through the PATH system each weekday, with 50,000 trips through the station at ground zero alone.
In 2006, a preliminary draft of an analysis done for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and provided to The New York Times, found that the four tubes of the rail system were structurally fragile and that a bomb explosion could flood parts of the system within hours.
Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management, would not comment on the 2006 report, but said the "exercise was designed so the explosion did not breach the tunnel."
Most of the drill's participants were able to walk out to the street, but 20 victims were considered "critically injured" and had to be wheeled out on the kind of aluminum rail carts that were used in London after a 2005 bombing there. The carts had never been used in New York, said Chief Joseph Pfeifer, of the Fire Department's counterterrorism unit.
Once outside, the volunteers were questioned by detectives for intelligence gathering.
"If we are going to make mistakes, we want to make them here," said Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations.
When the two-hour exercise ended about 10 a.m., pedestrians mingled with the volunteers and officers in full gear. One elderly couple snapped photographs. A girl passed a bloodied volunteer on West Broadway.
"I was like, 'What was going on?' People were coming out with fake bruises," said Iman Hayes, 12. "It was shocking and surprising."
Dr. Anthony Lyon, a 35-year-old physician who lives nearby, sauntered through the throng of firefighters, with his son Jonah on his shoulders. He said he was not surprised by the sight of Sunday's drill, for one simple reason: "Because of where we are."http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/nyregion/18path.html?_r=1&hpw
Police: Acid Attack Burns Crowd of 30, Injuring Infant
Police: Acid Attack Burns Crowd of 30, Injuring Infant
Saturday , May 16, 2009
HONG KONG —
Two bottles of acid were thrown into a crowd in a popular shopping district in downtown Hong Kong on Saturday, injuring 30 people, police and news reports said.It was the second such attack in five months in the neighborhood.
Television footage showed firefighters washing off victims' arms and legs before sending them to hospitals for treatment. Some had holes in their clothing.
Hong Kong Cable TV said people in the Mong Kok district had been splashed with acid, though police Superintendent Leung Ka-ming would not confirm what liquid was thrown.
Samples of the liquid will be sent to a laboratory to determine its type, fire services officer So Kam-sang said.
He said 30 people suffered burns but none was seriously injured. Police earlier said an infant was among the injured.
Mong Kok, which means "busy corner" in Chinese, is a shopping hot spot that attracts thousands of local people and tourists on weekends.
On the same street in December, 46 people suffered burns when two plastic bottles filled with acid were thrown at pedestrians.
No one has been detained, despite a police reward of 100,000 Hong Kong dollars ($12,900) for information leading to an arrest.
Leung said police would combine the two cases for investigation.
"We will find out whether the two cases were done by the same person as soon as possible," Leung told reporters. "Right now, we do not rule out any possibilities."
The assailant will be charged with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, Leung added.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Research Opportunity
The Disaster Medicine and Management Program has been awarded a Faculty Research & Design Grant for the upcoming academic year. We are looking for three (3) interested students to take part as researchers for the grant. Students can take advantage of the project for "life experience", Capstone, or an internship. The project includes some travel and field interviews as well as the study of policies and procedures.
For anyone that is interested, please contact Aaron Richman direct to: richmana@philau.edu or arichman@itrrintel.org
Details regarding the research is below:
The grant research question is:
Can a standard response methodology be designed and developed to prepare local agencies for the response to suicide bomber incidents?
Abstract for Research Paper:
The research paper to be compiled will address various responses and decision making in the field for suicide bomber interdiction by emergency responders (law enforcement, fire-rescue, emergency medical) and emergency managers. Local law enforcement, fire-rescue, and emergency medical services are the first and last line of defense for the interdiction of a suicide bomber. Critical decision making needs to be made at a fraction of a second, when an emergency responder is confronted with this threat. The various tactical options are almost limited solely to lethal force against the threat; however, jurisdictions have been hesitant to develop any clear directive for the “cop on the street”. From past experiences, many agencies, globally, have identified and assessed different tactics that have been supported by response plans in various jurisdictions. The research paper will address a number of response plans, interviews, site visits, after action reports, and case studies that have successfully and unsuccessfully been used throughout the world and in the United States in an attempt to identify clear tactical principles that local jurisdictions can consider for the response to such a threat.
For anyone that is interested, please contact Aaron Richman direct to: richmana@philau.edu or arichman@itrrintel.org
Details regarding the research is below:
The grant research question is:
Can a standard response methodology be designed and developed to prepare local agencies for the response to suicide bomber incidents?
Abstract for Research Paper:
The research paper to be compiled will address various responses and decision making in the field for suicide bomber interdiction by emergency responders (law enforcement, fire-rescue, emergency medical) and emergency managers. Local law enforcement, fire-rescue, and emergency medical services are the first and last line of defense for the interdiction of a suicide bomber. Critical decision making needs to be made at a fraction of a second, when an emergency responder is confronted with this threat. The various tactical options are almost limited solely to lethal force against the threat; however, jurisdictions have been hesitant to develop any clear directive for the “cop on the street”. From past experiences, many agencies, globally, have identified and assessed different tactics that have been supported by response plans in various jurisdictions. The research paper will address a number of response plans, interviews, site visits, after action reports, and case studies that have successfully and unsuccessfully been used throughout the world and in the United States in an attempt to identify clear tactical principles that local jurisdictions can consider for the response to such a threat.
Humanitarian mapping
Respond is an alliance of European and International organisations working with the humanitarian community to improve access to maps, satellite imagery and geographic information.
http://www.respond-int.org/respondlive/index.html
http://www.respond-int.org/respondlive/index.html
Disaster Grants to young people
Do Something and the Dunkin' Brands Community Foundation have teamed up to offer $500 Disaster Grants to young people across the US and Canada. Are you building houses down in New Orleans, planning an emergency coat drive for families in crisis this winter, or collecting toys for kids who’ve been through a natural disaster? Then we want to hear from you!
Each week in 2009 we are giving out $500 to an awesome person with a project idea around the themes of disaster preparedness and emergency response. We want to recognize YOU for what you’re doing in your community.
http://www.dosomething.org/grants/disaster
Each week in 2009 we are giving out $500 to an awesome person with a project idea around the themes of disaster preparedness and emergency response. We want to recognize YOU for what you’re doing in your community.
http://www.dosomething.org/grants/disaster
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Healthcare System Preparedness & Response to Emergencies & Disasters
The First Israeli International Conference on Healthcare System Preparedness & Response to Emergencies & Disasters (IPRED) - 11-14 January 2010
During the last few decades the health care systems in many countries have been confronted by numerous challenges which have required them to prepare for and manage different types of emergencies and disasters, stemming from natural events, terror and communicable diseases. The current world-wide efforts that have been implemented in order to prevent, mitigate and manage an H1N1 flu pandemic well illustrate the crucial need for global collaboration.
In order to provide an opportunity for professionals from around the world to share the latest findings and new experience regarding health system readiness for disasters and emergencies of all types, the Israeli Ministry of Health and Home Front Command have initiated the IPRED conference. The conference will be held from 11 – 14 January 2010 in Tel Aviv, Israel .
The goal of IPRED is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas, experience and lessons learned about preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters. The conference will also provide opportunities for networking, and promoting the potential for international research collaboration in the field of emergency and disaster medicine.
The conference is aimed at professionals (both practitioners and researchers) from the civilian and military domains, government and non-governmental agencies involved in the delivery of health care, and agencies involved in preparedness and response of health care systems for the full gamut of emergencies and disasters. Professionals who would benefit from the conference include: physicians, nurses, emergency medical services personnel, emergency planners, public health, mental health, law enforcement, environmental protection agencies, and rescue and fire services.
The main themes of the conference are:
· Preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters
· Lessons learned from mass casualty events and emergencies
· Public behavior, risk communication and mental health during and following emergencies
· Training personnel for managing emergencies
· Interface relations and collaboration between emergency agencies
· Risk assessment and surveillance systems for identifying potential threats to public health
· Role of international and national agencies in disaster medicine
· Opportunity for observing and/or participating in a 2 day biological drill
We would like to request your assistance in disseminating information concerning the conference to colleagues, and other groups or individuals who you feel might be interested in attending the conference.
Additional information regarding the conference can be found on the IPRED website: www.ipred.co.il or by contacting: bruria@moh.health.gov.il
During the last few decades the health care systems in many countries have been confronted by numerous challenges which have required them to prepare for and manage different types of emergencies and disasters, stemming from natural events, terror and communicable diseases. The current world-wide efforts that have been implemented in order to prevent, mitigate and manage an H1N1 flu pandemic well illustrate the crucial need for global collaboration.
In order to provide an opportunity for professionals from around the world to share the latest findings and new experience regarding health system readiness for disasters and emergencies of all types, the Israeli Ministry of Health and Home Front Command have initiated the IPRED conference. The conference will be held from 11 – 14 January 2010 in Tel Aviv, Israel .
The goal of IPRED is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas, experience and lessons learned about preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters. The conference will also provide opportunities for networking, and promoting the potential for international research collaboration in the field of emergency and disaster medicine.
The conference is aimed at professionals (both practitioners and researchers) from the civilian and military domains, government and non-governmental agencies involved in the delivery of health care, and agencies involved in preparedness and response of health care systems for the full gamut of emergencies and disasters. Professionals who would benefit from the conference include: physicians, nurses, emergency medical services personnel, emergency planners, public health, mental health, law enforcement, environmental protection agencies, and rescue and fire services.
The main themes of the conference are:
· Preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters
· Lessons learned from mass casualty events and emergencies
· Public behavior, risk communication and mental health during and following emergencies
· Training personnel for managing emergencies
· Interface relations and collaboration between emergency agencies
· Risk assessment and surveillance systems for identifying potential threats to public health
· Role of international and national agencies in disaster medicine
· Opportunity for observing and/or participating in a 2 day biological drill
We would like to request your assistance in disseminating information concerning the conference to colleagues, and other groups or individuals who you feel might be interested in attending the conference.
Additional information regarding the conference can be found on the IPRED website: www.ipred.co.il or by contacting: bruria@moh.health.gov.il
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Disaster Management OnLine Text
http://orgmail2.coe-dmha.org/dr/flash.htm
About the Center for Excellence
We are a U.S. Center for Excellence directed to educate, train, research and assist in disaster management and humanitarian assistance operations.
Click here to view our values
Our Vision
An Asia Pacific region prepared to respond, collaborate, and manage natural and manmade disasters. In addition, COE aims to help equip nations with disaster management plans, prepare them to respond to plausible contingencies and become willing to participate in a regional collaborative framework.
Our Mission
Educate, train, conduct research and assist in international disaster preparedness, disaster management, and disaster response.
How COE was established
Established in 1994 by the U.S. Congress as part of the Department of Defense, COE reports directly to the U.S. Pacific Command and receives policy guidance from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Security Affairs.
Back to topBack to top
About the Center for Excellence
We are a U.S. Center for Excellence directed to educate, train, research and assist in disaster management and humanitarian assistance operations.
Click here to view our values
Our Vision
An Asia Pacific region prepared to respond, collaborate, and manage natural and manmade disasters. In addition, COE aims to help equip nations with disaster management plans, prepare them to respond to plausible contingencies and become willing to participate in a regional collaborative framework.
Our Mission
Educate, train, conduct research and assist in international disaster preparedness, disaster management, and disaster response.
How COE was established
Established in 1994 by the U.S. Congress as part of the Department of Defense, COE reports directly to the U.S. Pacific Command and receives policy guidance from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Security Affairs.
Back to topBack to top
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Health, Hygiene, Fitness and Medical Care in a Coming Collapse, by RangerDoc
Health, Hygiene, Fitness and Medical Care in a Coming Collapse, by RangerDoc
Spiritual Fitness
Let us start this discussion by confronting a stark fact of life: very few of us, living the life of North American citizens, are fit to survive for a generation in an austere, off the grid, world. First of all, few of us have the philosophical orientation to be survivors. I know in my bones that without God’s help, my family’s ability to survive in a prolonged state of austerity is worse than questionable. As an evangelical Christian, I understand that my own commitment to preparedness is a function of my ongoing submission to God’s will. It could have been otherwise. He could have willed me to pursue other ventures: sacrificing my own survival for the benefit of others as I helped them “escape the storm”. Is this not the philosophical basis of soldiering and of the missionary? Self-sacrifice, even to the point of death. That was Jesus’ example of discipleship. So I diverge from that example only by virtue of an ongoing conversation with my Lord and Master, and He urges me to prepare for the worst, so that my family and my “retreat posse” will survive. I know not His particular purpose in this endeavor, but I trust His will implicitly. It is my personal belief that the Lord calls all family leaders to provide deeply for the sustenance and well being of their families. But unless you have had this conversation with the Author of life, you may not be philosophically and spiritually “fit” for the challenging times to come. And God may have a different path for you to pursue, in the service of His Kingdom. Remember that Jesus has called us all to Himself and He wants you to trust Him today! Preparedness is not a hobby- it is a calling. In this vein also, I do not condone the “secret squirrel” approach to preparedness. Being discreet about the specifics of our preparedness plans is a wise tactic in these dangerous times, but failing to share our wisdom, insight and knowledge with others who could effectively use this information for good is, in my estimation, downright sinful. So much for my personal philosophical bias.
Physical Fitness
Second of all, few of us have the physical fitness level required to be 19th century farmer-builder-warriors, which is what we may be called to become. Example: Thirty five years ago, I was a carpenter and gardener: climbing, lifting, sawing, digging, hammering. I joined the US Army to become a Ranger. And, boy, did I find out how poor my aerobic fitness was. Fast forward ten years: I was then a medical student and an avid, competitive triathlete. I visited my buddy’s place (Yeah, he’s in the “posse”) and helped him cut, stack and split firewood for a day. Well, my “designer body” ala swim-bike-run was exquisitely fit aerobically, but that episode of real labor left my body an aching mess for the next three days! Now I am a 60 year old surgeon who mixes aerobic exercise with gardening, light carpentry, resistance training, hiking with the Boy Scouts, woodcutting, et cetera, so that I can be at least minimally fit for the challenging lifestyle that would be required in a TEOTWAWKI world. If you are overweight, smoking and sedentary, you are engaged in a futile fantasy to think that you will survive in a post-apocalyptic world, surrounded by your storage food, guns and ammo. These are mere possessions that will swiftly be taken from you by the ravenously hungry horde of healthy young men who have heard about your stash. Start your physical preparedness plan with physical fitness.
Preventative Medicine
Next issue: public health measures. For many years I taught and practiced medical and surgical care in austere environments. In the late 1990s I was the chief of the medical special response teams for the US Army, Pacific, and taught disaster planning and medical care in austere environments around the world as a Department of Defense consultant. If I had to choose between having access to modern medical care and having a sound public sanitation system and clean water, it would be a no-brainer. The clean water and hygienic handling of human waste as first perfected in the twentieth century have saved many more lives than have antibiotics and modern surgery. Hepatitis, polio, typhoid fever, dysentery and other waste and waterborne diseases have defeated far more armies throughout history than have poor tactics and strategy. Witness [German General Erwin] Rommel’s own struggle with hepatitis during the North Africa campaign of WWII, which he roundly lost, in spite of his brilliance as a military tactician. If you have a retreat, please remember this simple principle: keep you food and water supply as far as possible from latrine sites. Controlling mosquitoes may be important in some areas, to avoid epidemics of West Nile Virus, malaria and yellow fever. The current H1N1 flu pandemic should remind us all that we need to protect ourselves from infectious disease. There is much more to learn about field sanitation and hygiene, so please consider reviewing this comprehensive resource.
Now you have arrived at the next step. You are right with God and your body has been worked into a lean, mean, diggin’, buildin’ and fightin’ machine. You have an ample and reliable source of potable water and your latrines are at least 100 yards downhill from your water supply. You have a half ton of lime ($30-40 worth) to sprinkle in the latrine. Your food is stored securely and safely away from vermin, fungus and other pests. After 2-3 years of experimenting, your food growing skills and garden are adequate. You have established sound and reliable defense and OPSEC measures, to include perimeter defense, adequate weapons capability, mastering of small unit operations and tactics and adequate familiarization with improvised weapons and tactics and redundant communications systems. Whew!! That was a lot of work! Now, and only now, should you plan your strategy for medical, dental and surgical care.
Medical Care in Austere Environments
Number one principle: avoid injuries and illness. In practical terms that means maintaining sound health and hygiene, as above noted. It includes scrupulous avoidance of horseplay, as well. What a tragedy to break your ankle playing Ultimate Frisbee during planting season, when every able body will be needed to secure your frugal harvest for the year. Without the availability of operative orthopedic care, many of our ancestors became lifelong cripples from simple injuries such as this. Skiing and mountain biking will be absolute no-no’s unless truly necessary for operational reasons. Sorry, but fun activities are way low on the list of gotta-do’s in a survival environment.
Next: eat to survive, not for fun. No one will care what you prefer in your diet, least of all your retreat cook, who is tasked with cobbling together a nutritious meal from whatever is on hand. (As an aside, when my very wise wife and I developed the list of friends that we would invite into our “retreat posse”, the overarching selection criteria, following a Judeo-Christian moral orientation, could be characterized as “high skill, low maintenance” personality traits). Multivitamins will be most helpful, but probably can be stretched to one every other day or even two per week, if there is a shortage. Include adequate fiber in your diet. In our stores, we have large containers of Metamucil, for instance, to avoid constipation. When encountering this problem, the French Maquis (WWII resistance fighters) would ask a local farmer for some butter or lard and eat 2-3 tablespoons…like grease through a goose! We also have a simple formula for an oral rehydration solution to treat dehydration following diarrheal illnesses, heat injury, or trauma- induced hypovolemia. Please copy the data on this site of the Rehydration Project (http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm) for an excellent and simple description of homemade rehydration remedies.
Take scrupulous care of your teeth! Floss at least three times per week and brush at least twice daily. Toothpaste is nice, but not necessary. Baking soda works almost as well and it is not only cheap, but has many other uses. Buy 20 pounds of baking soda. I strongly urge all to get a copy of Where There Is No Dentist by Murray Dickson. It is available from Ready Made Resources. This is an excellent and authoritative manual that is easy to put to use by someone with at least a modicum of medical training, for example an EMT.
Now the fun part you were all waiting for: interventional health care, i.e., the practice of medicine and surgery in an austere environment. To start with, I strongly recommend getting a copy of the list of $4 prescription medications available at Wal-Mart pharmacies. The array of inexpensive medications is astounding. Antibiotics, antihypertensives, hormone replacements, topical medications, eye and ear preparations- they are all on this list. Ten to fifteen years ago, most of these items were very expensive “designer drugs”. If you need antihypertensives, see if your doctor will prescribe drugs off this list and then get him to write you a 6-12 month prescription. Also ask him to write you prescriptions for the antibiotics that I recommend below. You should also get several bottles of eye and ear antibiotic drops. Admittedly, this may be an uphill battle. Hopefully you can educate your physician about the importance of preparedness and make him an ally. Tell the Wal-Mart pharmacist that you are going on a mission trip to a distant land without access to pharmaceuticals. This would not really be a lie, would it?! Don’t worry about your cholesterol- it will drop on your new diet…but then, my guess is that the survival lifestyle will also “cure” most hypertension and non-insulin dependent diabetes. But, please, try to get to that level of lean fitness prior to encountering the “SHTF” dilemma. I recommend a stockpile of four antibiotics that will treat most conditions that will really require them: pneumonia, anthrax, urinary tract infections, skin infections, and wound infections: Cephalexin 500 mg, Ciprofloxacin 500 mg, Doxycycline 100 mg, and Septra DS (SMZ/TMP DS). These can all be taken by folks with penicillin allergies, with the possible exception of the cephalexin. The number of tablets that you need will be based on the size of your group. All of these are dosed for adults but can be split or crushed for children. Echoing the advice of Jim Rawles, having a retreat member with significant medical experience, e.g., an advance practice RN, a PA or, ideally a practicing physician, will enable you to utilize these medications optimally. In my humble estimation, about 30-40% of antibiotic prescriptions currently doled out by my colleagues are unnecessary, and often done to placate demanding “health care consumers” because it is often too frustrating and time consuming to educate folks in the office. Although these medications are inexpensive now, when you have a limited supply that must last months or years, they will become precious allies in your fight for survival that must only be used when life or limb are at risk. The expiration dates on the bottles of meds that you receive at the pharmacy are really made up, since no pharmaceutical company really studies the time-related efficacy and safety of these drugs carefully. The expiration dates are always much earlier than the true degradation dates, except for liquid and injectable medications. Almost all medications are probably still safe and effective for at least 1-2 years after the printed expiration date. Almost every doctor friend of mine gives his/her family expired medications from their sample shelves! If you live within 200 miles of a nuclear power plant, a large military base or a major urban center, it is prudent to stockpile a 1 month supply of iodine supplements for each member of you family, to avoid the long term carcinogenic effects of a nuclear fallout emergency. These are really cheap, have long shelf lives, and can be purchased from several of the advertisers on this web site.
Wound and Trauma Care
Let’s start by making life simple: any soap with water works as an adequate antiseptic for scratches and scrapes, and good ol’ Vaseline works nearly as well as a wound dressing as the expensive antibiotic ointments. Large second or third degree burns are another story, however. Having worked in the developing world as both a military doc and as a medical missionary, I have observed for myself the well known fact that flame injuries are a major cause of death and disability in primitive cultures. Open fires are often used for heating and cooking, resulting in frequent flame injuries, especially to children. Children are neither wise nor well coordinated, and they fall into fires. Get several large jars of Silvadene cream for extensive burn use only. Keep it refrigerated, or even frozen as long as possible to extend its shelf life. This stuff is somewhat expensive, but not easily replaced. OTC topical antibiotics like bacitracin ointment could be substituted in a pinch. Extensive burns (larger than the palm of your hand) should be cleaned with soap and water and dressed with antibiotic ointment and sterile gauze reapplied daily until fully healed. When you run out of Silvadene, use Vaseline (get 50 lbs of it- it has many, many practical uses).
I currently teach advanced tactical medics for the US Army, SWAT teams and the U.S. Border Patrol. We teach them suturing techniques. But, unless you can really clean a wound within 12-24 hours of its occurrence and close it surgically with a truly aseptic technique- sterile gloves, drapes, sutures and instruments- it should be left open to heal by itself. Otherwise it will likely get grossly infected, pus out, and require you to take out your precious suture material and use your precious antibiotics to treat the now deep wound infection. Soap and Water will take care of this wound better, along with copious irrigation with previously boiled water (allowed to cool, of course). “The solution to pollution is dilution!” Clean the wound with a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and sterile water if it gets crusty or develops a thick discharge and change the dressing daily. If large vessels, tendons, nerves or bones are exposed, the wound will require suturing, but only after extensive cleaning and irrigation, followed by several days of sterile dressing changes and the administration of oral cephalexin three times each day, and then only with the cleanest, sterile technique.
Orthopedic Injuries
Basic first aid techniques are most important to acquire for all preppers. This is especially true for injuries to bone, joint and spine. The first aid techniques that I learned as a Boy Scout almost 50 years ago are still relevant today. Taking a Red Cross First Aid course is really important as the minimum medical training for anyone seriously facing a survival situation. However, when there is no doctor available, you will be required to go several steps further. Fractures must be set into their normal , functional positions and then casted or splinted effectively when you are the final medical authority. Additionally, if the fracture is open, i.e., there is a break in the skin where the bone had poked through, this wound must be thoroughly washed and irrigated, dressed with a sterile dressing and antibiotic ointment, and broad spectrum antibiotics given for a week. Serious spinal injuries may be a death sentence in this situation, invoking the principle of expectant care (see “Triage principles” below).
Pain Relief and Anesthesia
Okay, so this part comes easy to me. Not only is my wife a former marathon runner, triathlete, and cross country cyclist, she is also a total Christian babe. And an anesthesiologist. She has taught me how to perform total IV anesthesia, using relatively inexpensive drugs given by injection, thereby not requiring the use of inhalational agents. Most of the procedures that can be done outside of the hospital are short- under one hour in duration. In the austere environment, the group surgeon would ideally be prepared and equipped to perform the following major surgical procedures: Debridement of dirty wounds; open ligation of major bleeding vessels; appendectomy; cholecystectomy (removal of a diseased gall bladder); cesarean section. Although endotracheal intubation may be required, the presence of a ventilator and oxygen can be circumvented. A bag-valve device will be necessary for manual ventilation. Intravenous equipment and fluids are required. Again, the amounts of each will depend upon your situation, but I would recommend having at least four liters of normal saline IV solution for each member of your group. Ignore the expiration dates: salt water does not degrade. Avoid using this precious resource for routine causes of dehydration. Use the rehydration solutions instead. Put up an ample supply of Tylenol, Motrin and Aleve. If possible, store a supply of stronger narcotic pain medications, such as Vicodin.
Triage Principles
Triage is the function of rationing medical care in the context of limited availability. This may mean a limitation in supplies, time, facilities, transportation or professional medical providers. In a TEOTWAWKI scenario, all of these factors may be in short supply.
The four triage categories are as follows:
1. IMMEDIATE: These victims have life threatening conditions that will a) result in death if not promptly addressed and b) can be remediated with the judicious use of assets on hand. An example would be a deep laceration to the groin with arterial bleeding from the femoral artery. The immediate application of pressure or, if necessary, a tourniquet, will save a life. This could then be treated with definitive surgery later.
2. DELAYED: This describes serious conditions that are not immediately life threatening, but that will require medical attention in hours to days to avoid serious disability or even death. An appropriate example would be a humerus fracture sustained while having piggy back chicken fights in the back yard (you’ve already forgotten: no horseplay!)
3. MINIMAL: This category includes illnesses and injuries that are self limiting: small lacerations, a non-displaced finger fracture, a short episode of diarrheal illness, etc. These folks need to keep working!
4. EXPECTANT: When medical resources are severely limited, they must be used to derive the greatest survival benefit for the community. That means that using a lot of medications, supplies and manpower in attempts to resuscitate profoundly ill or injured patients is unethical. These unfortunate folks will be unlikely to survive regardless of your best efforts. They are triaged as expectant, meaning that they are likely to die. Examples include severe shock, quadriplegic injuries, or multiple gunshot wounds to vital organs. They should be treated for pain if possible, and given comfort and affection until their demise. This will save resources for those who are salvageable and can continue to contribute to the group’s survival.
Medicolegal disclaimer: Please do not use any of the above advised techniques or methods unless you have no possible access to professional medical care. This advice is not at all applicable, and may in some instances be harmful, if you have access to professional medical care. - RangerDoc, MD, FACS
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http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/05/health_hygiene_fitness_and_med.html
Spiritual Fitness
Let us start this discussion by confronting a stark fact of life: very few of us, living the life of North American citizens, are fit to survive for a generation in an austere, off the grid, world. First of all, few of us have the philosophical orientation to be survivors. I know in my bones that without God’s help, my family’s ability to survive in a prolonged state of austerity is worse than questionable. As an evangelical Christian, I understand that my own commitment to preparedness is a function of my ongoing submission to God’s will. It could have been otherwise. He could have willed me to pursue other ventures: sacrificing my own survival for the benefit of others as I helped them “escape the storm”. Is this not the philosophical basis of soldiering and of the missionary? Self-sacrifice, even to the point of death. That was Jesus’ example of discipleship. So I diverge from that example only by virtue of an ongoing conversation with my Lord and Master, and He urges me to prepare for the worst, so that my family and my “retreat posse” will survive. I know not His particular purpose in this endeavor, but I trust His will implicitly. It is my personal belief that the Lord calls all family leaders to provide deeply for the sustenance and well being of their families. But unless you have had this conversation with the Author of life, you may not be philosophically and spiritually “fit” for the challenging times to come. And God may have a different path for you to pursue, in the service of His Kingdom. Remember that Jesus has called us all to Himself and He wants you to trust Him today! Preparedness is not a hobby- it is a calling. In this vein also, I do not condone the “secret squirrel” approach to preparedness. Being discreet about the specifics of our preparedness plans is a wise tactic in these dangerous times, but failing to share our wisdom, insight and knowledge with others who could effectively use this information for good is, in my estimation, downright sinful. So much for my personal philosophical bias.
Physical Fitness
Second of all, few of us have the physical fitness level required to be 19th century farmer-builder-warriors, which is what we may be called to become. Example: Thirty five years ago, I was a carpenter and gardener: climbing, lifting, sawing, digging, hammering. I joined the US Army to become a Ranger. And, boy, did I find out how poor my aerobic fitness was. Fast forward ten years: I was then a medical student and an avid, competitive triathlete. I visited my buddy’s place (Yeah, he’s in the “posse”) and helped him cut, stack and split firewood for a day. Well, my “designer body” ala swim-bike-run was exquisitely fit aerobically, but that episode of real labor left my body an aching mess for the next three days! Now I am a 60 year old surgeon who mixes aerobic exercise with gardening, light carpentry, resistance training, hiking with the Boy Scouts, woodcutting, et cetera, so that I can be at least minimally fit for the challenging lifestyle that would be required in a TEOTWAWKI world. If you are overweight, smoking and sedentary, you are engaged in a futile fantasy to think that you will survive in a post-apocalyptic world, surrounded by your storage food, guns and ammo. These are mere possessions that will swiftly be taken from you by the ravenously hungry horde of healthy young men who have heard about your stash. Start your physical preparedness plan with physical fitness.
Preventative Medicine
Next issue: public health measures. For many years I taught and practiced medical and surgical care in austere environments. In the late 1990s I was the chief of the medical special response teams for the US Army, Pacific, and taught disaster planning and medical care in austere environments around the world as a Department of Defense consultant. If I had to choose between having access to modern medical care and having a sound public sanitation system and clean water, it would be a no-brainer. The clean water and hygienic handling of human waste as first perfected in the twentieth century have saved many more lives than have antibiotics and modern surgery. Hepatitis, polio, typhoid fever, dysentery and other waste and waterborne diseases have defeated far more armies throughout history than have poor tactics and strategy. Witness [German General Erwin] Rommel’s own struggle with hepatitis during the North Africa campaign of WWII, which he roundly lost, in spite of his brilliance as a military tactician. If you have a retreat, please remember this simple principle: keep you food and water supply as far as possible from latrine sites. Controlling mosquitoes may be important in some areas, to avoid epidemics of West Nile Virus, malaria and yellow fever. The current H1N1 flu pandemic should remind us all that we need to protect ourselves from infectious disease. There is much more to learn about field sanitation and hygiene, so please consider reviewing this comprehensive resource.
Now you have arrived at the next step. You are right with God and your body has been worked into a lean, mean, diggin’, buildin’ and fightin’ machine. You have an ample and reliable source of potable water and your latrines are at least 100 yards downhill from your water supply. You have a half ton of lime ($30-40 worth) to sprinkle in the latrine. Your food is stored securely and safely away from vermin, fungus and other pests. After 2-3 years of experimenting, your food growing skills and garden are adequate. You have established sound and reliable defense and OPSEC measures, to include perimeter defense, adequate weapons capability, mastering of small unit operations and tactics and adequate familiarization with improvised weapons and tactics and redundant communications systems. Whew!! That was a lot of work! Now, and only now, should you plan your strategy for medical, dental and surgical care.
Medical Care in Austere Environments
Number one principle: avoid injuries and illness. In practical terms that means maintaining sound health and hygiene, as above noted. It includes scrupulous avoidance of horseplay, as well. What a tragedy to break your ankle playing Ultimate Frisbee during planting season, when every able body will be needed to secure your frugal harvest for the year. Without the availability of operative orthopedic care, many of our ancestors became lifelong cripples from simple injuries such as this. Skiing and mountain biking will be absolute no-no’s unless truly necessary for operational reasons. Sorry, but fun activities are way low on the list of gotta-do’s in a survival environment.
Next: eat to survive, not for fun. No one will care what you prefer in your diet, least of all your retreat cook, who is tasked with cobbling together a nutritious meal from whatever is on hand. (As an aside, when my very wise wife and I developed the list of friends that we would invite into our “retreat posse”, the overarching selection criteria, following a Judeo-Christian moral orientation, could be characterized as “high skill, low maintenance” personality traits). Multivitamins will be most helpful, but probably can be stretched to one every other day or even two per week, if there is a shortage. Include adequate fiber in your diet. In our stores, we have large containers of Metamucil, for instance, to avoid constipation. When encountering this problem, the French Maquis (WWII resistance fighters) would ask a local farmer for some butter or lard and eat 2-3 tablespoons…like grease through a goose! We also have a simple formula for an oral rehydration solution to treat dehydration following diarrheal illnesses, heat injury, or trauma- induced hypovolemia. Please copy the data on this site of the Rehydration Project (http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm) for an excellent and simple description of homemade rehydration remedies.
Take scrupulous care of your teeth! Floss at least three times per week and brush at least twice daily. Toothpaste is nice, but not necessary. Baking soda works almost as well and it is not only cheap, but has many other uses. Buy 20 pounds of baking soda. I strongly urge all to get a copy of Where There Is No Dentist by Murray Dickson. It is available from Ready Made Resources. This is an excellent and authoritative manual that is easy to put to use by someone with at least a modicum of medical training, for example an EMT.
Now the fun part you were all waiting for: interventional health care, i.e., the practice of medicine and surgery in an austere environment. To start with, I strongly recommend getting a copy of the list of $4 prescription medications available at Wal-Mart pharmacies. The array of inexpensive medications is astounding. Antibiotics, antihypertensives, hormone replacements, topical medications, eye and ear preparations- they are all on this list. Ten to fifteen years ago, most of these items were very expensive “designer drugs”. If you need antihypertensives, see if your doctor will prescribe drugs off this list and then get him to write you a 6-12 month prescription. Also ask him to write you prescriptions for the antibiotics that I recommend below. You should also get several bottles of eye and ear antibiotic drops. Admittedly, this may be an uphill battle. Hopefully you can educate your physician about the importance of preparedness and make him an ally. Tell the Wal-Mart pharmacist that you are going on a mission trip to a distant land without access to pharmaceuticals. This would not really be a lie, would it?! Don’t worry about your cholesterol- it will drop on your new diet…but then, my guess is that the survival lifestyle will also “cure” most hypertension and non-insulin dependent diabetes. But, please, try to get to that level of lean fitness prior to encountering the “SHTF” dilemma. I recommend a stockpile of four antibiotics that will treat most conditions that will really require them: pneumonia, anthrax, urinary tract infections, skin infections, and wound infections: Cephalexin 500 mg, Ciprofloxacin 500 mg, Doxycycline 100 mg, and Septra DS (SMZ/TMP DS). These can all be taken by folks with penicillin allergies, with the possible exception of the cephalexin. The number of tablets that you need will be based on the size of your group. All of these are dosed for adults but can be split or crushed for children. Echoing the advice of Jim Rawles, having a retreat member with significant medical experience, e.g., an advance practice RN, a PA or, ideally a practicing physician, will enable you to utilize these medications optimally. In my humble estimation, about 30-40% of antibiotic prescriptions currently doled out by my colleagues are unnecessary, and often done to placate demanding “health care consumers” because it is often too frustrating and time consuming to educate folks in the office. Although these medications are inexpensive now, when you have a limited supply that must last months or years, they will become precious allies in your fight for survival that must only be used when life or limb are at risk. The expiration dates on the bottles of meds that you receive at the pharmacy are really made up, since no pharmaceutical company really studies the time-related efficacy and safety of these drugs carefully. The expiration dates are always much earlier than the true degradation dates, except for liquid and injectable medications. Almost all medications are probably still safe and effective for at least 1-2 years after the printed expiration date. Almost every doctor friend of mine gives his/her family expired medications from their sample shelves! If you live within 200 miles of a nuclear power plant, a large military base or a major urban center, it is prudent to stockpile a 1 month supply of iodine supplements for each member of you family, to avoid the long term carcinogenic effects of a nuclear fallout emergency. These are really cheap, have long shelf lives, and can be purchased from several of the advertisers on this web site.
Wound and Trauma Care
Let’s start by making life simple: any soap with water works as an adequate antiseptic for scratches and scrapes, and good ol’ Vaseline works nearly as well as a wound dressing as the expensive antibiotic ointments. Large second or third degree burns are another story, however. Having worked in the developing world as both a military doc and as a medical missionary, I have observed for myself the well known fact that flame injuries are a major cause of death and disability in primitive cultures. Open fires are often used for heating and cooking, resulting in frequent flame injuries, especially to children. Children are neither wise nor well coordinated, and they fall into fires. Get several large jars of Silvadene cream for extensive burn use only. Keep it refrigerated, or even frozen as long as possible to extend its shelf life. This stuff is somewhat expensive, but not easily replaced. OTC topical antibiotics like bacitracin ointment could be substituted in a pinch. Extensive burns (larger than the palm of your hand) should be cleaned with soap and water and dressed with antibiotic ointment and sterile gauze reapplied daily until fully healed. When you run out of Silvadene, use Vaseline (get 50 lbs of it- it has many, many practical uses).
I currently teach advanced tactical medics for the US Army, SWAT teams and the U.S. Border Patrol. We teach them suturing techniques. But, unless you can really clean a wound within 12-24 hours of its occurrence and close it surgically with a truly aseptic technique- sterile gloves, drapes, sutures and instruments- it should be left open to heal by itself. Otherwise it will likely get grossly infected, pus out, and require you to take out your precious suture material and use your precious antibiotics to treat the now deep wound infection. Soap and Water will take care of this wound better, along with copious irrigation with previously boiled water (allowed to cool, of course). “The solution to pollution is dilution!” Clean the wound with a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and sterile water if it gets crusty or develops a thick discharge and change the dressing daily. If large vessels, tendons, nerves or bones are exposed, the wound will require suturing, but only after extensive cleaning and irrigation, followed by several days of sterile dressing changes and the administration of oral cephalexin three times each day, and then only with the cleanest, sterile technique.
Orthopedic Injuries
Basic first aid techniques are most important to acquire for all preppers. This is especially true for injuries to bone, joint and spine. The first aid techniques that I learned as a Boy Scout almost 50 years ago are still relevant today. Taking a Red Cross First Aid course is really important as the minimum medical training for anyone seriously facing a survival situation. However, when there is no doctor available, you will be required to go several steps further. Fractures must be set into their normal , functional positions and then casted or splinted effectively when you are the final medical authority. Additionally, if the fracture is open, i.e., there is a break in the skin where the bone had poked through, this wound must be thoroughly washed and irrigated, dressed with a sterile dressing and antibiotic ointment, and broad spectrum antibiotics given for a week. Serious spinal injuries may be a death sentence in this situation, invoking the principle of expectant care (see “Triage principles” below).
Pain Relief and Anesthesia
Okay, so this part comes easy to me. Not only is my wife a former marathon runner, triathlete, and cross country cyclist, she is also a total Christian babe. And an anesthesiologist. She has taught me how to perform total IV anesthesia, using relatively inexpensive drugs given by injection, thereby not requiring the use of inhalational agents. Most of the procedures that can be done outside of the hospital are short- under one hour in duration. In the austere environment, the group surgeon would ideally be prepared and equipped to perform the following major surgical procedures: Debridement of dirty wounds; open ligation of major bleeding vessels; appendectomy; cholecystectomy (removal of a diseased gall bladder); cesarean section. Although endotracheal intubation may be required, the presence of a ventilator and oxygen can be circumvented. A bag-valve device will be necessary for manual ventilation. Intravenous equipment and fluids are required. Again, the amounts of each will depend upon your situation, but I would recommend having at least four liters of normal saline IV solution for each member of your group. Ignore the expiration dates: salt water does not degrade. Avoid using this precious resource for routine causes of dehydration. Use the rehydration solutions instead. Put up an ample supply of Tylenol, Motrin and Aleve. If possible, store a supply of stronger narcotic pain medications, such as Vicodin.
Triage Principles
Triage is the function of rationing medical care in the context of limited availability. This may mean a limitation in supplies, time, facilities, transportation or professional medical providers. In a TEOTWAWKI scenario, all of these factors may be in short supply.
The four triage categories are as follows:
1. IMMEDIATE: These victims have life threatening conditions that will a) result in death if not promptly addressed and b) can be remediated with the judicious use of assets on hand. An example would be a deep laceration to the groin with arterial bleeding from the femoral artery. The immediate application of pressure or, if necessary, a tourniquet, will save a life. This could then be treated with definitive surgery later.
2. DELAYED: This describes serious conditions that are not immediately life threatening, but that will require medical attention in hours to days to avoid serious disability or even death. An appropriate example would be a humerus fracture sustained while having piggy back chicken fights in the back yard (you’ve already forgotten: no horseplay!)
3. MINIMAL: This category includes illnesses and injuries that are self limiting: small lacerations, a non-displaced finger fracture, a short episode of diarrheal illness, etc. These folks need to keep working!
4. EXPECTANT: When medical resources are severely limited, they must be used to derive the greatest survival benefit for the community. That means that using a lot of medications, supplies and manpower in attempts to resuscitate profoundly ill or injured patients is unethical. These unfortunate folks will be unlikely to survive regardless of your best efforts. They are triaged as expectant, meaning that they are likely to die. Examples include severe shock, quadriplegic injuries, or multiple gunshot wounds to vital organs. They should be treated for pain if possible, and given comfort and affection until their demise. This will save resources for those who are salvageable and can continue to contribute to the group’s survival.
Medicolegal disclaimer: Please do not use any of the above advised techniques or methods unless you have no possible access to professional medical care. This advice is not at all applicable, and may in some instances be harmful, if you have access to professional medical care. - RangerDoc, MD, FACS
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Saturday, May 9, 2009
NCTC.gov - 2009 Multimedia Counterterrorism Calendar
Welcome to the
2009 Counterterrorism Calendar
2009 Counterterrorism Calendar
The National Counterterrorism Center is pleased to present the 2009 edition of the Counterterrorism (CT) Calendar. This edition, like others since the Calendar was first published in a daily planner format in 2003, contains useful information across a wide range of terrorism-related topics: terrorist groups, wanted terrorists, and technical pages on various threat-related issues. The Calendar marks dates according to the Gregorian and Islamic calendars, and contains significant dates in terrorism history, as well as dates that terrorists may believe are important when planning "commemoration-style" attacks.
Influenza A H1N1: Quick report Mexico
Official data:
- May 8, 8:45 hrs: Confirmed Cases: 1364 cases, 45 deaths. Yesterday they reported 3 deaths in Jalisco, possibly because of H1N1 virus. Today´s news anounced 3 more deaths (in Jalisco), the official data is still not on the Health Secretariat webpage.
- Jalisco, Guerrero, San Luis Potosà and Hidalgo states anounced that schools will not reopen on the 11th but on the 18th.
- Based on a Model (FluAid) authorities calculated the impact of the epidemic for the country without any intervention: 8,605 deaths, 30,380 hospitalizations (over the usual ones), above 4.5 million office visits in an 8 week period. The details are here: http://portal.salud.gob.mx/sites/salud/descargas/pdf/influenza/estimacion_del_impacto_potencial_080509.pdf%20
- Apparently this link will show a detailed report updated today: http://portal.salud.gob.mx/descargas/pdf/influenza/influenza_situacion_actual_09may.pdf but it is not working right now.
Non-official data
- Things are quite calm now, most people is back to "normal" except there are still these "sanitary" filters in schools and universities, also in work places, and other general measures.
- Apparently thursday and friday were quite calm in the hospitals, but apparently last night there was another number of visits with flu-like symptoms to a number of hospitals. I will confirm that later today.
Now people is speaking abouth different "theories"
- "This was `created` by our governmente.
- "This is political"
- Etc
The flow of information is slower and less extensive, although you can really go into the webpages and find more detailed information. For example:
- Recommendations for indigineous communities: http://www.inali.gob.mx/influenza.html in the different dialects here.
- Detailed information published everyday.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Internship
The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR) is an American and Israeli non- profit corporation created to help organizations succeed and prosper in a world influenced by terrorism.
ITRR’s Israeli and American experts provide counter – terrorism training, seminars, and security specialization in dealing with threats such as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), suicide bombers, and other forms of international terror striking both the public and the private sector. ITRR’s US- based terror experts provide training seminars and expertise in dealing with domestic terrorism and eco-terror groups, including the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF).
The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response established the Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center (TAM-C) to provide accurate and actionable intelligence about potential security threats throughout the world. With a multilingual team of researchers and analysts, TAM-C gathers and provides intelligence on terrorist activities and plans, information on international hot-spots, historical “Red-Flag” dates, and real time security alerts.
Operating under the auspices and with the resources of TAM-C, the Ground Truth Network utilizes international contacts and sources to provide real-time intelligence from the field. In this way, the Ground Truth Network keeps international corporations apprised of threats to their assets and personnel throughout the world.
We want to thank you for taking interest in ITRR.
We offer two options for interning in our institute:
· Internship Program in ITRR offices in Israel:
The research work will be based on terrorist related internet sites and will focus on certain area/country/region according to the Institutions’ needs, and the preference of the intern. In addition, the interns’ capabilities, knowledge and the languages the intern knows will be taken into consideration. The intern will have the chance to be engaged in intelligence work, and will learn about the world of International Jihad. In addition, the intern will be required to go through a subsidized course, which is relevant for the research. The course will be coordinated specifically for the intern.
·On-line Internship Program:
The research work will be focused on a certain Area/Country according to the Institutions’ needs, and the preference of the intern. In addition, the interns’ capabilities, knowledge and the languages the intern knows will be taken to consideration. The research will be based on open source material (paper/electronic journalism). The intern is required to send a progress report twice a week. This can be a good preparation for the Internship program in Israel, but it’s not a condition for getting to the Israel program. The intern will be researching for special projects, and will have the opportunity for networking with people in Israel and over the world.
Most internships served with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response are unpaid and at the intern's expense.
The initial steps to complete are signing the confidentiality agreement, an agreement concerning the time frame of the internship and submitting the registration form.
Please let us know if you would like to continue the process with ITRR and what option will suit your interests.
Best Regards,
Yulia Shnaider
Projects Coordinator
Institute of Terrorism Research and Response
Tel: (972) 2 5711526 / (215)922-1080
Fax: (972) 2 5820994
www.terrorresponse.org
Social networking for terrorists [May 7 Tokyo Japan]
NEWS: RESEARCH
Social networking for terrorists [May 7 Tokyo Japan]--A new approach to analyzing social networks, reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Services Sciences, could help homeland security find the covert connections between the people behind terrorist attacks. The approach involves revealing the nodes that act as hubs in a terrorist network and tracing back to individual planners and perpetrators.
Dr Yoshiharu Maeno, Founder Management Consultant of the Social Design Group and Dr Yukio Ohsawa, Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan, explain that their analytical approach to understanding terrorist networks could ultimately help prevent future attacks.
Terrorist attacks can cause significant loss of life, have intense social and environmental impacts, and large economic losses. Maeno and Ohsawa explain that responding to a terrorist attack is akin to dealing with a natural disaster, with one important difference. Disaster recovery management is required with both, but in the case of a terrorist attack there is the added pressure of short-term responses to the terrorists themselves and in the long-term the need to identify and weaken the covert foundation underpinning an organized attack.
The team explains that by combining the prior understanding of expert investigators with graph theory and computational data processing, it should be possible to analyze a terrorist network and reveal latent connections and patterns. The researchers have carried out such an analysis of the network responsible for the 9/11 attacks in 2001 in order to evaluate the performance of their approach.
Fundamentally, their technique is a mathematical one involving "node" discovery. The nodes of a network are the hubs at which different members of the network are connected. Usually, ordinary members have one or two connections, nodes can have several and the critical nodes, the hubs, have many more.
The scheme is analogous to the structure of the world-wide web where individual web pages may have one or two connections, small organizations may have a few more. Major hubs, such as the big search engine companies, such as Google and Yahoo, news sources like CNN and the BBC, and social media networks such as Facebook and MySpace have many, many more. These big nodes act as the hubs through which individual and smaller sites are interconnected.
The team's computational analysis of the terrorist network associated with the 9/11 attacks revealed nodes that were not apparent to security experts in advance of the attacks. Such latent nodes appear to have been critical to the attacks but superficially do not appear to be particularly important individuals acting as hubs.
The analysis revealed a connection not known in advance of 9/11 between Waleed Alshehri and Mohand Alshehri, who share a name but are unrelated, which indicated the existence of Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hisawi as an important individual in the network.
In retrospect the connections seem obvious, but they were not seen initially, but the Japanese team's analysis could have unearthed them much sooner. Mohand Alshehri helped Mohammed Atta hijack the AA11 and fly it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Mohand Alshehri hijacked the AA175 and flew it into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Waleed Alshehri had six links and is, the researchers demonstrate, the keystone person.
Having such network insights sooner rather than later would allow investigators to gather information on associates, friends, and relatives of a suspect terrorist and so bring the perpetrators to justice that much sooner or perhaps even unravel a network plotting future attacks.
"If the investigators had had a warning information on the 19 hijack planners (including WA and MA) before 9/11, our analysis could have aided the investigators in quickly understanding the complete picture of the organized attack including the covert foundation (like MAAH)," Yoshiharu says, "I am not sure, however, whether even a very quick investigators' understanding and action could have prevented the attack. Our analysis seems more suitable to satisfying the long-term need than the short-term need."
"Analyzing covert social network foundation behind terrorism disaster" in Int. J. Services Sciences, 2009, 2, 125-141
Read more: "Be well. Practice big medicine." - http://www.bigmedicine.ca/bioscitech.htm#Social_networking_for_terrorists#ixzz0EquFuGBM&A
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