Preparedness Grants can Fund Maintenance and User Fees

Did You Know that FEMA Grant Funds Extend Beyond Equipment Purchases?

Last November, Timothy Manning, FEMA’s Deputy Administrator of the National Preparedness Directorate (NPD) announced that prepared­ness grant funds can be used for fees associ­ated with equip­ment purchases.

An excerpt from the FEMA Grants Program Directorate’s bulletin released by his office:

“Effective [November 2o, 2009], the use of FEMA prepared­ness grant funds for mainte­nance contracts, warranties, repair or replace­ment costs, upgrades, and user fees are allow­able under all active and future grant awards, unless other­wise noted.”

How Does FEMA Define User Fees for Preparedness?

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Volcanic Events of Importance

Though it may come as a surprise to many, 10 to 20 volcanic “events of impor­tance” occur globally every month.

On a recent consult­ing assign­ment, I learned that volcanic ash in the atmos­phere can cause real problems for airplane engines, and the airlines must balance safety and efficiency in response to these events. The goal from a safety perspec­tive is to avoid aircraft encoun­ters with volcanic ash. From the perspec­tive of efficiency, the  goal is to minimize re-routing of aircraft.

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Disaster Strikes When You Least Expect It

The night­mare in Haiti once again hammers home this age-old axiom.

How many more people will die in the future because of our compla­cency — in this country and elsewhere?

How many times do we have to witness such disas­ters only to find that once again lack of commu­ni­ca­tions is the great­est hindrance to rapid and accurate assess­ment of the impact? How many people could have been saved if commu­ni­ca­tions were avail­able to quickly obtain accurate situa­tional aware­ness and better coordi­nate the resources for search and rescue?

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Martin Luther King Had a Dream. What's Yours?

My first-grader’s homework assign­ment this weekend was to fill out an “I Have a Dream” worksheet. Maybe this week, we should each do the same as we honor Martin Luther King’s legacy.

Her assign­ment was to write about her dreams for each topic below. What would you write?

I have a dream …

for myself …
for my family …
for my country …
for the world …

Maybe watch­ing part of his speech will inspire you.

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Special Rates on Satellite Phones for Haiti Response

Iridium 9555 satel­lite phones with discounted airtime rates for Haiti response teams.

For organi­za­tions respond­ing to the earth­quake in Haiti, we can off the follow­ing discounted rates. Order by 3:00 PM Eastern for same-day shipping.

Iridium 9555 to Buy  -  $1,995 with 500-minute bundle
Iridium 9555 to Rent  -  $295/week + airtime (2-week minimum)

Other airtime options are avail­able. Contact us to order or for more details.

More details on the phone: Iridium 9555.

No Portable Satcom in Haiti? How are They? What do They Need?

Watching CNN’s cover­age of the devas­tat­ing 7.0 earth­quake that hit Haiti early this evening, I found myself gasping at the thought that key relief agencies and media outlets still find themselves strug­gling to commu­ni­cate years after Katrina and 9/11.

The Miami Herald was not Connected

When asked in the early hours after the quake hit, on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” what The Miami Herald knew of the devel­op­ing situa­tion, their Carribean corre­spon­dent Jacquie Charles essen­tially said they didn’t know because they couldn’t connect with anyone there.

“Well, we’re still trying to get through because all the commu­ni­ca­tions is down … We have people en route to Haiti right now and we also have a ‘stringer’ on the ground, but because the commu­ni­ca­tions are all down, we cannot get through to anyone at this moment.”

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Let the (Disaster) Games Begin

Now surely you’ve never thought to make a game of disas­ter prepared­ness!? Well … 2010 may be a good time to rethink your approach to improv­ing your business conti­nu­ity readiness.

Games are essen­tial to our human experi­ence and they form a part of every culture.

Defined as struc­tured activ­i­ties under­taken for fun, games are more and more being used as educa­tional tools. By making aspects of educa­tion and work fun through games, atten­tion and reten­tion among partic­i­pants can be greatly enhanced. The defense indus­try has under­stood this for many years — invest­ing heavily in gaming software to enhance soldier training.

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Salvation through Harmony in Montreal

“Salvation through Harmony” is Montreal’s motto and appears on the city’s coat of arms intended to illus­trate that differ­ent commu­ni­ties have co-existed in harmony for nearly 400 years: a fleur de lis for the French, a rose for the English, a thistle for the Scots, a shamrock for the Irish, and a beaver for the Canadians.

First, the Amerindians and the French coexisted — then the British, the Scottish, the Irish, the East Europeans, Italians, Greeks and now people from every conti­nent … and today the Montreal School Board welcomes children born in 188 differ­ent countries. Talk about interoperability!

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Everybody Needs a Tap Code

This week, PBS aired a phenom­e­nal series on human emotion and social inter­ac­tion called “This Emotional Life.” I was partic­u­larly struck by a segment on human resilience in which a Vietnam veteran — Bob Shumaker, a POW for 8 years — shared his amazing story.

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Going Green to Preserve our Precious Planet

Over the holiday break, I took my six-year-old to ZooLights — an amazing specta­cle of nearly 1.25 million lights hung through­out the Oregon Zoo. Thankfully, it was greener than ever this year because nearly 2/3 of the festival’s bulbs have been replaced with energy-efficient LEDs. Patrons were even enticed to make the switch by getting free fudge in exchange for their old power-sucking holiday lights. Sweet! Read More