This February, NVERS launched a monthly newsletter to highlight new and ongoing projects, share information on committee work, and provide updates on organizational activities. With a readership base of over 500 Northern Virginia first responders, emergency preparedness professionals, and partners, the newsletter will provide a platform for NVERS and stakeholder communication.

On December 11th, 2019, NVERS sponsored a tabletop exercise for first responder agencies and partner organizations to test the recently-developed Northern Virginia Silver Line Incident Coordination Tool. Over the past six months, an interdisciplinary planning team of subject matter experts from Northern Virginia collaborated with WMATA and Tidal Basin Government Consulting to refine the tool and develop a tabletop exercise to evaluate the tool's ability to enhance agency coordination across jurisdictional and discipline boundaries.

(TNS) - The volunteer firefighters in Clendenin, W.Va., weren't around to save their equipment as the Elk River poured over its banks, flooding their fire station and their town. They were busy in neighboring communities where flooding already was worse, rescuing people trapped in their homes. The ruined gear at their station included air packs that cost thousands of dollars and about $6,000 in gear that had just been ordered and was still in boxes at the station. Fire trucks left at the station were moved to high ground before the flooding started, but little else was saved.

(TNS) — On Tuesday morning, Emergency Management Institute superintendent Tony Russell spoke to members of the media about his career with FEMA, his passion for training communities and how he views disaster preparedness in the 21st century.

As an emergency responder tasked with assisting Louisiana during its recovery from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike in 2009, Russell said his time spent at ground zero has helped shape his approach to emergency management as a leading official.

(TNS) - The people handling security for the nation’s busiest malls and amusement parks are no longer retired cops. They are a 24-year veteran of the FBI, a former CIA operative and the onetime chief of counterterrorism for Scotland Yard.

The theme-park industry’s annual security bill, already roughly $250 million a year, is expected to grow by more than $100 million over the next few years, according to one consultant. Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood and SeaWorld all installed metal detectors outside their gates for the first time in December.

(TNS) — Mountaineering tents are lightweight equipment, meaning they are easy to carry around. The fact that they are more spacious than vehicles makes them quite popular.

At L-Breath, an outdoor equipment chain store in Tokyo, the number of people buying tents for emergency use has increased since the Kumamoto Earthquake. “There’s a lot of interest from middle-aged and elderly customers who have no outdoor recreation experience,” says Hiroaki Oka from the store in Tokyo’s Ochanomizu area.

(TNS) - No one likes to lose power or to have to boil tap water. But for some residents, these infrastructure issues can pose major health risks with summer thunderstorms a real possibility.

Power outages

• National Grid customers who are older than age 62, blind or disabled, or whose health depends on machines run by electricity can sign up for warning robocalls if a major storm likely could cause a blackout in their area, said spokeswoman Virginia Limmiatis.

Terrorist spread fear via social media. We’ve seen this before. Or have we?

This past week of sorrow was flooded by new reports that the Orlando killer was inspired by online extremism. Chilling new information was also revealed about Omar Mateen’s posts on Facebook before the attack.

According to CBS News, the killer posted social media messages that his attacks were in support of ISIS. He promised more “attacks from the Islamic State [ISIS] in the USA.”

(TNS) - Florida was left largely unscathed from its first taste of this year's hurricane season as Tropical Storm Colin cut through the northern half of the state last week, and that's a sigh of relief for Emergency Management Director Bryan Koon.

Koon was appointed in February 2011 by Gov. Rick Scott to lead the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and his tenure over the state's first line of recovery after a storm has remained free of hurricanes.

(TNS) - If you see something, say something.

It is a dictum for terrorizing times, and as the carnage mounts, law enforcement is more urgently pressing the public to turn tipster.

But what, exactly, does something mean?

That depends.

"If I have a friend who all of a sudden starts going to the masjid [mosque] five times a day, is that a sign of radicalization - or of admirable devotion?" said Quasier Abdullah, assistant imam at Quba Institute, a school and mosque in West Philadelphia.