(TNS) - The City Council has discussed paying a contractor to help the city prepare natural disaster response plans.
Such preparation services could cost the city as much as $19,000, but the contractor would bring valuable experience navigating FEMA regulations, officials said.

The contractor’s services could also help the city obtain more reimbursement money from FEMA in the event of a natural disaster, a council member noted.

(TNS) - Individuals from the business community and the public sector came together Wednesday to discuss potential threats to the territory and disaster preparedness strategies.
“This was just the starting point. Now we’ve got to really keep the momentum going and move forward and do more of these types of things,” said Todd Patton, deputy director for planning and preparedness for the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency.

New identification tags used locally and statewide should aid in tracking by simply scanning ID badges and using key ring tags to organize where responders should go.

Elisa Sand, American News, Aberdeen, S.D. | April 4, 2016

While the DC metro area is more than two weeks into official spring, Mother Nature has other plans.

The flood maps determine a property’s relationship to the established base-flood elevation of that area.
Green will become the favorite color for thousands of New Orleans property owners when the new FEMA flood maps finally become official at the end of the month.

That’s because green is the code for areas that will move out of flood zones and into areas with no insurance requirements – and the new map shows it washing over large sections of the city.

President Obama to host world leaders for a Nuclear Security Summit in an effort to stop potential attackers from using radioactive material to outdo the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

James Reinl, Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar | March 31, 2016

The Red Flag Warning means the area should expect strong winds and low humidity. The weather service warns that any fires will have the potential to spread very rapidly due to strong winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.

The Warning is in effect Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Here's what you can expect Thursday in Northern Virginia:

• Humidity: 25 to 30 percent.
• Winds: South 20 to 25 MPH, with gusts up to 35 MPH. The strongest gusts will be Thursday afternoon and early evening.

First responders and local, federal and state officials met at the Fort Gratiot township hall Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss cross-border cooperation in the event of an emergency.

The meeting was to prepare for an April exercise — called the Canada-U.S. Enhanced Resiliency Experiment — that would simulate joint response to a tornado.

The collaborative effort is the fourth of its kind along the U.S.-Canada border, and the first in Michigan, to arise from the 2011 Beyond the Border Initiative between the U.S. and Canada.

(TNS) - At a San Bernardino County department operations center activated in the wake of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack, a decision was made to marshal extra ambulances from Riverside County.

Three teams of five ambulances were assembled — one was sent to Redlands, another to Rancho Cucamonga and the third remained in Riverside on standby.

Please join Prince William County Police Department in supporting Officers McKeown and Hempen, who were seriously injured in the February 27, 2016 shooting that claimed the life of Officer Ashley Guindon.

The fundraiser will be held on Sunday, March 20th from 3-8pm at Blu1681 (13188 Marina Way, Woodbridge, VA 22191). 100% of the proceeds will go directly toward assisting Officers McKeowm and Hempen with expenses incurred due to their injuries.