Jan. 31, 2007

2006 Year in Review
Though Virginia did not experience any major hurricanes in 2006, severe weather impacted parts of the Commonwealth causing Gov. Tim Kaine to declare a state of emergency three times. Summer severe weather and flooding caused more than $33 million in damage in 37 localities; Tropical Storm Ernesto caused more than $120 million in damage in 65 localities; and October severe thunderstorms and flooding caused more than $11 million in damage in 25 localities. The damage from the summer severe weather and flooding and Tropical Storm Ernesto both resulted in federal disaster declarations.

EM Training. Emergency Management Training educated more than 9,000 students, almost twice as many as last year. Outside the classroom, Virginia residents completed 138,000 Independent Study courses, a 350 percent increase over 2005.

EM Training also developed and conducted 25 discussion- and two operations-based Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program events with more than 2,200 participants. The Virginia Emergency Response Team Exercise included 40 public and private departments, agencies and organizations.

Search and Rescue. The VDEM SAR program responded to 198 requests for assistance, consisting of 107 aircraft-related incidents and non-distress emergency beacons and 90 lost or missing person incidents. SAR volunteers provided air reconnaissance support during Tropical Storm Ernesto and swift water rescue support for flooding incidents. The largest ground search effort was a mutual aid request from Pennsylvania for a missing child who was abducted and murdered by a sexual predator. The SAR program trained 1,163 first responders last year, three times more than in 2005.

Technological Hazards. VDEM Hazmat officers received more than 2,000 notifications of chemical releases in 2006. The HMOs responded to 140 of these incidents, of which 38 were significant enough to call in Regional Hazardous Materials Response Teams. Chemical spills or petroleum releases made up the majority of the calls, with a small percentage consisting of suspicious activity. In addition, the staff conducted more than 150 classes throughout the Commonwealth and trained more than 2,000 first responders.

Virginia Emergency Operations Center. The VEOC handled 561 medical evacuation missions for 2006, including requests for Virginia State Police Medflight and requests for private helicopter corporations. The VEOC deployed the Mobile Command Post on nine missions, ranging from the Urbanna Oyster Festival and NASCAR races at Martinsville Speedway to Gov. Kaine's 2006 inauguration. The VEOC hosted several major exercises for hurricane, pandemic flu and radiological emergency events. The VEOC has had more than 4,000 visitors since moving into its new state-of-the-art facility.

Executive Order 44 establishes focus on preparedness
Gov. Tim Kaine's Executive Order 44 directs all state agencies, including colleges and universities, to focus attention on the importance of preparedness by making it part of their performance measurements. The Office of Commonwealth Preparedness will disseminate an annual assessment to each agency to gauge the level of their preparedness, and a Governor's Certification Program will recognize best practices. Additionally, OCP and VDEM will provide guidance for agency continuity of operations plan updates, reviews and testing processes. Resources for state agencies and local governments are available through VDEM's online COOP Toolkit.

DHS continues reorganization
In order to fulfill the 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations law, the Department of Homeland Security announced the second round of changes within the department. Late last year, DHS made the Federal Emergency Management Agency a semi-independent component like the Coast Guard and Secret Service. More information on previous changes within DHS is available in the Oct. 11 issue of Update.

DHS has announced further changes, including the elimination of the Directorate for Preparedness and the creation of the National Protection and Programs Directorate, with George Foresman as undersecretary. The components of the Preparedness Directorate will be divided among FEMA, the National Protection and Programs Directorate and the new Office of Health Affairs (formerly the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner), as follows:

FEMA:

• U.S. Fire Administration
• Office of Grants and Training
• Office of the National Capital Region Coordination
• Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Division
• Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program
• Office of State and Local Governmental Coordination

National Protection and Programs Directorate:

• Cyber Security and Communications
• Infrastructure Protection
• Risk Management and Analysis
• Intergovernmental Programs
• United States - Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program, or US-VISIT

Office of Health Affairs:

• Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense
• Office of Medical Readiness
• Office of Component Services

The statute dictates that components will be transferred to FEMA by March 31.

Schools should register NOAA Weather Radios
Last fall, a joint effort between the Department of Homeland Security and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration delivered approximately 80,000 NOAA Weather Radios to public schools across the county. To date, only about 15 percent of the schools have registered their radios. To help NOAA ensure that every public school receives a radio, emergency managers should urge schools in their area to register online.

Schools should go to the online registration site and click on "Register your device." Next, click on "Continue to Radio Receipt Certification," and enter information for your school (either zip code or state and county). A list of schools in that area will be generated. Then,

• If a school is not on the list, click on "My Public School is Not Listed," and enter the requested information.
• If a school is on the list but did not receive a radio, send an e-mail that lists the school that did not receive a radio to Bill Sammler at the National Weather Service.

Training...
ICS Train-the-trainer
The ICS Train-the-trainer class is open to authorized representatives of local governments, state agencies, criminal justice academies, volunteer groups involved in emergency response and recovery, and certain private industries. The free class will certify instructors to teach the Basic, Intermediate and Advanced Incident Command System courses. Students will become familiar with the content of each course and be certified to deliver them in time blocks that meet the needs of their organization. Applicants must have the approval of their agency head and be available as an ICS instructor for their organization during the 12 months following course completion. Prerequisites and enrollment applications are available online.

For subsequent training delivered by graduates, VDEM will provide all instructional materials, student materials, VDEM Certificates of Completion for each student and continual updates on any changes to instructor and student materials. Instructors are expected to report to VDEM the date, location and number of students who successfully complete each session.

Produced by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management
10501 Trade Court, Richmond, Virginia 23236