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General Security and Resilience

FEMA Announces Weekly Themes for National Preparedness Month

FEMA’s Ready Campaign has unveiled the calendar for this year’s National Preparedness Month, presenting the weekly themes that will be featured next month. National Preparedness Month is recognized every September with changing themes each year based on current preparedness challenges and priorities. This year’s overall theme is “Prepare to Protect” and weekly sub-themes focus on tasks like making a plan, building emergency kits, and engaging in low-cost/no-cost preparedness. For each week FEMA offers information and other resources.

FEMA Launches Full Application of the National Risk Index with More Customization and Reporting and Data Updates

Yesterday FEMA announced the full application launch of the National Risk Index, an online mapping application that visually identifies traits of communities most at risk from natural hazards. It provides a holistic view of community risk by providing baseline relative risk scores. It measures a community’s risk for 18 natural hazards, in addition to resilience, social vulnerability, and expected annual loss. The Index helps users understand natural hazard risk and to support informed risk reduction decisions for mitigation planning and emergency management.

FEMA Announces $3.46 Billion in Mitigation Funding

President Biden has approved $3.46 billion in mitigation funding intended to help communities become safer and more resilient and reduce the effects of climate change. In its announcement, FEMA notes the increasing duration, intensity, and severity of such disasters - which are exacerbated by changes in population, land use, and weather patterns - are alarming and highlight one of the most important emergency management challenges facing the U.S.

FEMA Conducting System Tests of Public Alert and Warning Infrastructures

FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will conduct a nationwide test of the country’s public alert and warning system on Wednesday August 11 at 2:20 p.m. ET. This routine test aims to assess the operational readiness and effectiveness of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program. Wednesday’s test will be the sixth nationwide test of these two systems. The EAS broadcasts an emergency transmission via radio and television channels and as a result some radio and television programing may be interrupted during the test.

Atlantic Hurricane Activity Expected to Increase Significantly

Yesterday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its mid-season update on predicted Atlantic hurricane season activity, slightly increasing the number of systems it forecasts and signaling the likelihood of a substantial increase in activity in the coming weeks. According to the updated outlook, the number of named storms is likely to be 15 to 21, including seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes.

CISA Guidance for Securing Chain of Custody for Physical and Digital Assets

Today the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a new “Insights” document, Chain of Custody and Critical Infrastructure Systems, which offers critical infrastructure owners and operators guidance for securing chain of custody for their physical and digital assets. It provides an overview of what chain of custody, complemented by examples. In one example cited in the document, hazardous materials shippers and receivers must implement chain-of-custody requirements to ensure a positive and secure exchange.

FEMA Guide for Responding to a Chemical Incident

FEMA has published the guide Key Planning Factors and Considerations for Response to and Recovery from a Chemical Incident, providing a resource intended to help organizations at all levels of government and in the private sector to plan for incidents involving the release, or potential release, of a chemical substance. It begins by describing a series of chemical incident scenarios, one of which is a chemical leak into a waterway.

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