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July 28, 2010

$30 million awarded to Virginia in homeland security grants
Virginia will receive $31.8 million in federal homeland security funds through DHS’ Homeland Security Grant Program, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and the Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program for fiscal year 2010. This grant money will go directly towards training of first responders, purchasing of essential equipment and improving overall communications.

Homeland Security Grant Program - $30 million
These funds will support enhancements across the Commonwealth in several key areas, including law enforcement; critical infrastructure protection; statewide sheltering; incident management and anti-terrorism training; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive and HAZMAT capabilities; Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program; citizen and community preparedness; interoperable communications; information sharing; and health and medical readiness.

The Homeland Security Grant program is made up of four programs:

• State Homeland Security Program - $18 million
  
• Urban Areas Security Initiative - There are two UASI’s located within Virginia:
  
  • Hampton Roads UASI - $7.3 million
    
  • Central Virginia UASI - $2.6 million

In addition to these two UASIs, northern Virginia is included in the National Capital Region UASI, which also contains the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland. This UASI will receive $59 million to use throughout the region.

• Metropolitan Medical Response System - $1.9 million
  
• Citizen Corps Program - $282, 000
  

Officials will announce the specific projects to be funded later this summer

Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program - $1.69 million
The Hampton Roads area will receive this funding to support coordination of regional all-hazard planning for catastrophic events, including the development of integrated planning communities, plans, protocols and procedures to manage a catastrophic event.

FEMA announces VOPEX preliminary results
Response personnel from state and local government and Dominion will demonstrate their ability to protect public health and safety in a full-scale exercise on July 20 for the utility's North Anna Power Station. The exercise will involve localities within 10 miles of the power station.

FEMA evaluators praised the performance of state and local governments during the Virginia Operations Plan Exercise conducted July 20. This year’s scenario led to a simulated General Emergency at the North Anna Power Stations and an evacuation of surrounding areas. A total of 54 FEMA evaluators graded state and local emergency management officials on 268 separate criteria. FEMA's preliminary comments identified four issues to be resolved before the next radiological exercise. FEMA will release a final report later this year. For more information about the exercise, contact Susan Binkley, VDEM radiological emergency preparedness planner, at (804) 897-6500, ext. 6591 or susan.binkley@vdem.virginia.gov.

VOPEX is conducted every year, alternating between the Surry and North Anna power stations, and tests the ability of the station and state and local governments to respond to an emergency. Multi-day drills occur every six years to address response procedures beyond the 10 miles immediately surrounding the power station.

VDEM Training survey assesses needs
VDEM’s Office of Training and Exercises is conducting a survey to determine long-term training needs and to make improvements to the program. The short survey is open to the emergency management community and the general public from July 14 to Aug. 14: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y8L9JGG

Save the date
The 2011 Virginia Emergency Management Symposium, “Managing the Emergency — All in a Day’s Work,” will be March 30 through April 1 in Richmond.

Free emergency preparedness training available to state employees
Virginia Citizen Corps and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management are offering free State Safe Training to Virginia state employees. State Safe Training teaches Community Emergency Response Team basic first aid, search and rescue, fire safety, and terrorism preparedness skills that can be used at work and at home. Classroom and hands-on instruction will be followed by a final exercise.

Originally set for July, this training has been rescheduled for September 13,14,16,17, 20, 21 and 22 at the Monroe Building in downtown Richmond.

The training is free and seating is limited. There are eight modules to complete; each module will be held twice to help fit busy schedules. Students must attend each module once to receive a certificate of completion. Register online at http://www.vaemergency.com/train/calendar_course.cfm?id=142

For more information, contact Lisa Perry at (804) 897-6500, ext. 6595 or lisa.perry@vdem.virginia.gov

Danville launches hospital Community Emergency Response Team
According to Virginia Citizen Corps, Danville is the first Virginia locality to have a hospital Community Emergency Response Team. Twenty-one volunteers from Danville Regional Medical Center recently graduated the 24 hours of CERT training. Danville’s hospital CERT will stay active through a partnership with Danville CERT and Campus CERT to conduct continuing education classes, additional training and exercises.

Contact Danville CERT Coordinator Al Smith at al.smith4@verizon.net for more information.

Procurement conference for localities and state agencies scheduled
Save the date
VDEM’s Procurement Office is offering an Emergency Management Procurement Conference, scheduled for June 5 - 7, 2011. The conference will feature the first Procurement Forum on Disaster Planning, Response and Recovery to raise awareness about how to procure goods and services during emergencies and disasters.

The Conference will begin on Sunday with at tour of the Virginia Emergency Operations Center and orientation to VEOC operations. Conference presentations and demonstrations will address

• The Virginia Interoperability Picture for Emergency Response, or VIPER
  
• WebEOC, an online tool that serves as the primary reporting channel between localities and the VEOC
  
• The National Incident Management System and Incident Command System
  
• Small, Woman- and Minority-owned businesses and the Department of Minority Business Enterprises
  
• Mitigation and recovery, roles and responsibilities, Small Purchase Charge Cards, prequalified contracts, ethics and more.

Participants will be able to network with state and local jurisdiction emergency procurement personnel from all over Virginia and see a trade show on Tuesday. Guest speakers will be announced soon.

Federal assistance through smartphones
Survivors of a disaster will now be able to apply for federal disaster assistance on their smartphones, through http://m.fema.gov making aid more immediately accessible for people after a disaster hits. This new tool was created at the direction of FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. Financial assistance for disaster survivors becomes available when a disaster has been declared by the president. On average, roughly 40 percent of disaster applicants complete applications online.

Watch a video of Administrator Fugate www.youtube.com/fema demonstrating the new feature.

Under Administrator Fugate’s leadership, FEMA is using technology in new and innovative ways. Details are available at http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=52167

Virginia National Guard chaplain support teams headed to Louisiana
Two Virginia National Guard chaplain support teams are in Louisiana to provide chaplain services to military personnel assisting with Deep Water Horizon oil spill recovery operations. Louisiana requested the support through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact system, and two teams left Virginia on July 18-19. The teams will provide services for 30-60 days.

Volunteers…
Volunteers participate in airport drill
On June 10, 57 Citizen Corps volunteers from Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover counties and Colonial Heights and Richmond participated in AirEx10 at the Richmond International Airport. VDOT Community Emergency Response Team members dressed players as victims of a simulated airplane crash. Volunteers came from all five Citizen Corps programs CERT, Medical Reserve Corps, Volunteers in Police Service, Fire Corps, and Neighborhood Watch. The FAA-mandated drill was an opportunity for local career and volunteer fire, police, and EMS personnel to practice response procedures with the airport’s fire response team.

Virginia volunteers selected for national training
Chesterfield Medical Reserve Corps volunteer Pharmacist Jennifer Atkins and Southwest Virginia MRC volunteer Licensed Professional Counselor Susan Austin have been selected to participate in national 2010 Summer Introduction to MRC Deployment Training in Washington, D.C., from Aug. 23 - 27. They will join nine other Virginia MRC volunteers who have completed training and who make up the national cadre of 149 volunteers.

Members of the MRC Federal Deployment cadre can be called upon by the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response to support disasters and public health emergencies. MRC volunteers will be integrated into deployment teams comprised of officers of the U.S. Public Health Service and assets of the National Disaster Medical System such as the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams.

Newport News adds pet sheltering to CERT training
The Newport News Division of Emergency Management is adding a Pet Shelter Operations module to Community Emergency Response Team curriculum. When emergency shelters are activated during a disaster, these specialized CERT team members will help in the registration process at shelters and assist in monitoring the pet shelter until it is closed. In the year since the Newport News CERT program began, 80 people have been trained in basic emergency response. Contact CERT Coordinator and Emergency Operations Technician Dana Perry at dperry@nngov.com for more information.

Training…
Emergency Management Academies bring training closer
In order to allow students to attend one to four courses during the week while minimizing travel costs, VDEM’s Office of Training and Exercises will bundle Advanced Professional Series required courses, APS electives, non-APS courses and some workshops and seminars into Emergency Management Academies. There will be one academy in each region during FY2011; the academies will be the main focus for VDEM training efforts in FY2010.

Three academies are currently scheduled:

• Region IV: Oct. 25-29 at the Academy for Staff Development-West in Marion, Va.
  
• Region VII: Dec. 6-10 at the Fairfax County Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center
  
• Region I: Feb. 7-11 at the Henrico Fire Training Center
  

The remaining four regional schedules are under development and will be announced as they are finalized. Interested students should look for more information and enrollment via the Learning Management System.

VDEM training Calendar
The table below lists VDEM courses for the next quarter.

* L-146E is designed for localities with upcoming HSEEP-compliant exercises and DOES NOT count toward completion of the L-146, HSEEP Training Course. The Sept. 13 course is targeted toward the Tidewater area.

Due to budgetary constraints, VDEM must cancel a class if a minimum of 15 students have not enrolled two weeks before the class begins. Sign up early.

VDEM’s Learning Management System Knowledge Center provides information and enrollment for each class. Students who do not already have an account through any state agency Learning Management System domain must register for a VDEM LMS account (a one-time process) in order to enroll. Step-by-step registration and enrollment instructions are provided on the LMS login page at https://covkc.virginia.gov/vdem/external/ Assistance is available from VDEM’s Office of Training and Exercises at lmshelp@vdem.virginia.gov or (804) 897-6500, ext. 1234.

EM Update is the best way to communicate best practices and to get a heads up on issues that might affect you. Articles include case studies, cost/resource-saving local programs, examples of partnerships and regional cooperation and recognition of emergency managers who receive awards and honors in the field.

Please don't hesitate to contact the editor whenever you have a project that might benefit localities or want to highlight an important issue concerning Virginia's emergency response community. Contact Jolie Shank at (804) 897-6510 or by e-mail at pio@vdem.virginia.gov.

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