

U.S. Businesses Respond to Community Needs
Kay C. Goss
February 27, 2008
Three Cheers for three retail giants – WalMart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s, all of which stepped forward to provide urgently needed building materials and the mountains of other supplies required to help restore order in the aftermath of Hurricanes and Rita.

Hospital Emergency Management: The Anatomy of Growth
Theodore Tully
February 27, 2008
Prior to 11 September 2001 the term “emergency management” was more an abstract theory than an operational mandate. Today it is a full fledged profession, particularly in hospitals & other medical facilities, so must be factored into all major planning.

TVA and Protection of the Critical Infrastructure
Adam Montella
February 20, 2008
The Tennessee Valley Authority is basically a huge and highly successful mega-corporation that has to deal with private-sector funding and operational realities while also adhering to federal, state, and local rules and regulations.

Public-Health Planning: Partnerships Work
Steven Harrison
February 13, 2008
The Commonwealth of Virginia provides another best-practices example – this time in the public-health field – of how private-sector organizations can work with one another, and with their government counterparts, before rather than after a crisis erupts.

Gap Analysis – A Long and Winding Process
James M. Rush Sr.
February 13, 2008
Disaster planning is difficult, time-consuming, sometimes boring – but also absolutely necessary. And in the long run it conserves resources, permits the most efficient use of the usually limited medical staff available, and saves a lot of lives.

Anatomy of a Near-Miss Radiation Disaster
Michael Allswede
February 6, 2008
The 2006 assassination of former KGB Colonel Alexander Litvenenko was eventually solved – but there are many questions still unanswered as well as strong suspicions about the operating tactics of Russia’s post-USSR political leaders.

A Burning Question: National Fire Insurance?
Joseph Cahill
February 6, 2008
The almost pandemic outbreak of wildfires in California & other western states last year has aroused interest in a sometimes proposed but never authorized partial solution: enactment of a federally subsidized program to help high-risk communities.