National Dialogue on Preparedness Update 08-30-10

I am providing an update on the National Dialogue on Preparedness today because I added a new Idea to the discussion and thought that I would plug it here so the readers of this blog would have an additional reason to visit the Dialogue before the September 10th closure arrived.


There are currently 173 Ideas posted to the Dialogue with my latest addition. The 518 currently registered users have made 274 comments and have posted 1,949 votes to date. There are a wide variety of both idea topics and idea quality.

Newest Idea

My latest Idea deals with setting up a program to conduct research on disasters right after they happen. This will allow authorities to learn more about the actual consequences of the incident and be able to put that knowledge back into the planning process for future events.

Tracked Ideas

I now have six postings that I am tracking because of their possible interest to the chemical security community (well my last one is of interest only marginally to this community; but it is mine so I’ll track it anyway). My ideas are numbers 1, 3, 4 and 6. The current status is listed below.

● Funding Post-Emergency Response Research (1 vote, 0 comments, rank 128)
● Update "pre-fire" tours to include "pre-hazmat" considerations (5 votes, 0 comments, rank 63)
● HAZMAT Rail Shipment Notifications (-4 vote, 0 comments, rank 166)
● TSA Chlorine Dispersion Modeling Study (-1 vote, 0 comments, rank 143)
● Bring in the Military (-12 votes, 4 positive comments, rank 175)
● Counter-Terrorism Emergency Response Plan - CFATS (9 votes, 0 comments, rank 40)

Encourage Dialogue Participation

Once again, I would like to urge all readers of this blog to participate in this Dialogue. Everyone in this country has a vested interest in ensuring the preparedness of the nation to prevent, respond to, and recover from all sorts of disasters, man-made and natural. If you do nothing more than read and vote on the Ideas that catch your eye while surfing the site, you will have participated in the Dialogue and done at least a small part in increasing the over all level of preparedness.