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As Bill Brown received flood condition updates in June 2011, city officials were preparing for the worst overflow in more than 130 years. Brown, a retired captain with the Minot Police Department and now the Southwest Regional Emergency Response Coordinator for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, was making arrangements to staff the city's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and coord...

Colorado Responder Bill Mayfield has attended eight specialized training courses at FEMA's Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) and has an impressive multi-disciplinary background in healthcare, fire fighting, emergency management, and hazardous materials.

The severe tornadoes that swept through Alabama on April 27, 2011 destroyed more than 6,000 square miles and claimed 248 lives. With power out and water systems and other public infrastructure destroyed following the storms, environmental health specialists were left with the significant challenge of keeping diseases from spreading as citizens dealt with unrefrigerated foods, waste, unfiltered wat...

The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston, Ala. is known for its realistic, emergency response exercises. Responders attending the Hands-On Training for CBRNE Incidents (HOT-I) course will now have an added level of realism thanks to a school bus the CDP recently added to the simulated mass casualty exercise for each class.

Evidence collection processes have sometimes determined the outcome of criminal proceedings. However, the crime scenes of today are making the process more difficult with the potential recovery of chemicals, explosives, biological or radiological materials. These aspects make it even more paramount to follow procedures to ensure safety of on-scene personnel and successful prosecution of criminals.

When the Cedar River reached historic flood levels June 2008 and forced the evacuation of as many as 10,000 townspeople from nearby Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a local nurse knew exactly what to do thanks to specialized training she'd received from FEMA's Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP).

Known for offering extensive hands-on training in a mass casualty response, the Emergency Medical Operations (EMO) for CBRNE Incidents course providesfirst response personnel, serving in a variety of positions, necessary skills to perform during an emergency or catastrophic event. The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), located in Anniston, Ala., focuses its training on incident management and...

In 1997, hundreds of citizens in Hong Kong were infected with Avian Flu. In 1999, another strain of the avian flu made Hong Kong headlines when two children were infected. Although the viruses didn’t result in a pandemic, the ability to move from birds to humans created alarm. Experts fear that an influenza pandemic such as the avian flu could become global in the not so distant future.

I recently completed the Hazard Assessment and Response Management (HARM) course, at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), in Anniston, Alabama, which trains students to conduct a multi-disciplined response to a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or Explosive incident. As a mayor charged with making key decisions that impact my local response teams during a major incident, advan...

When the Center for Domestic Preparedness, located in Anniston, Ala., was founded in 1998, it was envisioned as a resident training facility that would train a maximum of 10,000 responders per year. In FY 2009, the CDP staff trained close to 99,000 responders from across the United States and its territories, well exceeding the initial expectations of the late ‘90s. Recently, the CDP celebrated it...