HUD and DHS Launch Disaster Recovery Website

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the launch DisasterRecoveryWorkingGroup.gov—a new inter-agency website that will allow federal disaster recovery officials to solicit public comments from state, local and tribal partners and the public.

The new website will be used by the federal government’s newly-formed Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group—co-chaired by Secretary Donovan and Secretary Napolitano—to allow stakeholders to submit ideas for disaster recovery; articulate objectives for recovery assistance going forward; identify examples of best practices; raise challenges and obstacles to success; and share thoughts, experiences and lessons learned.

“It is vital to our success that disaster recovery professionals and stakeholders provide their input as we move forward to improve disaster recovery efforts across the country,” said Secretary Donovan. “This new website will give everyone involved in disaster recovery a voice in shaping how we respond, and then rebuild and revitalize communities in the wake of disaster.”

“Successful recovery relies on effective collaboration with partners from state, local and tribal governments and the private sector,” said Secretary Napolitano. “This new website will support the federal government’s efforts to enhance our nation’s resiliency in the face of emergencies by engaging directly with our stakeholders.”

Last month, President Obama asked Secretaries Napolitano and Donovan to co-chair the Long Term Disaster Recovery Working Group, comprised of more than 20 federal departments, agencies and offices, to ensure that individuals, communities and the nation’s economy can withstand and rapidly recover from disasters. In order to develop a better national strategy for an effective approach to long-term disaster recovery, the Working Group will:

* Provide operational guidance for Federal, State, Tribal and local authorities to provide for effective and unified disaster recovery. This includes defining roles and responsibilities, detailing recovery management and operational coordination, articulating communications strategies and establishing measurements for success;

* Review disaster recovery programs and the framework of disaster recovery, and identify gaps as well as overlapping and/or conflicting sources of authority for disaster recovery efforts;

* Examine areas for improved interagency planning and collaboration among federal agencies;

* Examine methods to build capacity within State, local and tribal governments as well as within the nonprofit, faith-based, and private sectors; both in recovery operations and in pre-disaster recovery planning; and

* Examine successful practices and lessons learned during previous disaster recovery efforts, with particular attention to catastrophic disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

In addition, Secretaries Donovan and Napolitano will provide the President with recommendations to improve long-term catastrophic disaster recovery and help develop a National Disaster Recovery Framework that will provide detailed operational guidance to recovery organizations under existing authorities.

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Radioactive Material Lost In China

Authorities in China have ordered an all-out search for a missing nuclear scale that contained a dangerous radioactive component, state press said Friday.

The scale, used to make precision measurements, was found to be missing on Monday after workers began dismantling a cement factory where it was used in Tongchuan city in northwest China’s Shaanxi province, Xinhua news agency said.

A lead ball containing extremely dangerous Caesium-137 was a major component of the scale, it said.

Local government offices in Shaanxi could not be immediately reached for comment on the issue.

The report did not say how much Caesium-137 was missing but warned that only a tiny amount could damage the human nervous system and even lead to death. The material could also explode if it comes in contact with water, it added.

The provincial environmental protection agency and police have issued urgent orders to find the radioactive material which may have been buried in up to 5,000 tonnes of scrap waste from the factory, the report said.

In a later report, Xinhua said environmental officials had found Caesium-137 radioactivity at a steel refinery in Shaanxi’s Fuping county, but it was not immediately known whether it was from the missing material.

“Although radioactivity was detected at a steel refinery in Fuping county, it is not necessarily linked to the missing radioactive material,” the report quoted an environmental protection official as saying.

via Radioactive material lost in China: state media.

Fusion Centers Expand Criteria to Identify Militia Members – Updated

UPDATE: The head of the Missouri Highway Patrol has quashed a controversial report linking conservative groups with the modern militia movement.

Superintendent James Keathley said distribution of the report has been halted, and that a new system is being created to review future reports before they’re released.

Lt. Governor Peter Kinder said the report unfairly targets conservative Missourians.

“We had a focus on pro-lifers, folks who are concerned about enforcement of our borders and the immigration issue, and other people all on the conservative side of the spectrum, and I think the focus is wrong,” Kinder said.

Kinder is calling for an investigation into the report and wants Public Safety Director John Britt placed on administrative leave.

A spokesman for Governor Jay Nixon voiced support for Britt and for the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which produced the report.

Press Secretary Scott Holste said the report’s premature release is due to a flawed oversight system that existed long before Nixon took office.
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If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.

That’s according to “The Modern Militia Movement,” a report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities. Read more