In response to the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, President Donald Trump established the Federal Commission on School Safety to review safety practices and make meaningful and actionable recommendations of best practices to keep students safe. The Commission conducted field visits,…

Hurricane Katrina slammed into 80 miles of Mississippi shoreline on August 29, 2005. It was the nation's worst natural disaster, a perfect storm. One hundred sixty miles-per-hour winds sent 55-foot-tall waves and a 30-foot wall of water across the shore and miles inland. It displaced 400,000 residents along the coast of the Mississippi, and…

The ethical basis of suicide prevention is illustrated by contrasting helpline emergency rescue policies of the Samaritans and the AAS and the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network. We contrast moralist, relativist, and libertarian ethical premises and question whether suicide can be rational. Samaritans respect a caller's right to…

Performance is a key tool in emergency preparedness and the rehearsal of professional response, simultaneously raising questions about the practice of cultural assumptions in this context. Usually the actors in preparedness exercises are civil servants who perform the work of the nihilistic imagination in often-apocalyptic fictional scenarios,…

This chapter describes the evaluation of the TsunamiReady[TM]-based educational materials distributed in New Hanover County, North Carolina. The authors evaluate whether educational materials about tsunami risk increased the perception of hazard risk, information, knowledge, and preparedness behaviors. There are three main findings. First, local…

Empirical evidence of the effects of performance-based public management is scarce. This report describes a framework used to organize available empirical information on one form of performance-based management, a performance-based accountability system (PBAS). Such a system identifies individuals or organizations that must change their behavior…

The fall 2009 campaign to vaccinate high-risk U.S. residents against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus presented three key challenges that had significant impact on the effectiveness of campaigns conducted by local health departments (LHDs), schools, and other community partners. These issues included those of communication and trust, both between…

This study assessed the level of crisis preparedness in higher education from the perspective of chief student affairs administrators at residential universities post-September 11, 2001 to pre-Virginia Tech shootings in April 2007. Crisis preparedness was determined by compiling and comparing data results derived from an instrument implemented in…

Background: Well before the H1N1 influenza, health care organizations worldwide prepared for a pandemic of unpredictable impact. Planners anticipated the possibility of a pandemic involving high mortality, high health care demands, rates of absenteeism rising up to 20-30% among health care workers, rationing of health care, and extraordinary…

In August and September 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated large portions of the U.S. Gulf Coast, resulting in nearly 2,000 deaths and severe damage to 305,000 houses and apartments. Thousands of families relocated to communities throughout the United States and enrolled their children in local public or private schools. Some families…

This study investigates the use of software technology that is used by emergency management professionals to create an authentic learning environment in emergency and disaster management courses in the classroom. Participants were 235 upper-level students enrolled in residential and online emergency and disaster management courses at a mid-sized…

In this age of accountability, afterschool programs are increasingly held responsible for providing youth with quality care and education. Afterschool programs play a critical role in helping youth develop their intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, often by engaging them in activities in which they interact with their peers. Such activities…

School shootings have generated great public concern and fostered a widespread impression that schools are unsafe for many students; this article counters those misapprehensions by examining empirical evidence of school and community violence trends and reviewing evidence on best practices for preventing school shootings. Many of the school safety…

"MCPS School Safety and Security at a Glance" provides, in a single document, information about the reporting of incidents related to school safety and security, school climate, local school safety program descriptions, and serious incidents. Information is presented for each Montgomery County (Maryland) public school. While much of this…

This paper examines a regional 2009 H1N1 rural response model, which utilises community partnerships with local government, county emergency management, public health, private healthcare, Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, and other organisations in rural Southeast Idaho. Unique aspects of the collaborative use of federal, state, county, and…