US&R teams from around the world are engaging missions in Haiti: New York TF 1, Florida TFs 1 and 2, Virginia 1, California 2, and Colorado 1 are working in country, as well as teams from Jamaica, Costa Rica, Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Luxemburg, Canada, Russia, Spain, China, France, Iceland, St. Domingo, Mexico, Netherlands, the UK and Colombia.
Every community must understand its vulnerabilities and the potential for disaster, and plan accordingly. The caveat to this is, that despite the presence of a written plan, you can have every contingency covered and discussed, if you don’t understand and practice the plan, it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.
When a man will condemn others but will not subject himself to the same ethical standards, that, my friends, is a hypocrite. We talk about people living in glass houses and the logic for their not throwing stones, but we often fail to hold people to their statements that they made to get them to […]
I’m distressed that a comment got sent to my spam filter regarding an earlier post and for that I apologize. The poster made the comment that he didn’t think I’d print it. As it is, I would hope by now that readers understand that I welcome opposing views, because it is only by listening to what others […]
Now that we have discussed the four major players in the argument against credentialing, lets talk about the argument for it. A credential is only as good as the standard by which it is issued. The point of having a credential should be to identify an individual or other resource as a certain type and […]
And then, there are the profiteers. My intent with Firehouse Zen is not to use it as a place to vent, but as a place to enlighten. Venting may be entertaining for some, but for the most part, productive it isn't. So let's talk about why opportunists would be against credentialing, which should probably be […]
First, we have the genuine thing, the spontaneous bystander, who sees a need for action, then does something about it. Rescue911 commented on the story of the Good Samaritan and how a traveler, with no reason to do so other than to help his fellow man, went out of the way to assist another. This lends a […]
I'm about to launch into a multi-part blog to discuss the merits of credentialing. Right now I am aware of some opposing arguments to the requirement that disaster response personnel have credentials, particularly when it comes to those who routinely offer their services after a disaster but are not necessarily part of a response entity. […]
I was sharing some information with a colleague tonight and I realized that perhaps some of you reading might like access to this research as well. This is my paper on Developing a Strategic Plan for the South Carolina Urban Search and Rescue Program. It is a pretty lengthy read (115 pages) but if you […]