Ready America preparedness and response | 04.03.2006 | 05:39:18 | Views: 5427 | ID: April 3 '06: The ability to assess risks, harden targets, prepare for responses, respond to emergencies as needed and learn from past mistakes are the most valuable tools the first responder community has, according to three days of lectures, talks and breakout sessions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass. In cooperation with the National Council on Readiness and Preparedness, the school worked with national, state and local leaders as well as executives from the private sector to help "clarify" ways in which response to national and natural emergencies can be improved, and strengthened through greater communication, awareness and efficiency. In light of recent national disasters such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, Hurricane Katrina, flooding and storms in the Midwest and the fires in California, Texas and Oklahoma, responder communities are continually faced with questions of how to keep the public ready, how to organize the various federal, state and local agencies and the private sector and how to help build public/private partnerships that will have the highest impact positively without costing additional money or causing little disruption. One of the ways to help raise community preparedness and response is the Ready America initiative being spearheaded by the National Council on Readiness and Preparedness, headed by former Virginia Governor James Gilmore. The initiative recommends "five policy proposals that communities could begin to adapt tomorrow." "Our goal is simple," Gilmore said during the conference, "pull together the right people, from all parts of the community, train them, put the systems in place for them to coordinate, and make sure they have the resources to respond. We do those things, in every community, and American will be ready."
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