The Community & Family Preparedness Conference 2000, August 22-25, promises to be one of the liveliest ever. This year, we are once again meeting at the National Emergency Training Center campus at Emmitsburg, MD. We’ll concentrate on children and disaster, emphasizing both classroom and school safety; and we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty on protection of vulnerable minorities from disaster.

The conference is an invitation only event, but if you are interested get in touch with us right away (email to barbara.yagerman@fema.gov). Please let your state Emergency Management Agency know of your interest also and how it will help what you do. We want to make it the best set of workshops and general discussion sessions we can bring together, so that we leave and jump right into putting things to work. Also think about bringing exhibit materials for "fair" night, always a high point of the conference.

A copy of last year's conference report is now available for FTP download from the EIIP Virtual Library. See http://www.emforum.org/vlibrary/cfpcon.htm. Contact Amy Sebring, asebring@emforum.org for assistance.

New partners, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), will join State emergency managers and others in looking at lessons learned in Hurricane Floyd, which virtually destroyed the historic black community of Princeville, NC. The NAACP is working with us – and working us – in getting African American communities better informed and better prepared. Sylvia Harris, NAACP’s National Disaster Coordinator, has invited us to their regional conferences for workshops on disaster preparedness, and we expect to be at their national conference as well. They and representatives from other national African American organizations will join us at the CFP Conference in August to get to the heart of how to protect African American communities more effectively. We expect to have Native American and Hispanic representation as well.

The African American Emergency Preparedness and Information Partnership (EPIP), under which the NAACP effort has taken off, sponsored a May 3 chat session on their www.epipgateway.com site, "Preparing Children for Disaster." The EPIP has three more discussions scheduled: "Preparing for Hurricane Season" June 7, "The Elderly and Fire Prevention" July 12, and "Urban Domestic Terrorism" August 2. All sessions are from 12 noon to 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. This year’s EPIP Workshop for representatives of national minority organizations is scheduled for June 22-23. We will keep you informed and bring some EPIP Workshop participants to the CFP Conference in August.

We’re all excited about another new partner, too. The USDA/State Extension Service folks are bringing their 4-H kids. We’ll have one or more youth panels and workshops. Tony Siciliano, Emergency Manager of Quincy, MA, is bringing his Explorer Scout CERT team. Young CERT teams is an idea exploding on the scene under a variety of sponsors. We also expect youngsters to be with us that have been involved in planning school safety approaches.

The EIIP Virtual Forum http://www.emforum.org supports the CFP with transcripts in the EIIP Virtual Library, coverage of our annual conferences and hosting chat sessions specific to CFP interests in the Virtual Forum. Coming in June, two sessions of interest to CFP are "Reaching Women and Children in Disasters," featuring Elaine Enarson, Gender Disaster Network (GDN), June 14, 12 Noon EDT; and "Technology for Crisis Management in Schools," with Eric Strohl, Strohl Systems, on June 28, 12 Noon EDT. Check the EIIP Virtual Forum schedule regularly at http://www.emforum.org/events.htm.

Again this year, the Disaster Education Organizer’s Course on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 19-20, precedes the conference on Aug. 22-25. Those in the training will be covered for travel on the stipend for the CFP Conference: The training and the conference in one trip, Monday off for sightseeing, and an exciting conference the rest of the week. We are building a cadre of emergency management trainers to teach this course and taking the Disaster Education Organizer’s Course is the first step in qualifying.

On another topic: This Update may have broken a dry spell in communication, but the drought isn’t broken and affected areas should already be swinging into gear in their public information and education activities. The National Drought Policy Report is out. We’ll soon bring you the results of the February 2000 Drought Forum, sponsored by the National Disaster Education Coalition. In the meantime, look at NOAA's Drought Information Center for resources. Assess the ideas you see with your own area and situation in mind. E.g., metropolitan water systems may have plenty of water while the aquifers or streams others depend on (farmers, exurbanites, industries ) are dangerously low. The time frame from precipitation to changes in the water supply differ substantially in dry western areas compared to what it is in the Pacific Northwest coastal region and the Eastern U.S. Please note: Dr. Frannie Winslow will be featured in a special EIIP Virtual Forum/CFP session on drought on Wednesday, July 19.

The official start of hurricane season was just last week. A new attitude survey was conducted recently that highlights the continuing challenges of public education. A copy of the poll. with summary of the findings is available for FTP download from the EIIP Virtual Library. See http://www.emforum.org/vlibrary/hurrpo.htm. Contact Amy Sebring, asebring@emforum.org for assistance.

You’ll hear more in future Updates. There are new materials out, and more coming. We’ll report on some National Weather Service projects that a number of our field partners should be tied into on a regular basis as a good source of information for timely community preparedness and for classroom use. The FEMA Mitigation Directorate has new materials coming on school construction for tornado protection and other hazards. USDA and HUD have launched a program promoting safe homes. Other partners are close to plans for rolling out campaigns by emergency physicians, pediatricians and a host of other medical and related groups for child safety. We’ll be moving toward cooperation in public and environmental health areas as well.

Barbara Yagerman joined us from FEMA’s Public Affairs Office several months ago and she is an invaluable addition. She’s managing the planning and overseeing the realization of the conference this year. She’s a real pro in the best sense, and the conference will be a lot better because of it. If we don’t see you there, we’ll try to keep you informed of what comes out of it.

We’ll be more consistent in getting information to you – and from you – because David Larimer will be putting Updates together from this point on. He’s worked before from FEMA with Avagene Moore and Amy Sebring, the brains and commitment behind the EIIP Virtual Forum site. I have wanted him involved in CFP for several years. I’m elated that he’s here.

We all want the conference and the Updates, and everything the program does, to help you do what you want and need to do, and to keep you in touch with what’s going on that interests you. Let us know where we succeed and where we fail. Above all, what we’ve left out that is important to you.

As Kay Goss says regularly, and no doubt will as she talks about her vision for CFP at the conference, "The best is yet to come."

For more information - or to send information to the Update:

Ralph Swisher
FEMA CFP Program Manager
Phone: 202-646-3561
Fax: 202-646-4371
E-mail: ralph.swisher@fema.gov