Civil Defense Makes A Comeback In The US

[NATO AIR]

good to see communities taking the offensive

http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2005/0816/p02s01-ussc.html

Civil defense makes a comeback in US

Nearly 2,000 teams of citizens are trained to provide quick aid in the event of an attack or natural disaster.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK – The ongoing threat of a terrorist attack is spurring a civil-defense comeback reminiscent of the "duck and cover" drills of the early days of the cold war.
In communities from Los Angeles to Manhattan, citizens are being trained to help in the case of a terrorist bomb or natural disaster before police and firemen arrive. Prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, only 100 communities, mostly in earthquake and hurricane zones, had such citizen emergency response teams, or CERTs. Today there are almost 2,000.

The spread of this citizen training also reflects an ongoing transformation in thinking about emergency response: That citizens are not panic-prone problems but important resources whose first instinct in a crisis is to help others.

"As a result of 9/11, we're seeing a translation of CERT" from natural disasters to homeland security, says Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "People in places that never saw themselves at risk before are getting involved in it and it's improving our overall ability to deal with all kinds of disasters."
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