Posted to the Metropolitan Police Department’s email lists this morning: an exciting volunteer opportunity!4 DC hospitals in Washington (Washington Hospital, Children’s, National Rehab and Veterans Affairs) are conducting an exercise involving a dirty bomb scenario and we will need about 100 victim volunteers. Please feel free to announce this volunteer opportunity through your network and ask that those interested in volunteering contact me prior to March 26. The volunteer duty would be on Friday, April…

The District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) has launched a redesigned web site today in the hopes that it will help D.C. residents better prepare for emergencies. The site, called 72hours.dc.gov, lists emergency resource information by topic, much like the previous Emergency Information Center web site, and offers four relatively simple steps the city hopes each of us will take now, before an actual emergency happens. The steps are 1) Get…

We were not alone last week in our criticism of the transportation debacle during Deluge ’06. Nor were we the only ones to question what the response says about our emergency preparedness. Despite the tendency of D.C. officials to grade themselves on their performance (they did quite well, if they do say so themselves), we prefer a more rigorous review. And who better to turn to for this than that great bastion of criticism…

We all know the inherent dangers that come with living in or around the nation’s capital — we’re always a step away from a terrorist attack, Biblical plague, or three inches of snow. But Fairfax County isn’t sitting around not doing anything about it, we learn today from the Examiner. Some 40 experts in emergency preparedness are set to teach free classes on a variety of emergency-related subjects on March 18, including “Building 72-hour Kits,”…

So, the unofficial close of summer has come and gone in a spectacularly gorgeous weekend. Agree? But we all know that living in the District not only means our dog days linger longer than August, but also that the best of 2005 is yet to come, with fall weather making its slow and graceful entrance in the next few weeks. Our thoughts this past week have been preoccupied with the devastation in the Gulf Coast….

That banging sound people near Pentagon City and Crystal City will hear tomorrow morning may not be the usual cacophony of construction noises, but rather “flash-bangs” that are a part of a large-scale public safety exercise the Pentagon will be conducting in Arlington on Wednesday. From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., areas around the Pentagon, Navy Annex and Jefferson Plaza in Crystal City will be swarming with emergency vehicles, role players, observers, and media types….