I met John online. He started a blog called In Case of Emergency, Read Blog to help with research for a book he was doing on personal preparedness. His and my blog had the same title; both being focused, to some extent, on preparedness issues, it was inevitable that we’d meet.

I grew to love his posts. I said so frequently.

I grew to admire his zeal. I strive to replicate it, though worry that no one can.

I never met John. He never knew my real name. I worry that cheapened our relationship. Who wants to be friends with a character from an old Clash song?

If I know anything about John Solomon, it was that he loved his family and he loved his work. In my mind, the indelible image of John is a fuzzy profile picture of him in his CERT gear, arm around his daughter.

I’m crying for a man I never knew, and who never knew me.

But I know his passion and I feel the same. I envy, “his willingness to offer candid assessments of where we stood as a country as far as preparedness, and … his honest feedback about … FEMA,” as no less than FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said in an official statement on Tuesday.

I know the world is poorer for having lost John, but is the world poorer for not knowing Jim Garrow? I’m not vain enough to think that I’ve had the same impact as John did, but I am pragmatic enough to know that Jimmy Jazz will never change the world.

I’m not saying what I’m going to say in some misguided attempt to replace John. I could never do that, and truthfully, I have no desire to do that. I hate to tie the two statements together, but the first has lead me to the second.

I said before that I envied John’s passion. More specifically, I envy John’s passions. His dual passions, preparedness and family. His ability to do both, be both. I want that.

My kids can’t be proud of the work that Jimmy Jazz has done. My kids can’t be proud of someone who is cowed because someone someday might disagree with something he’s written.

I’m proud of the content of this blog. I stand by it all. All.

My kids should know what their Dad does, because I don’t know what’s coming. I don’t know how much time I’ve got (not that I’m planning to go anywhere). Life is too short.

My name is Jim Garrow. I work at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. Nothing I’ve ever written here has been vetted, reviewed or approved by my work. None of this is the official or unofficial policy of the Health Department.

That said, I’m closing this blog.

I originally started this blog to learn about public health preparedness. I think I’ve accomplished that. So, why keep doing this? I can’t answer that question anymore.

So, how about a fresh start? I’ve started a blog over at Posterous. Focused on public information, risk communication and crisis communication, and some public health preparedness. If you’re interested, check out jgarrow.posterous.com.

Thank you for everything you’ve done with me. Thank you, John, for helping me to be a better man.

Mr. Jazz:

Geospatial information is more than just a handheld GPS receiver used to navigate personal travel. Digital maps can unite people across the world and even save lives. After last January’s earthquake in Haiti, geographic information systems helped first responders map cities, locate survivors and distribute aid.

Penn State Public Broadcasting has recently released the first episode in a four-part online video series, The Geospatial Revolution Project. The 13-minute episode uses the earthquake in Haiti to highlight how geospatial technology is critical in providing first responders with the information they need to help disaster victims.

Check out the episode at http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu. Feel free to embed and share this link as you wish.

So, I checked it out, and was definitely impressed by the quality and content of the first episode. They’ve got plans for three more episodes in the next six months and, personally, I can’t wait to see them. Please do take a few minutes to stop by their website, Twitter, and Facebook page to learn more.

Kudos to everyone involved on creating a really great product on such an important topic.

The article gives a quick history of Al Qaeda style terrorism since 9/11, with a focus on new affiliations and new partnerships throughout the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Centarl and East Asia, and Africa. A good bit of the piece talks about the newly acknowledged phenomenon of radicalizing American citizens, and the dissemination of tactics through these parties to new recruits.

The first topic I wanted to bring up is in the section about future potential tactics. The second listed tactic was about “Fedayeen”-style attacks, similar to those perpetrated in Mumbai last year. While the security experts amongst my readers will probably cringe at my description, I consider these attacks as a few small groups of trained and heavily armed men cutting a path through a major city. The reason I think this is relevant is for the spectacle (which, frankly, is the point). If such a thing were to happen in the US, think of the media’s reaction. Hours of running and gunning, explosions, news choppers circling the battle zone — for HOURS on end. Is your executive ready to stand in front of a bank of cameras then?

The second relevant point is this:

However, even if America’s intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security communities are far better prepared to counter this new collection of adversaries, it still will not be enough. On Christmas Day 2009, it was not a federal air marshal, but the courageous actions of the passengers and flight crew aboard Northwest Flight 253 that helped disrupt the attack once it was underway. In Times Square, it was a sidewalk T-shirt vendor, not the New York Police Department patrolman sitting in a squad car directly across the street, who sounded the alarm about Faisal Shahzad’s explosive-laden SUV. It is reckless to leave the task of combating terrorism only to the professionals when the changing nature of the threat requires that ordinary Americans play a larger support role in detecting and preventing terrorist activities.

Is your organization doing that work? Are you preparing the general public (even your special populations) to be terrorism busters? I’m not a huge fan of see something, say something because it doesn’t teach the general public WHAT to look for (when looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s generally advisable NOT to increase the size of the haystack), but I’ve yet to see anyone in the States do it better, which is a shame, because every one of these reports anymore includes this specific section in the conclusion/future actions section. And yet, we continue to fail to prepare (and I think we all know the second half of that statement).

First, the National Response Framework (NRF). Eric Holdeman, writing for Emergency Management Magazine, gives a hint that DHS hopes to have an NRF rewrite in place by this time next year. The really interesting part is this:

Recently I also saw a PowerPoint slide–with no further explanation that [sic] there will be four new National Response Frameworks (I think that includes the current rewrite mentioned above).

That alone is interesting, but when coupled with this article by Philip J. Palin, of Homeland Security Watch, which says that several people have heard that the White House is looking to rewrite, or scrap, the current Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPD). We spent a lot of time a couple years ago discussing HSPD-21 here, so this is something that’s relevant to our little corner of the world.

Palin wrote a memo to the Obama transition team on just this subject, and posted it. Below are what Palin identifies as the five sources of the problems with the HSPDs:

1. Many of the HSPDs serve an interagency coordination function that has been superseded by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (e.g. enhanced INS and Customs cooperation).
2. Many of the HSPDs are operational rather than strategic. Moreover, the operational frameworks set-out may not be well-suited to current and emerging conditions and complicate strategic adaptation.
3. Taken together, the HSPDs give much more attention to response than to prevention, preparedness, or recovery. Mitigation is seldom considered.
4. Between the first HSPD in October 2001 to June’s [2008] publication of HSPD 24 there is an increasing attention to threats other than terrorism. Beginning with HSPD 5 (February 2003) a goal is articulated to be prepared for all-hazards (or “terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies”). But there is an ongoing threat-orientation as opposed to a risk-orientation. This is inconsistent with the risk-based foundations of both the existing Homeland Security Strategy and the strategy signaled by President-elect Obama.
5. There is no significant or sustained attention to resilience and the distinction between catastrophic risk and other risk is implicit at best. The current collection of HSPDs offers a broad view of the threat horizon, but very little guidance as to the strategic priorities along that horizon.

In my eyes, the most interesting of these (valid) concerns are the second and the fourth. The first is easily understood as guidance given early in an overhaul process that didn’t stress anticipation (and also demonstrates the operational, as opposed to strategic nature of the HSPDs). The third criticism shows that the HSPDs were written with the help of emergency managers. Mitigation is a blind spot in the field and, I would argue, part of a broader society-wide investment process that might not be best lead by emergency management. This point is echoed in the fifth criticism where it mentions a lack of focus on resilience.

The second one is something, honestly, I wish I could have seen when reviewing HSPD-21. I admit that I was was green at the time and still very much in the weeds. Rereading that HSPD shows how specific it was and completely not strategic. Once the goals set forth were “met,” the HSPD was essentially a useless document.

The fourth I find interesting because of the differentiation between threat-orientation and risk-orientation. I don’t think anyone understands what this looks like on an everyday basis more than public health planners. Ask your local planner what their mass prophy plan looks like, no better yet, ask what their anthrax plan looks like. I’m sure they’ll be very proud of how detailed it is, and what a great score they got on the TAR last time around. Then ask them what their plan for a Hepatitis A outbreak looks like, or their heat emergency plan looks like, or their plan for coordinating alternate care facilities to support overwhelmed hospitals looks like, or special medical needs sheltering, or evacuee triage. The CDC and, by extension (by fiat?), public health departments, have focused almost exclusively on the mythological airborne release of weaponized anthrax spores. I would argue that this laser-like focus on a specific threat has put us at a greater risk of other threats.

I, for one, am excited to see the stamp that this Administration puts on homeland security in the next few months — and not because the previous Administration’s efforts were poor, but instead because we’ve learned so much since then.