EM 408 Homeland Security Planning for Local Governments

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, drove home an indelible point regarding the need for planning and preparedness for terrorist incidents.

In addition to the terrible awakening brought about by the events of September 11, numerous terrorist incidents and planned exercises before and since that day have taught us valuable lessons that can help guide our planning efforts.

These lessons make it clear that emergency planners, decisionmakers, first responders, and other response participants at all levels and in all types of local settings must ensure that preparedness and response capabilities specifically address the terrorist threat.

At the end of this course, you should be able to:

• Explain why past terrorist incidents make this course critical to their jurisdictions.
• Relate lessons learned from past incidents and exercises to the needs of their jurisdictions.
• Identify personal goals for this course.
• Identify strengths in your existing plans that will carry over to a terrorism response.

Potential targets of terrorism are not always the obvious ones. An attack on something other than a high-visibility target (e.g., a crucial bridge, a power grid, a communications center) may be easier because of lower security, and can have far-ranging effects.

Existing Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) provide a good basis for planning and preparation but must be revisited to incorporate lessons learned about terrorist threats.

In planning for terrorism, we must consider that every community-large and small-has potential targets. "Thinking like terrorists" can help ensure that such targets will be identified in the jurisdiction's threat analysis.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Though open to all, the Homeland Security Planning for Local Governments Course is designed to assist State and local emergency managers in developing Terrorism Incident Appendices to the EOP. By making more officials and professionals capable of planning for and managing the response to a terrorist incident, jurisdictions will be more self-sufficient. Providing such training will increase options at the local level and will result in greater readiness for population protection and higher quality management of the response. The goal of the course is to equip government officials and emergency management staff with the knowledge and skills necessary to plan for and respond to a terrorist incident.

This course assumes that you are familiar with the Incident Command System (ICS) and does not explain how ICS operates.

There are 13 modules in this course. The files are approximately one MB for the benefit of low bandwidth (14.4 and 28.8 modem) users. The naming protocol is em408a.exe, em408b.exe, EM408ToolKit_1-5.pdf, EM408ToolKit_6-12.pdf, EM408ToolKit_appendices.pdf. Graphics may not be optimum in these documents due to originals and file size considerations. This FEMA developed course was released January 2004.

Upon receiving your paid registration, we will send you the password to open these. We recommend you print out the pages as you need them and keep them as a paper reference.

The test is taken online. When you pass the test, you will be mailed a certificate of completion.

The final exam is 33 questions taken from the reading material. You may use any of the materials while taking the test.

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Download Course Materials Here: em408a.exe  1084KB  em408b.exe  1104 KB  

I am ready to take the FINAL EXAM

Supplemental course material. You will need to view these documents.

(No test questions are taken from these documents.)

  EM408ToolKit_1-5.pdf 1546 KB     EM408ToolKit_6-12.pdf 1200 KB     EM408ToolKit_appendices.pdf 1400 KB

Government publications used in this document have been electronically transcribed by
International Disaster/Fire Training Institute, Inc.
Sources used to develop these courses are public domain documents.