So what is this bill about Establishment of National Emegency Centers?

[rainbow4321]

Saw it over on Mudflats forum:

http://www.themudflats.net/forum/index.php/topic,5943.msg54727.html#msg54727


H.R. 645: To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645


SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.
(a) In General- In accordance with the requirements of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations.

(b) Purpose of National Emergency Centers- The purpose of a national emergency center shall be to use existing infrastructure--

(1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;

(2) to provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;

(3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and

(4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.


http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=43299

The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Exercise Program (NEP) will conduct National Level Exercise 2-08 (NLE 2-08) a combined functional and full scale exercise from May 1 through May 8. NLE 2-08 will merge the objectives of U.S. Northern Command's (NORTHCOM) Ardent Sentry 2008 exercise, FEMA National Continuity Program's (NCP) Eagle Horizon 2008 exercise (formerly known as Forward Challenge), and FEMA Disaster Operation's Hurricane Preparedness Exercise (HPE).

[mmonk]

1. Heard about that some time ago.

This country is so bizarre now. I have no idea what it is up to.

[MrModerate]

2. Mudflats not accessible to me, but . . .

Seems like there are two broad interpretations:

1) Concentration camps! Black helicopter landing pads!! Guantanamo Lite X 6!

2) Centers of excellence for disaster response, so we can hopefully avoid another Katrina clusterfrak.

. . . at least that's what it looks like.

[BlooInBloo]

3. You mean the stupid racist interpretation, and the reasonable one?

[MrModerate]

5. Well, yeah.

Here's hoping you're assigning the same label to each alternative as I intended to convey . . .

[BlooInBloo]

8. Heh.

[rainbow4321]

4. I'd prefer to think it is #2...

Especially since it looks like it was started post-Jan 20th (the link to the bill is dated Jan. 22nd) and it was introduced/written by a Dem (Hastings from Florida)

[MrModerate]

6. I hadn't noticed that.

Here's hoping that it means the new administration and congress are serious about not screwing the pooch the next time one of these natural disasters hits us.

[HillbillyBob]

9. I did have a whole bunch of links for Haliburton contract etc,

This effort seems to have been under way for several years, at least since 2003.
It is highly disturbing..I have other things going on in my life so have not been able to keep up.
I live in rural NC and see black black water armed choppers at least once a week some time several times in a week they fly low over our house and rattle the windows.
We have been here just two years as of January 09.
The first day we moved in here there was a flight of blackhawk unmarked choppers loaded for bear with sidewinder missiles, 50 and 20 mm machine cannot.
I lost all the links when my puter blew up on fresh software up grade last month and I have not had time or energy to hunt them all down again.
There are youtube vids of a storage yard in ga of about 100,000 plastic coffins and another couple of these concentration camps.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Seems self-explanatory to me ...

Avoid Katrina-like responses to national emergencies by putting in place an actual infrastructure to deal with them, rather than relying on FEMA to make it up (or not) as it goes along? Hell, during Katrina they were running around making deals with church camps trying to find facilities to house people. This sounds better.