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Civil defense or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from human-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency management: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation and recovery. Programs of this sort were initially discussed at least as early as the 1920s and were implemented in some countries during the 1930s as the threat of war and aerial bombardment grew. Civil-defense structures became widespread after authorities recognised the threats posed by nuclear weapons.
A civil defense siren is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. Initially designed to warn city dwellers of air raids during World War II, they were later used to warn of nuclear attack and natural disasters, such as tornadoes. The generalized nature of sirens led to many of them being replaced with more specific warnings, such as the broadcast-based Emergency Alert System and the Cell Broadcast-based Wireless Emergency Alerts and EU-Alert mobile technologies.
Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes. The amount and spread of fallout is a product of the size of the weapon and the altitude at which it is detonated. Fallout may get entrained with the products of a pyrocumulus cloud and when combined with precipitation falls as black rain, which occurred within 30–40 minutes of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This radioactive dust, usually consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron-activated by exposure, is a form of radioactive contamination.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders on April 1, 1979. The agency's primary purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the state in which the disaster occurs must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. The only exception to the state's gubernatorial declaration requirement occurs when an emergency or disaster takes place on federal property or to a federal asset—for example, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or the Space Shuttle Columbia in the 2003 return-flight disaster.
The Nevada National Security Sites, popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about 65 mi (105 km) northwest of the city of Las Vegas.
Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense or Nuclear, biological, and chemical protection is a class of protective measures taken in situations where chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear hazards may be present. CBRN defense consists of CBRN passive protection, contamination avoidance, and weapons of mass destruction mitigation.
"Duck and cover" is a method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion. Ducking and covering is useful in offering a degree of protection to personnel located outside the radius of the nuclear fireball but still within sufficient range of the nuclear explosion that standing upright and uncovered is likely to cause serious injury or death. In the most literal interpretation, the focus of the maneuver is primarily on protective actions one can take during the first few crucial seconds-to-minutes after the event, while the film of the same name and a full encompassing of the advice also cater to providing protection up to weeks after the event.
Namie is a town located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. As of 29 February 2020 the town has a population of 1,238 in 794 households, although the official registered population was 17,114 in 6853 households. The total area of the town is 223.14 square kilometres (86.15 sq mi). The town was evacuated as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster—being directly downwind from the power plant—and was within the exclusion zone set up in response to the disaster. Following ongoing clean-up efforts, Namie's business district and town hall have reopened, but access to more heavily contaminated western parts of the town remains restricted.
The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to defend individuals, especially children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk.
Emergency evacuation is an immediate egress or escape of people away from an area that contains an imminent threat, an ongoing threat or a hazard to lives or property.
The United States was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in combat, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II against Japan. Before and during the Cold War, it conducted 1,054 nuclear tests, and tested many long-range nuclear weapons delivery systems.
Operation Sassoon provides a basic generic framework for an emergency evacuation plan of any part of London, or Heathrow, in the case of a major terrorist attack in the British capital. It is part of an extensive anti-terror plan installed by the British Government in response to the rising threat of terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom. The plan, first drawn up in 2003, oversees the partial or complete evacuation of the inner parts of London after either a large-scale assault affecting a larger area of the city or an event having a lasting effect over a longer period of time, such as a biological, chemical or nuclear attack. Besides the actual evacuation process, Operation Sassoon covers the principles of large-scale evacuation, the installation of temporary shelters for evacuees in assigned areas outside the city, activation of the plan and the roles and responsibilities of agencies under the plan, as well as the deployment of police and military forces for maintaining civil order after a major attack has occurred.
Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the environment from undue radiation hazards". The IAEA defines nuclear security as "The prevention and detection of and response to, theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear materials, other radioactive substances or their associated facilities".
Civil defense in the United States refers to the use of civil defense in the history of the United States, which is the organized non-military effort to prepare Americans for military attack and similarly disastrous events. Late in the 20th century, the term and practice of civil defense fell into disuse. Emergency management and homeland security replaced them.
The history of Chico, California, begins with the original inhabitants, the Mechoopda Maidu.
Hurricane evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hurricane. County judges, emergency managers and other officials may recommend a voluntary evacuation or order a mandatory evacuation.
The Japanese reaction occurred after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. A nuclear emergency was declared by the government of Japan on 11 March. Later Prime Minister Naoto Kan issued instructions that people within a 20 km (12 mi) zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant must leave, and urged that those living between 20 km and 30 km from the site to stay indoors. The latter groups were also urged to evacuate on 25 March.
Many countries around the world have civil defense organizations dedicated to protecting civilians from military attacks and providing rescue services after widespread disasters. In most countries, civil defense is a government-managed and often volunteer-staffed organization.
The COVID-19 pandemic coincided with record-breaking wildfires in the western United States and a record number of hurricane landfalls in the southeastern United States. Emergency evacuation may be required for people living in areas threatened by natural disasters. Historic procedures maximizing capacity of public transport and emergency shelters may be inconsistent with quarantine and physical distancing measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not advisable to set up congregate shelters in an environment heavily impacted by a pandemic. Non-congregate shelters typically provide more effective physical distancing. Examples include buildings with single room occupancy, hotels or dormitories with private sleeping spaces but possibly shared bathroom or cooking facilities. Thousands of evacuees from Hurricane Laura were still in emergency lodgings as Hurricane Delta approached the Louisiana coast. Six-thousand from southwest Louisiana were in twelve New Orleans area hotels. Three-thousand-five-hundred remained in shelters as Hurricane Zeta approached Louisiana. A volcanic eruption on the island of Saint Vincent in April 2021 caused evacuation of sixteen-thousand people. Four-thousand evacuees were placed in eighty-nine government shelters after being tested for COVID-19, with those testing positive taken to isolation centers. Six-thousand evacuees found shelter in private homes.
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- 1 2 3 Operation Chico was only a test
- ↑ News From Our Past, Chico ER, 6 Dec 2008