Practical, authoritative information about nuclear power plant accidents, meltdowns, and radiation emergencies covering everything from the basics of radiation measurement to treatment and decontamination for radiation exposure. Coverage includes: Radiation Health Effects and Treatments, Decontamination Procedures, Radiation Emergencies, Radiation Terminology, Reactor Concepts Manual, Radiation and Nuclear Glossary, Ionizing Radiation, External and Internal Radiation, Veterans and Radiation, FEMA Radiological Emergency Management Independent Study Course Excerpt, Cesium-137, Iodine-131, Plutonium, Potassium Iodide - Thyroid Blocking Agent, Prussian Blue, and Overview Of Basic Radiation Physics, Chemistry, And Biology.Acute Radiation Syndrome; Radiation and Pregnancy; Increased Cancer Risk; Radioactive Contamination; Internal and External; DTPA as a chelating agent; Neupogen for bone marrow; emergency preparedness and response for radiation emergencies; emergency planning zones around U.S. power plants; evacuation versus sheltering in place; shadow evacuations; potassium iodide KI; safety and security issues at plants; emergency classification; principles of radiation protection; radiation worker dose limits; tritium; detection of radiation; strontium-90; U.S. state emergency management agencies; decontamination procedures; personal protective equipment; skin and whole-body contamination; radioactive shrapnel; open wounds; body cavity entrance sites; nuclear reactor accidents and radiation emergencies; exposure control; shielding; alpha/beta/gamma rays; ionizing radiation; radionuclides; nuclear isomers; radioactive half-life; uranium; alpha and beta particles; radiation sources; radiation terminology and glossary with thousands of detailed entries and descriptions; explanations of dosage units like curies, RAD, REM, Gray, Sievert, Becquerel; radioactive decay; and much more.

Meant to aid State & local emergency managers in their efforts to develop & maintain a viable all-hazard emergency operations plan. This guide clarifies the preparedness, response, & short-term recovery planning elements that warrant inclusion in emergency operations plans. It offers the best judgment & recommendations on how to deal with the entire planning process -- from forming a planning team to writing the plan. Specific topics of discussion include: preliminary considerations, the planning process, emergency operations plan format, basic plan content, functional annex content, hazard-unique planning, & linking Federal & State operations.

With your family, you're in extreme danger of radiation sickness likely to cause cancer or death. The Department of Homeland Security warns that it's not a question of "if" an attack will occur but rather "when." Meantime, as radiation from Japan enters North America's milk supply, many experts worry the danger from nuclear reactors has intensified, while radiation from natural sources poses a significant additional threat. James W. Forsythe, M.D., H.M.D., heralded as perhaps the world's only integrative oncologist who has treated hundreds of people suffering from radiation-caused cancer, issued this vital publication in response to urgent public requests from around the globe. With author Wayne Rollan Melton, a former editor-on-loan to "USA Today," Forsythe created this "Emergency Radiation Medical Handbook."

This book is written for people who live near to a nuclear power station and want to understand more about what could happen in a nuclear emergency and how they can protect themselves, their family and their neighbours. The book shows you how to prepare yourself and your family for a nuclear emergency and for a range of other events that might disrupt family life. It explains how releases of radioactive dusts and gases from a nuclear site can lead to an extra radiation dose to those downwind and it explains how to minimise this dose by evacuation, shelter and/or by taking stable iodine. It explains how these countermeasures work. It gives advice on how to react on first hearing the news of a nuclear accident, where to get information from and how to understand it. It also explains what you can do in your home and what happens in Reception Centres, Radiation Monitoring Units and Humanitarian Assistance Centres should you find yourself being advised to go to one of these. There are appendices on nuclear accidents and emergency plans, radiation and radiation protection, other types of radiation accident, terrorist event and nuclear bomb. These is also a template to help you think about and write your own Home Resilience Plan. It is written in the UK for UK households but most of the really useful information is valid for other countries as well. Revised in 2018 this edition corrects some mistakes, extends and updates some sections. I hope that you find it interesting and useful but that you never need to use your Home Resilience Plan in a real event.

Our nation faces the distinct possibility of a catastrophic terrorist attack using an improvised nuclear device (IND), according to international and U.S. intelligence. Detonation of an IND in a major U.S. city would result in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of victims and would overwhelm public health, emergency response, and health care systems, not to mention creating unprecedented social and economic challenges. While preparing for an IND may seem futile at first glance, thousands of lives can be saved by informed planning and decision making prior to and following an attack. In 2009, the Institute of Medicine published the proceedings of a workshop assessing the health and medical preparedness for responding to an IND detonation. Since that time, multiple federal and other publications have added layers of detail to this conceptual framework, resulting in a significant body of literature and guidance. However, there has been only limited planning effort at the local level as much of the federal guidance has not been translated into action for states, cities and counties. According to an informal survey of community preparedness by the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO), planning for a radiation incident ranked lowest in priority among other hazards by 2,800 local health departments. The focus of Nationwide Response Issues After an Improvised Nuclear Device Attack: Medical and Public Health Considerations for Neighboring Jurisdictions: Workshop Summary is on key response requirements faced by public health and health care systems in response to an IND detonation, especially those planning needs of outlying state and local jurisdictions from the detonation site. The specific meeting objectives were as follows: - Understand the differences between types of radiation incidents and implications of an IND attack on outlying communities. -Highlight current planning efforts at the federal, state, and local level as well as challenges to the implementation of operational plans. -Examine gaps in planning efforts and possible challenges and solutions. -Identify considerations for public health reception centers: how public health and health care interface with functions and staffing and how radiological assessments and triage be handled. -Discuss the possibilities and benefits of integration of disaster transport systems. -Explore roles of regional health care coalitions in coordination of health care response.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop on August 22â€"23, 2018, in Washington, DC, to explore medical and public health preparedness for a nuclear incident. The event brought together experts from government, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and the private sector to explore current assumptions behind the status of medical and public health preparedness for a nuclear incident, examine potential changes in these assumptions in light of increasing concerns about the use of nuclear warfare, and discuss challenges and opportunities for capacity building in the current threat environment. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

While it has aided far many more than it has harmed, radiation is forever etched in the public's mind as an indiscriminate and particularly pernicious killer. Consequently, it is especially critical in this age of terrorist threats that we equip ourselves with accurate information and practical tools that will serve us in the rare chance that we find ourselves in a radiation crisis. Radiation Threats and Your Safety: A Guide to Preparation and Response for Professionals and Community offers a calm and authoritative approach to crisis preparation. Written by a health physicist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the book informs us about what we should know ahead of time, how to prepare, and the best ways to respond to a nuclear or radiological incident either as an emergency responder or community/family member. Organized to serve both as a preparation guide and as a reference in a crisis, this book -Uses common language while avoiding unnecessary scientific jargon -Details protocols for both accidental and intentional radiation emergencies such as nuclear explosions and dirty bombs-Shows how to prepare a family emergency plan -Covers medical responses to radiation emergencies including radiation drugs -Provides an emergency supply list -Discusses radiation from microwaves and cellular phones as well as food irradiation There is no reason why we should feel helpless when faced with a radiation emergency. We can take action to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities. How we react to a radiation emergency will determine its true final impact. To this end, we need information and leaders we can depend upon.

Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 provides guidelines on developing emergency operations plans (EOP). It promotes a common understanding of the fundamentals of risk-informed planning and decision making to help planners examine a hazard or threat and produce integrated, coordinated, and synchronized plans. The goal of CPG 101 is to make the planning process routine across all phases of emergency management and for all homeland security mission areas. This Guide helps planners at all levels of government in their efforts to develop and maintain viable all-hazards, all-threats EOPs. Accomplished properly, planning provides a methodical way to engage the whole community in thinking through the life cycle of a potential crisis, determining required capabilities, and establishing a framework for roles and responsibilities. It shapes how a community envisions and shares a desired outcome, selects effective ways to achieve it, and communicates expected results. Each jurisdiction's plans must reflect what that community will do to address its specific risks with the unique resources it has or can obtain.

A nuclear attack on a large U.S. city by terrorists-even with a low-yield improvised nuclear device (IND) of 10 kilotons or less-would cause a large number of deaths and severe injuries. The large number of injured from the detonation and radioactive fallout that would follow would be overwhelming for local emergency response and health care systems to rescue and treat, even assuming that these systems and their personnel were not themselves incapacitated by the event. The United States has been struggling for some time to address and plan for the threat of nuclear terrorism and other weapons of mass destruction that terrorists might obtain and use. The Department of Homeland Security recently contracted with the Institute of Medicine to hold a workshop, summarized in this volume, to assess medical preparedness for a nuclear detonation of up to 10 kilotons. This book provides a candid and sobering look at our current state of preparedness for an IND, and identifies several key areas in which we might begin to focus our national efforts in a way that will improve the overall level of preparedness.

Libraries have always played a special role in times of disaster by continuing to provide crucial information and services. The Stafford Act of 2011, a federal government directive, designates libraries as among the temporary facilities delivering essential services, making a Continuity of Operations Plan imperative for libraries. Peppered with informative first-person narratives from librarians recounting emergency situations, Halsted, Clifton, and Wilson cover such topics as: An eight-step approach to developing a risk assessment planHow to draft a one-page service continuity planInformation on how to use mobile devices and social media effectively in times of disasterSample disaster plans, along with model exercises, manuals and customizable communicationsPublished in cooperation with the Medical Library Association (MLA), this nuts-and-bolts resource will enable libraries of all kinds to do their best while planning for the worst.