The Interagency Disaster Preparedness Awards return

In 2005, in partnership with the International Association of Emergency Managers, Homeland1.com’s predecessor, Homeland Protection Professional magazine, established the Interagency Disaster Preparedness Awards.

The IDPAs were presented at the IAEM annual conferences in 2005 and 2006, but the program went into hiatus in 2007, because of the changeover from HPP magazine to the online format at Homeland1.com.

This year, however, the IDPAs are back, and the deadline for entries in the 2008 competition is Aug. 15. The awards will be presented at the IAEM’s annual conference in Kansas City, Nov. 15–20.

Further information, including a brochure on all the IAEM awards programs and an entry form, is available here www.iaem.com/about/awards/intro.htm. And if you’re an IAEM member, or have considered becoming one, you should take a look at the other award programs also.

To provide some inspiration, here are links to the articles that have appeared in HPP and on Homeland1 about the diverse, and uniformly excellent, programs and initiatives that have been recognized by the IDPAs so far.

2005 IDPA winners

• Heartland security, Jan/Feb 2006 
  The Mid-America Regional Council’s Regional Homeland Security Coordinating Committee, an eight-county, bistate effort covering the Kansas City metro area. 
  
• Capital cooperation, March 2006
  The Foggy Bottom Neighborhood Planning Committee, a private-sector program in Washington, D.C.
  
• Corps competencies, May/June 2003
  The Military-Civilian Task Force for Emergency Response, an unusual program centered on the U.S. Marine Corps Base at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
  
• ALERT and prepared, July 2003
  The Advanced Local Emergency Response team, an interagency program in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.

2006 IDPA winners

• Collaboration amidst cooperation, Jan/Feb 2007
  The Delaware Valley Healthcare Council’s Regional Disaster Preparedness Committee, a Philadelphia-area coalition that encompasses nearly 12,000 hospital beds.
  
• Caring without borders, Homeland1.com 5-21-08 and 6-4-08
  The Western Piedmont Regional Emergency Management Task Force, four counties working together in rural western South Carolina.
  
• Summer of storms, Nov/Dec 2004
  The Florida Fire Chiefs Association’s Statewide Emergency Response Plan and how it helped during Florida’s disastrous year of four major hurricanes.
  
• Rural delivery, July 2006
  The Northern New England Metropolitan Medical Response System, a creative adaptation of an urban/metro concept to a rural region.

In addition, an article about the fifth 2006 IDPA awardee, the South Central Task Force, an eight-county initiative in Pennsylvania, appeared in the September 2007 issue of Fire Engineering magazine.