Hurricane!

The best disaster response includes training community members as well as public servants:

When Hurricane Isabel tore through Loudoun County in 2003, it wasn’t just sheriff’s deputies and firefighters who put together a response plan. County officials called on a trained corps of citizens to work at emergency shelters and help in the county’s emergency operations center. The civilians were graduates of the Community Emergency Response Team training course, a program established in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to enlist ordinary people to help their neighbors during emergencies.