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I have been in the
business of safety, security, anti-terrorism and emergency
preparedness for a long time. I have learned that safety and
security are things that people are very interested in – right
after an incident. Before an incident, the attitude usually conforms
more to the “It hasn't happened here, so it will never happen
here.” philosophy. It's very difficult to sell “accidents that
you didn't have.” In spite of that, we here at SRM Associates
believe that an ounce of prevention is really worth a pound of cure
and our goal is to make the world safer. Put those two things
together and you've got an interesting combination. To stretch the
ounce/pound metaphor somewhat, we believe that every dollar spent
(wisely) on prevention will save sixteen on response and recovery –
plus lives.
What that means to
us is that we have an obligation to help our clients save money and
lives by making effective prevention and preparedness decisions ahead
of time rather than just waiting until they are required to put
together a plan, and when they are up against a deadline, doing a
poor job. We have an obligation to let people know what is coming so
that they can effectively plan. And we have an obligation to make
the world a better place. We wrote Keeping
Our Neighborhoods Safe
in order to help families prepare for, respond to, and recover from
an attack or a disaster. Since it was published, it has sold well
over 2000 copies, and been purchased by government agencies, local
governments and business – all to help make the people for whom
they were responsible safer. We have written this book for
you to make your jobs easier.
If you have a
chemical facility and have to comply with these regulations, then
this book will take you from the first step of gathering your data,
through the process of submitting your information to the Department
of Homeland Security, performing your vulnerability assessment, and
developing your security plan. If you are a local or state
regulator, then the guidance in this document will hopefully allow
you to help support your facilities in complying with these
regulations. You know they'll be calling you for help. If you work
for the Department of Homeland Security, I hope that this book gives
you some insight into the businesses that you are regulating and how
they will try to meet your regulations. They'll need a lot of help.
This is a new program to them. Remember that most of them want to be
safe, they want to comply and they are relying on you to provide good
guidance to them on what they will need to do, what threats they will
need to protect against, and how they can make their plants safer and
more secure. At the same time, they have to make chemicals and turn
a profit. They don't have the dollars that the federal government
(read DOD and DOE) spend to protect facilities, so you will need to
work with them closely to help them come up with reasonable,
implementable, recommendations.
To all of our
readers: thank you for taking the time to read this book. Feedback
is always appreciated. Thank you for helping us to make this country
safer. We're all in this fight together, and together, we can
minimize the threat. Good luck and if you need help, call us.
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