As a professional in the area of anti-terrorism for 37 years, I have been concerned throughout my career, of how quickly we forget a catastrophic event.  Once people are buried and buildings restored, it is out of our thoughts and out of our budgets.  Generally after just a few years, we are again in a position of naiveté regarding the threat. 

My suggestion for extending our memory of a catastrophe is to:

1. Create a Real Catastrophic Library at FEMA, collecting and documenting every aspect of our catastrophic events (i.e. Media, stories, photos, news casts, special reports, assessments, community restorations, financial data, etc.),
2. Hire a few young historians (young so that they will extend our historical memory for a long time to come) to stay familiar and freely share the information in the library (their job would be to extend our collective memory of such events),
3. Offer apprenticeships to bright FEMA Scholars, and FEMA Award Winners, develop a culture of historical value, encourage students create documentaries, and generally build the effectiveness of FEMA, and
4. Open up a Virtual Catastrophic Library to the public, Everything at NO CHARGE, via a website, so that the creative among us can compile and publish Catastrophic Event Films and articles on our computers.  I expect that we will find: 1) our youth will use the Library for class projects, 2) the news media will use the Library to augment their footage during catastrophic events, and 3) people that compete for  FEMA Scholarships and FEMA Awards will fill the Library with lots of great creative content.

The NO CHARGE Agreement associated with using the Library, needs to require reciprocation by the user.  The user will give FEMA and all other site visitors, the right to use and edit the creative product that he develops, from the free  Library information.

In my opinion, every FEMA document and website, hence forth, should reference the Catastrophic Library (www.opencatastrophiclibrary.com).

Avoiding the Dangers of a Catastrophe:

The Catastrophic Library will be filled with evacuation stories, video, and print, created by FEMA, FEMA Scholars, and FEMA Awardees.  It will emphasize and reiterate, to those who see it, when and how they might avoid the dangers of a catastrophe.

Preparing for the Next Catastrophic Event

I believe that the more money that FEMA puts into FEMA Scholarships and FEMA Awards, the richer the content and the function of the Library will become! 

Free ‘Public Service’ time should be available to air the best and highest impact programs.  The media should be indexed by location, subject, # of viewings, and ratings.  The architecture of this site might be modeled after YouTube. The content of the Library, would be used:

• To remind us of the ongoing threat of catastrophes,
• To make us aware of our risks, and
• To provide us with a means of protecting ourselves during the catastrophy with volanteer based programs like CERT & SCERT (which most citizens don’t currently know about).

FEMA should establish and send to the airwaves, their schollarship and award submittal format, and point to the opencatastrophiclibrary.  To further encourage creative work, trailers or footnotes on submitted work, might include:

• A brief bio about the scholar / author (updated online by the scholar / author himself),
• A way to contact the scholar, through the Catastrophic Library, for phone calls or personal visits in association with a scheduled presentation of that scollar's work.