• Breakthrough Alert Messaging for a Mobile Public

    It is in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) that the danger and damage from the growing risk of wildfires is most prevalent. Of paramount importance is alerting people in the path of fires and enabling their safe evacuation from the area.

  • Yeast Material Developed for Training First Responders on Biothreats

    First responders who train for emergencies involving threats from biological agents such as bacterial or viral pathogens, need to do so in a safe and careful manner. To help meet their needs, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a reference material based on yeast cells.

  • Wildfires in Colorado Are Growing More Unpredictable. Officials Have Ignored the Warnings.

    A year after the deadly Marshall Fire drove thousands of Coloradans from their homes, the state’s densest communities aren’t preparing for the next climate-driven wildfire.

  • In Disasters, People Are Abandoning Official Info for Social Media. How to Know What to Trust

    In an emergency, where do you turn to find out what’s going on and what you should do to stay safe? The rise of social media has seen community groups, volunteers and non-government organizations nudging out official channels. While these informal sources often provide faster, more local information, they may also be less reliable than government sources.

  • Cracking the Secrets to Earthquake Safety, One Shake Simulation at a Time

    A new experimental capability, designed to replicate realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help lead to resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.

  • Deep Learning Underlies Geographic Dataset Used in Hurricane Response

    Extreme weather and natural disasters are happening with increasing frequency across the United States and its territories. Accurate and detailed maps are critical in emergency response and recovery. ORNL’s has mapped and characterized all structures within the United States and its territories to aid FEMA in its response to disasters.

  • A Machine Learning-Based Solution May Help Firefighters Avoid Deadly Backdrafts

    A lack of oxygen can reduce even the most furious flame to smoldering ash. But when fresh air rushes in, say after a firefighter opens a window or door to a room, the blaze may be suddenly and violently resurrected. Researchers have devised a plan for informing firefighters of what dangers lie behind closed doors.

  • Security-Focused, 5G Wireless Test Range

    Researchers have opened the nation’s first open-air, 5G wireless test range focused exclusively on security testing, training and technology development. The range will be used by government, academic and industry collaborators. Although limited 5G service is available in selected cities across the country, widespread adoption is still years away.

  • 9/11 Survivors’ Exposure to Toxic Dust and the Chronic Health Conditions That Followed Offer Lessons That Are Still Too Often Unheeded

    After the 9/11 attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every U.S. state – along with some 400,000 residents and other workers around ground zero – were exposed to a toxic cloud of dust that fell as a ghostly, thick layer of ash and then hung in the air for more than three months. The World Trade Center dust plume consisted of a dangerous mixture of cement dust and particles, asbestos and a class of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants. The dust also contained heavy metals that are known to be poisonous to the human body and brain, such as lead and mercury, and PCB.

  • Drone Research to Support Disaster Preparedness, Emergency Response

    FAA Awards $2.7 million in drone research to support disaster preparedness and emergency response. This is the third round of Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) grants, which brings the total to 20 grants valued at $21 million for Fiscal Year 2022.

  • Multiform Floods: A Growing Climate Threat

    We are in the thick of danger season (aka summer), that time of year when droughts, heat waves, wildfires, floods and hurricanes are more likely to happen. Not only that; climate change has made these disasters more severe and more likely to occur.

  • Prediction of Human Movement During Disasters Allows More Effective Emergency Response

    The COVID-19 pandemic, bigger and more frequent wildfires, devastating floods, and powerful storms have become facts of life. With each disaster, people depend on the emergency response of governments, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector for aid when their lives are upended. But there is a complicating factor: people tend to disperse with such disasters, making aid delivery more difficult.

  • Making Muons for Scientific Discovery, National Security

    The Pentagon and other agencies have sought advanced sources that generate gamma rays, X-rays, neutrons, protons, and electrons to enable a variety of scientific, commercial, and defense applications – from medical diagnostics, to scans of cargo containers for dangerous materials, to non-destructive testing of aircraft and their parts to see internal defects. The problem: None of these sources can image through concrete walls several meters thick, map the core of a volcano from the outside, or peer deep underground to locate chambers and tunnels. Muons — deeply penetrating subatomic particles – can do all those things. DARPA seeks a compact source for muons.

  • Evacuating Outside the Lines

    Researchers at the University of Tsukuba show how extending evacuation options to shelters outside the borders of a city can help increase the efficiency of flood responses, which may reduce the disruption caused by natural disasters.

  • Coming Soon: Solar-Powering First Responders?

    Fabric woven to harness solar power recently completed weaving trials. The fabric will ultimately be used to design high-functioning gear that can keep responders’ tech charged and ready.