I was alway a total of six days. I attending a memorial luncheon for Jerry Strope who died in August at age 92. He was the technical expert that drove the federal civil defense program throughout its existence. A number of retired people from the former Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (DCPA--a FEMA predecessor agency) attended. With the dispersal of the FEMA library at HQ the timely arrival to the American Strategic Defense Association which was started and managed by Jerry from the Charitable Remainder Trust of a Fred WARD who was on the Civil Defense Staff at Battle Creek, Michigan will help to organize and dessimate the technical collection of Jerry Strope. I did volunteer to help.
Also the daughter of a longtime FEMA staffer John Crawford died last Saturday after a long illness. Oddly after the death of her father in 2000, Miriam who just died worked for FEMA for one year before becomeing part of the marketing/event planning staff at the Smithsonian Institution. She was only 47. Both will be sorely missed by me and their families.
Of course what always is of interest is that the issues Jerry, John, and Miriam worked on while at FEMA or its predessor agencies are real issues not just political posturing and their contributions like many others are important to where we are today.
Hoping to post a brief summary of 111th Congress enacted legislation that may impact HS/EM.
