Some terrible things occurred during the course of three short days last month. First of all, a couple of troubled young brothers decided to explode two homemade bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and critically injuring more than 100 others. Then two days later, there was a tremendous explosion at a fertilizer plant located in the small town of West, TX, injuring more than 250 people and killing at least 15 people, many of them first responders.

Implementation of the preparedness program includes identifying and assessing resources, writing plans, developing a system to manage incidents and training employees so they can execute plans.