Today, I found this interesting article “The real first responders: citizens?”, from 2005, on who the really first responders are. Alexandra Marks, staff writer on the The Christian Science Monitor interviews Kathleen Tierney, the director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder on this topic. The article outlines that citizens are the really first responders and the distinction between first responders and civilians restricts how the authorites currently think and organize the preparedness for large-scale disasters. (Follow this link to read the original article)