Planning Guidance: Radiological Dispersal Device and Improvised Nuclear Device Incidents

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is issuing final guidance entitled, ``Planning Guidance for Protection and Recovery Following Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) and Improvised Nuclear Device (IND) Incidents'' (the Guidance). This Guidance is intended for Federal agencies, State and local governments, emergency management officials, and the general public who should find it useful in developing plans for responding to an RDD or IND incident. The Guidance recommends ``protective action guides'' (PAGs) to support decisions about actions that should be taken to protect the public and emergency workers when responding to or recovering from an RDD or IND incident. The Guidance outlines a process to implement the recommendations, discusses existing operational guidelines that should be useful in the implementation of the PAGs and other response actions, and encourages federal, state and local emergency response officials to use these guidelines to develop specific operational plans and response protocols for protection of emergency workers responding to catastrophic incidents involving high levels of radiation and/or radioactive contamination.