20 23 C&E PREVIEW Law enforcement, first responders, and community members gather in Augusta to learn how and why the community should work together during a hostile event. the emergency manager at Augusta University and Augusta University Medical Center and a proponent of NFPA 3000. " We thought it was important to flip that around-we're #StrongAugusta. We wanted the community to come together to prepare for a hostile event, not just after one for thoughts and prayers. Let's get together and utilize this consensus standard as the framework we can use to create a more prepared community. " NFPA 3000 was first published in 2018, and the concept of #StrongAugusta emerged in early 2020. That was when Ryan, who previously spent 34 years in the fire service, began working with NFPA to help organize a gathering of communitywide representatives to discuss the NFPA 3000 road map and determine how it could be implemented in Augusta. The COVID-19 pandemic halted " We wanted the community to come together to prepare for a hostile event, not just after one for thoughts and prayers. " efforts on what was formally called The Augusta Project (nfpa.org/augusta), but #StrongAugusta was revived earlier this year with another convening in February. The coalition is moving forward on developing training plans for different sectors of the community, such as a hospital training for a NFPA .ORG/JOURNAL * NFPA JOURNAL | 23http://www.nfpa.org/augusta http://nfpa.org/journal