The shadow of the Twin Towers will never again stretch across the streets of lower Manhattan, but the shadow of September 11 continues to loom large both in New York and around the globe. In many ways, the events of that day are directly responsible for the latest technical program offering at two high schools in Missouri's St. Louis County. In the fall of 2006, an exciting new opportunity opened up for the county's students when both North Technical High School and South Technical High School in the Special School District of St. Louis County began offering a domestic preparedness and security program for high school seniors. Students in the program learn emergency dispatching procedures and development of disaster plans using emergency response. The program is also intended to help them develop an understanding of terrorist threats, prevention and deterrence activities; incident command and law enforcement response actions; target identification; and signs of chemical, biological, nuclear, radioactive and explosive hazards. The program's curriculum covers such topics as weapons of mass destruction, domestic and international terrorism, the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, preparedness for natural disasters, and emergency responses. Students in the domestic preparedness and security program will do considerable cross-training with students in the EMT/firefighting program. "One of the lessons learned from September 11 was that the various groups involved in preparing for and responding to disasters need to be more adept at working and communicating with one another," Parmley says. "We're trying to establish those habits early."