Protection is the second critical mission area in Homeland Security.  Protection means to shield an area that we would like to guard or defend. For example, our focus is to protect our schools from any disaster (i.e. floods, fires, shootings…).  This is accomplished by principals, teachers, police officers working together to provide safety measures at your school.
 
This is the second critical mission area because although we may be able to stop someone from doing any harm, we also have to protect ourselves to make it more difficult to be the target of a terrorist act.  Unfortunately, while this is an important critical mission area, we can’t protect everything.  This is why we rely on other mission areas, in case something does occur.