In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Last December, I attended the second-annual “National Congress For Secure Communities” conference in Washington, D.C. I found it quite interesting and helpful in large part because it was the rare national gathering that focuses on community emergency preparedness and brings together participants from all sectors of society to work on a subject that does not [...]

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Barry Scanlon, President of James Lee Witt Associates (a part of the Global Options Group) is a former official in the Federal Emergency Management Administration. At FEMA, he was responsible for managing the highly regarded Project Impact program which created public/private sector partnerships to prepare communities for disasters.
In this segment, Scanlon makes the important point drawn from [...]

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With Tropical Storm Fay hitting Florida, I wanted to highlight several Red Cross web-based resources that I found on their Twitter feed(which itself is a terrific information source). 
*One is the Red Cross’ Safe & Well program which provides a way for those who need to evacuate in a crisis to register themselves as “safe and well” [...]

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Readers of this blog know that I am a big advocate of the potential of personal technology in helping the public prepare for and respond to emergencies, whether they be small everyday incidents or major disasters. So, I am very happy to see that the Wireless Foundation, the Wireless Association’s charitable arm, has just created a terrific new [...]

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Within 38 minutes this Sunday morning, I received two text/email alert messages from different governmental authorities. Both transmitted potentially important information, though on a very different scale. I thought I would mention them.
First at 8:22am, I received this from Miami-Dade County in Florida:
Miami-Dade Alerts: Miami-Dade County is under a tropical storm watch. Please prepare now [...]

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Beginning Monday, my friends from Cross Blog, the website of the Oregon Red Cross, are going blog-to-blog against the Portland Water Bureau’s Water Blog in a ‘Blog-Off’. It is yet another attempt by the Cross Bloggers to make the work of the Red Cross and the subject of preparedness more accessible, engaging and fun. 
I am impressed by the [...]

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I attended a fascinating workshop in March held by the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events titled “Dispensing Medical Countermeasures for Public Health Emergencies.” The report on the workshop was released today. It can be ordered through the National Academies Press, and the Executive Summary is available for free download on [...]

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I have been asked to advertise a terrific job opportunity for a person interested in the topics discussed on this blog.
Someone is needed ASAP to create a business plan for a major emergency preparedness/health care project. Applicants should have experience in creating a business plan as well as some exposure and interest in the topic [...]

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I will never forget New York City’s exhale on the afternoon of August 14, 2003. I was walking down 2nd Avenue in Manhattan when people started noticing that the power had gone down. Coming as we were approaching the 2nd anniversary of 9/11, there was palpable concern among my fellow pedestrians about another attack. When news [...]

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I am in Washington today and had an opportunity to record a “What Should We Tell The Public?” segment with Wendy Harman, who manages the American Red Cross’ burgeoning social media presence and is a good friend of this blog.
In the first segment, Wendy underscores what an important tool your cell phone or PDA can be in [...]

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