In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

It’s National Flood Safety Awareness Week, and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service and FEMA are warning the public, particularly those in the Midwest, to prepare for the possibility of spring flooding. According to their Awareness Week website:

Most Americans ignore the risks of flooding, assuming they aren’t in a flood zone. The reality is, floods are [...]

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I attended a ceremony today marking the 1st anniversary of the construction crane accident that killed seven people in midtown Manhattan. 

Neighborhood residents, survivors of the accident, CERT team members who responded, local politicians and the media gathered in front of the construction site.

A moment of silence was observed at 2:22pm when the accident occurred.

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Margaret Hamburg, who President Obama nominated Commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday, is the Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Trust For America’s Health (TFAH), a leading nonpartisan public-health advocacy organization. Late last year, TFAH, along with the Robert Wood Johnson, released their sixth annual report, Ready or Not? 2008: Protecting the Public’s Health [...]

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In his weekly radio/video address today, President Obama addressed the issue of food safety and announced the nomination of Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg as the Commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Hamburg is a former Health Commissioner of New York City and is known as an expert in bioterrorism. She is currently Senior Scientist at [...]

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Lately, I’ve seen a couple news reports about the resurgence of ‘Victory Gardens’. A recent Los Angeles Times article was headlined: “Victory gardens sprout up again: People are borrowing an old wartime concept to lessen the need for mass-produced food, reduce pollution and build a sense of community.”
The rebirth of the Victory Garden movement is particularly interesting to [...]

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The California State Assembly passed a measure Thursday to shield ‘Good Samaritans’ from lawsuits when they come to the aid of fellow citizens. The Assembly’s action comes in response to a California Supreme Court decision last year. According to an Associated Press report:
The bill by Assemblyman Mike Feuer was passed by a 74-0 vote. No lawmaker spoke [...]

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Amanda Ripley has an interesting article in the current issue of Governing, “Run for Your Lives, Please”. Amanda examines the issue of how best to alert people in advance of a disasters. She points out that before Hurricane Ike made landfall the National Weather Service put out a rare “certain death” warning which got the attention [...]

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In an article, “‘Cross’ My Heart And Hope To Volunteer,” the New York Times describes the clever new advertising campaign of Red Cross of Greater New York to recruit new disaster volunteers.

The Red Cross received special permission from New York Governor David Paterson to use their twist on the 32-year-old ”I ♥ NY” logo used in the campaign [...]

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One of the interesting and fun things about Twitter is that you can sometimes get to know about someone pretty quickly — their daily activities, hobbies, personality, etc. — from their feed. For example, I have been ‘following’ FEMA Administrator-Designate Craig Fugate on Twitter, and I have enjoyed learning about him.
On Sunday, Fugate, currently Director of [...]

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The five winners of “The Survivors Club” book contest are: Melanie Diehl/Susquehanna, PA; Roy E. Hadley, Jr./Atlanta, GA; Harry Burger/Huntington Station, NY; Martin Jones/Surprise, AZ and Steve Peterson/Germantown, MD. 
A free copy of “The Survivors Club” will be sent to each of them. If you would like to purchase the book, click here. We’ll have another book contest on Monday.

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