In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Though public and media attention on the H1N1/Swine Flu outbreak has waned, there is a need to examine the lessons of the past couple weeks for future citizen preparedness and response — whether that be for a reoccurrence of a more deadly H1N1 flu possibly in the Fall or another national emergency situation. 

So, I thought [...]

[Read more →]

Fifteen minutes ago (at 9:58am), I received an E-mail and text alert from New York City’s Notify NYC alert system saying:
This is a message from Notify NYC. Notification 1 issued 05/11/09 at 10:00am. As per the FAA, a military plane will fly down and back up the Hudson River between the hours of 10:30 to [...]

[Read more →]

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced a new initiative, NYC Service, to increase volunteering in the Big Apple. Emergency preparedness is one of the program’s six priority areas. ”The NYC Service program has three main goals,” according to the City’s press release, “channel the power of volunteers to address the impacts of the current [...]

[Read more →]

This edition of “What Should We Tell The Public?” features U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson.  In the video, he says that the public should realize that homeland security is still a “work in progress,” and he underscores the need to create a “resilient” nation.
I shot this in Thompson’s Capitol Hill office after [...]

[Read more →]

John Bussey of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting piece in Friday’s edition (n.b. it is behind a pay wall) about what the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak might teach us about dealing with the H1N1 flu. Bussey, who is currently the Journal’s Washington bureau chief and covered Asia for the paper during 2003, [...]

[Read more →]

According to a new survey from the Harvard School of Public Health, a majority (55%) of Americans say they have made preparations to stay at home if they or a family member is sick from the H1N1 flu. About one in four report that they or a household member have avoided air travel (27%) or [...]

[Read more →]

Though public and media attention on the H1N1/Swine Flu outbreak has waned, there is a need to examine the lessons of the past couple weeks on citizen preparedness and response for the future — whether that be for a reoccurrence of a more deadly H1N1 flu possibly in the Fall or another national emergency situation.
So, [...]

[Read more →]

Below are the results of the blog’s latest book contest  for Disaster Communications In A Changing Media World (Butterworth-Heinemann) by George D. Haddow and Kim S. Haddow. Entrants were asked to write “what you think is the most useful new communications application for citizens to use for disaster preparation/response.“ The winners (and their entries) are:
Giovanni Taylor-Peace/Atlanta, Georgia – “My vote is for YouTube [...]

[Read more →]

The Aspen Institute has released a very interesting new study “New York City’s Preparedness For Terrorism (And Catastrophic Natural Disasters)”. The report offers a unique view of the preparedness efforts of major institutions in the New York City-area. It is the result of a three-day workshop which featured presentations from leaders in the governmental, business, non-profit and [...]

[Read more →]

In his weekly radio/video address, President Obama addressed the government’s response to the H1N1 flu outbreak. One new topic he raised was the role of social media in communicating with the citizenry. As the President said: “The White House has launched pages on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to support the ongoing efforts by the CDC [...]

[Read more →]