In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

An exciting online initiative, the CrisisWiki, is looking for citizen volunteers for help in its response to the Nashville-area flood and the Gulf oil spill.  According to the site, the goal of CrisisWiki:
is to create an editable directory of resources related to disasters and crises around the world. An example of how we’ve done this in the [...]

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There’s an excellent CNN.com roundup of some of the civilian-driven initiatives responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The article, “Citizens Monitor Gulf Coast After Oil Spill,” describes the efforts of groups such as the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Grassroots Mapping, Crisis Mappers Net and CrisisCommons to engage citizens to assist in the response:
Here is what MIT [...]

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It was clearly not the aim of the alleged Times Square bomber to spotlight the role of the citizen as part of the U.S.’s homeland security effort in one of the nation’s most high profile — and lit — places. But he did. The T-shirt vendors who tipped off a New York City Police Department (NYPD) [...]

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Another thing you can do to help in the cleanup of the Gulf Coast oil spill is to participate in CrisisCommons‘ crowdsourcing efforts. A post on the group’s website explains:
CrisisCommons is working hard with a number of other organizations, including NGOs and educational institutions, to develop a common crowdsourced platform for reporting the effects of [...]

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USNews.com’s “10 Things You Can Do To Help The Gulf Coast Clean The Oil Spill” has a good selection of some volunteer/donation/informational opportunities for citizens interested in assisting with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup:
1. Want to lend a hand? Affected states allow you to register to volunteer online. Louisiana and Florida volunteers can register [...]

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In Slate, Christopher Beam has an interesting piece, “Oh Well: Why We’re So Bad At Dealing With Unlikely Disasters Like The Louisiana Oil Spill,” about how we as a nation think about, prepare for, and ultimately learn from unlikely but disastrous events. His conclusion: not well.
…the real lesson of the oil spill may be how [...]

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By coincidence two days after the attempted bombing in Times Square, the new issue of  The New Yorker has a good article, “Fallout,” written by Nick Paumgarten, which looks at the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated by terrorists in New York City.
The piece focuses on Irwin Redliner, the head of Columbia’s National Center [...]

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A crude bomb was found in the back of a Nissan Pathfinder in the middle of Times Square Saturday night after a T-shirt vendor on the street reported the car to a police officer. According to a New York Times story:
a T-shirt vendor on the sidewalk saw smoke coming out of vents near the back [...]

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On the KnowTheNetwork.com blog, there is a fascinating post, “Tornado Alley, Twitter Style,” by Keith Crawford. He offers a terrific case study of how Twitter — and in particular the hashtag #ARwx created by one Tweeter — outpaced the mainstream media in informing his Arkansas community when a tornado struck this week:
Apr 30, 2010 may well [...]

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As the Gulf Coast oil spill approaches the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, national and local groups are recruiting citizen volunteers to assist in the response both at the scene as well as remotely through the web. Below I am posting a CNN.com article with a list of organizations that were assembling lists [...]

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