In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Many of us humans have been having trouble getting through to our fellow Man on preparedness…So, why not let a pig try to help out.

Preparedness Piggy is the official mascot of the Johnson County (Kansas) Emergency Management & Homeland Security Office. He started work last Fall and since then has been a regular at County events. Piggy has also starred in 12 of the County’s video readiness episodes with more in the works. This blog is always on the lookout for creative and fun ways of approaching preparedness; Johnson County’s Piggy fits that bill.

One of these preparedness advocates runs FEMA.

“The concept was basically centered around the challenge of trying to be a fresh voice of preparedness in a sea of ‘white noise’ for our citizens,” Adam Crowe, Johnson County’s Assistant Director for Community Management, told me in an email. “They’ve only got so much time to think about things outside of the stress of their lives and we’ve got a lot of competition. So we came up with an idea that blended Smokey the Bear with the Travelocity Gnome. Fortunately, people seem to enjoy the concept.”

Recently, Preparedness Pig had a meeting with the nation’s top preparedness official, FEMA head Craig Fugate at an International Association of Emergency Managers conference. When I asked what the two preparedness pros discussed, Crowe told me: “They talked about Preparedness, of course. They talked about the challenges of emergency management in the 21st century and how to continue to make America (or my local community) more resilient.”

You can find more information on Preparedness Piggy’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/preparednesspiggy), the County Emergency Office’s YouTube (www.youtube.com/jocoemergencymgmt), Facebook (www.facebook.com/jocoem) and twitter sites (www.twitter.com/joco_emergency).

Preparedness Piggy stars in “That Darn Weather Radio” video.