In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

The U.S. State Department and the Ad Council have just released tv and radio public service announcements asking Americans to contribute to Pakistan flood relief. In one of the video PSAs, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says:
Currently more than 20 million Pakistanis have been affected by the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s history. The pictures we see [...]

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FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate interviewed earlier today on “Good Morning America” (below) warned residents of the eastern seaboard to “make sure you have a plan today, You may not have time later on this week if the storm moves in your direction.”
He told Robin Roberts that people who live in evacuation zones need to plan [...]

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With National Preparedness Month beginning tomorrow, I am posting a short video I shot a couple weeks ago at FEMA headquarters with Ready Campaign Director Darryl Madden in which he urges Americans to prepare and discuss the with their “family & loved ones about they’ll do in the face of an emergency”. The threat of [...]

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As government emergency management offices and non-profit disaster relief groups increasingly utilize Twitter and Facebook as part of their operations, I thought I would check with some leading practioners in the field to see how the two social media platforms are being employed in their work with the public.
It turns out that in most cases [...]

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This morning, the East Coast-based Twitter followers of @CraigatFEMA (aka FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate) got a bit of a provocative challenge:

It was little less cheeky than his reminder tweet from the day before:

Usually, preparedness messaging — particularly as a threat approaches — is Boy Scout earnest (and Fugate uses that approach as well — see [...]

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As the nation marks the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I wanted to post a terrific list of preparedness tips and lessons learned from the disaster survivors that was collected by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The Times-Picayune, which did such heroic coverage during and after Katrina, solicited these ideas from readers in 2006 and printed [...]

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A major highlight of the Red Cross Emergency Data Summit earlier this month for me was meeting in person someone I have known — and have learned from — remotely for the last several years, Brian Humphrey from the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD). Brian has been a pioneer in the use of personal technology [...]

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This past week, I wrote about trying to find preparedness spokespeople from different areas including politics and entertainment. While reporting those articles, I happened to hear about a preparedness spokesperson from a surprising arena — Jill (Stevens) Shepherd, the 2007 “Miss Utah,” who used citizen preparedness as her successful pageant issue platform.
Public preparedness is an atypical [...]

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I was recently sent a screening copy of a compelling new documentary, “Countdown To Zero” about nuclear proliferation. Featuring interviews with a who’s who of world leaders and nuclear experts, the movie traces the history of the atomic bomb through the current nuclear threat.
Nine nations now have nuclear weapons and the movie argues that number could [...]

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With the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) recently unveiling the redesign of its FEMA.Gov website, I asked Administrator Craig Fugate if he would explain why the agency undertook the overhaul.
In the brief video (below), Fugate says FEMA wanted to make the site more focused on helping the public in answer the following questions: “How do I prepare? [...]

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