In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

During the time that I have covered the topic of citizen emergency preparedness, one of the most surprising things I’ve found is that there is no major elected official who has taken the lead on the issue.
It’s surprising for a number of reasons: natural disasters and terrorism dominate the headlines and will continue to for [...]

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In a speech to the Red Cross’s Emergency Crisis Data Summit last week, FEMA head Craig Fugate focused his remarks on the role of technology in disaster preparedness and response. However, he touched on another important theme which I wanted to highlight — that Americans have a personal and societal responsibility to be prepared for [...]

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In a post this week on the social network website GovLoop, Andrew Krzmarzick asks a good question: “So which celebrity could bring awareness about a project or program being run by your agency, city or state?”
It’s a very relevant query for this blog as citizen preparedness has not had an ongoing high-profile celebrity spokesperson. To some in [...]

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Another major international disaster and another swift international response from the citizen volunteers of CrisisCommons.
CrisisCommons, as has been covered frequently on the blog, is, according to its website, “a global network of volunteers who help people in times and places of crisis. If you can use the Internet, a word processor, a cell phone or [...]

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I am always looking for creative and new ways to bring attention to all types of emergency preparedness. One small example I saw today is that the state of Oklahoma has authorized the creation of a special license plate honoring the National Weather Center.

The catch is that the Oklahoma Tax Commission needs 100 prepaid applications will [...]

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Readers of this blog know how excited I get about creative, well-planned emergency exerrcise that involve the public. So, I wanted to bring your attention to “Quakeville,” an two-day earthquake drill in Palo Alto, California that begins on September 11th. As described in an article at Palo Alto Online:
The ground is shaking violently. Family heirlooms [...]

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A report released earlier this year by Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness argues that “the U.S. remains unprepared to cope with the possibility of an attack on a major city by terrorists capable of acquiring and detonating an improvised nuclear device” — and urges a public education effort to inform Americans on what they [...]

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In a memo to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate this week, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered a “two-year progressive national drilling program which increases the total number of exercises and culminates in a full-scale, biennial intergovernmental National Level Exercise (NLE).”
Thanks to Bill Cumming for sending me the memo; he will be writing about it on his Vacation Lane [...]

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You know you’ve made it in New York City when the Empire State Building’s lights promote your cause. So, maybe preparedness is catching on in the Big Apple.
The City of New York’s Office of Emergency Management must be thrilled that the Empire State Building will be lit up in “READY New York Yellow” on the [...]

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Last week, I visited the three-member Ready Campaign team — Director Darryl Madden, Deputy Director Rebecca Marquis, and Campaign Specialist Chris Bernstein – at FEMA headquarters to get a briefing on the 7th annual National Preparedness Month (NPM) which begins in less than two weeks.
NPM, sponsored by the Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and the Ad [...]

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