In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In the Boston Globe’s Sunday Travel section today, there’s an article about preparing for emergencies, including weather, health, politics and security, while going abroad. The piece notes:
Traveling should be fun-filled and worry-free. But vacationers leave behind the predictability and convenience of home. Travel can be complicated by unforeseen crises — medical emergencies, canceled flights, lost luggage, [...]

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Emergency management experts often say that developing social relationships in the community in advance can be the key to helping people deal with a crisis situation in the short-term. A new study offers another reason for setting up that type of support system: it indicates that having those relationships can also be key to long-term [...]

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In the wake of the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, the U.S. State Department’s blog, DipNote, yesterday asked the public for ideas on “What Are Innovative Ways The International Community Can Respond To Natural Disasters”.
The post notes that Americans have been donating to Pakistan relief from their cell phones, by texting the word “SWAT” to the [...]

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Tonight, I will be a guest on the “Doctor Prepper” show on Blog Talk Radio to talk about citizen preparedness. The show is hosted by “Dr. Prepper,” James Talmage Stevens, author of Family Preparedness Handbook, which he first published in 1974 and now is in its 12th edition!

The show airs live this evening from 7pm-9pm [...]

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A new Brookings Instiitution report says that on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, “greater New Orleans is rebounding and, in some ways, doing so better than before” though “key economic, social, and environmental trends in the New Orleans metro area remain troubling.”
The fascinating study notes that the recovery effort — “in the last five [...]

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My daughter Rebecca had the terrific idea for this post. We were watching the movie “Grease 2″ together this past weekend, and there was a scene involving a bomb shelter. Rebecca suggested I should mention it on my blog. It turns out that both this sequel to “Grease” from 1982, and the popular 1970’s tv [...]

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The U.S. Army has declared August as Anti-Terrorism Awareness Month with installations throughout the country running programs stressing vigilance, reporting suspicious activities and protecting Army communities. The campaign is focused on families as well as uniformed personnel on bases.
According to an article on the Army’s website:
In February, the Department of the Army determined Anti-Terrorism Awareness [...]

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Mike Ellis from the Emergency Comunications Network decided yesterday to try to launch “Thank A Cop Thursdays” (hashtag: #ThankACopThur) on Twitter. He started tweeting the idea out with help from law enforcement social media expert, Lauri Stevens (@lawscomm).

This afternoon, Ellis gave me an update on the effort:
“The response to #ThankACopThur was immediate and continues today. I [...]

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On this blog, we’re always on the lookout all over the continent (and the world) for fun and creative preparedness ideas. One I just read about is a “Disaster Dining” cook-off held yesterday by the Red Cross in Atlantic Canada.
According to an article in the Telegraph Journal of St. John, New Brunswick, the Red Cross invited [...]

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The same people who brought you Preparedness Piggy, Johnson County Emergency Management & Homeland Security in Kansas, have come up with another creative idea — using Twitter and Facebook to ask the public whether its emergency sirens are covering the area adequately.
Today, just after drill testing its 177 outdoor warning sirens, officials requested through Facebook [...]

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