In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

The Downtown Boulder website has assembled a good list of ways that individuals and businesses can help support the Four Mile Fire relief efforts in Boulder, Colorado, along with other information resources.

A ‘thank you’ Boulder firefighters poster produced by Steve Lowtwait. It can be purchased here.
For those interested in donating or volunteering in support of [...]

[Read more →]

A bill which would create a ‘tax holiday’ for preparedness supplies including “Go-Bags”, which was suggested by this blog, is now under consideration by the New York State Legislature. I would like readers around the U.S. to consider asking their elected officials about introducing similar legislation in their states.
Under the New York bill, citizens would be able [...]

[Read more →]

Yesterday, I spoke to FEMA Deputy Administrator Tim Manning who is coordinating the National Dialogue on Preparedness and the Local, State, Tribal, and Federal Preparedness Task Force for the agency.
Manning wanted to remind preparedness stakeholders, including the public, that there are two days left to contribute a new idea — or offer a comment and vote [...]

[Read more →]

File this blog post under ‘no good turn goes unpunished’.
The Red Cross has organized a series of preparedness events for personnel and families on military bases, including one at Fort Belvoir earlier this summer and another at Fort Polk last month. The families were able to build an emergency preparedness kit and learn about emergency preparedness, [...]

[Read more →]

Coming off the success of two “Great California ShakeOut” earthquake drills, there will be a new “Great Central U.S. ShakeOut” to practice preparedness in the midwest next April with a similarly large public involvement.
The Great California ShakeOut began in 2008, as the Great Southern California ShakeOut, an effort to educate the public about emergency management [...]

[Read more →]

In a good example of government involving average citizens in the nation’s homeland security effort, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected a 28-year-old Roanoke, Virginia woman’s public information campaign to help educate the public on cybersecurity.
Melissa Short’s “Cybersecurity Starts Here” campaign was one of the winners of the National Cyber Awareness Challenge “which called [...]

[Read more →]

If National Preparedness Month has inspired you to want to volunteer in your community to assist in emergency preparedness and response, I wanted to post an article by Darryl Madden, Director of the Ready Program, “Be Part of the Preparedness Team.” In the piece, he offers some suggestions from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s grassroots readiness initiative, [...]

[Read more →]

A recent article on CNN.com “U.S. electricity blackouts skyrocketing,” reported on the national increase in non-disaster-related power outages:
During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent — up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota. In the most recently analyzed [...]

[Read more →]

The New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and the Ad Council have just released a new public service announcement in which top City officials are asked, “What would you do in an emergency?”
The City Council President, Deputy Mayor, the commissioners of OEM, Fire, Health Department and Immigrant Affairs all give their quick answers in [...]

[Read more →]

The always creative folks at the Oregon Trail Red Cross are again running their successful National Preparedness Month contest, #just1thing.
To enter, tweet just one thing that you’re doing to get prepared for emergencies to @RedCrossPDX and use the hashtag #just1thing.
It’s a terrific contest — fun, spurs action and creates a good preparedness list. Anyone can share [...]

[Read more →]