In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

President Obama has announced his intention to nominate Craig Fugate as the next Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). It is excellent pick. Fugate has distinguished himself as Director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
Fugate understands the importance of the public in disaster preparedness and response and has made citizen outreach a focus [...]

[Read more →]

It may seem a little surprising that U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano received one of her early transition briefings from someone named “Blogger Bob.” But considering the growing importance of social media in homeland security it makes a lot of sense.
“Blogger Bob” a.k.a. Bob Burns heads the Blog Team at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration [...]

[Read more →]

The U.S. Homeland Security Department’s Ready Campaign and The Advertising Council have created a new ‘widget’ to provide citizens with emergency information. The widget provides users: 
“with updates on emergency situations, local emergency contact information, an instructional video, emergency kit checklists and guidelines on how to better prepare for an emergency. Users can also access a clickable map to find contact [...]

[Read more →]

In the past I have written about the various online e-mail lists and resources available to citizens interested in learning more about the work and activities of government agencies involved in the issues covered on this blog.  
One informative web resource is the U.S. Homeland Security Department’s Leadership Journal blog. New Secretary Janet Napolitano has [...]

[Read more →]

The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) recently released a report titled Top Ten Challenges Facing the Next Secretary of Homeland Security. Comprised of “leaders from state and local government, first responder communities, the private sector, and academia,” the HSAC was created to provide “advice and recommendations to the Secretary on matters related to homeland security.”
Though I might have [...]

[Read more →]

On Wednesday, I attended a U.S. Department of Homeland Security “Bloggers Roundtable” convened in Washington, D.C. by Secretary Michael Chertoff to address the issue of cyber security.
The Roundtable took place at the Secretary’s ’satellite’ office at the Ronald Reagan Office Building near the White House. It was pegged to October’s National Cyber Security Awareness Month which according to [...]

[Read more →]

With the fifth-annual National Preparedness Month now over, I wanted to point out an encouraging statistic regarding corporate and non-profit interest in citizen preparedness both on a national and community level. 
The Department of Homeland Security’s public preparedness efforts have received a good deal of criticism over the past few years. And, in fact, no one has [...]

[Read more →]

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a “Blogger Roundtable” on emergency preparedness with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) chief R. David Paulison held at DHS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. I joined Jonah Czerwinski of the Homeland Security Watch and Rich Cooper of Security Debrief as one of three questioners. The full transcript can be found here. 
It was a wide-ranging, [...]

[Read more →]