In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Ron Callari of The Inventor Spot blog has put together a thoughtful and useful list: “10 Social Media Methods To Fight Hurricane Season”.
Many of the methods will be familiar to readers who follow social media and disasters, but Callari offers some new ideas and resources for preparing and responding to hurricanes and other emergencies. His list [...]

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With Hurricane Bill gathering steam in the Atlantic, I wanted to highlight a new book, At War With The Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophies (MIT Press) by Howard C. Kanreuther and Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan. The authors, professors at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, look at how the [...]

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This past weekend, my family and I had a great opportunity to explore New York Harbor on the retired fireboat, the “John J. Harvey”. The trip was part of City of Water Day, an event sponsored by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA), a non-profit organization I am involved with. More than 10,000 people participated in the [...]

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In last week’s “Homeland Security Inside & Out” radio show, Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable, had some interesting criticisms of how authorities currently warn people on impending hurricanes:
*In response to questions from interviewer Dave McIntyre, Ripley said a fundamental problem is that the way we inform citizens of hurricane threats is “flawed. It’s not [...]

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The National Weather Service has declared June 21-27 “Lightning Safety Awareness Week” to highlight the dangers of lightning and show what people can do to prevent being struck. So far in 2009, 15 people have been killed by lightning and many others have been injured.

To avoid being struck by lightning, the National Weather Service recommends [...]

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During a visit to FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center on Friday, President Obama said that preparing for hurricanes and other disasters was a “personal responsibility” and a responsibility of citizenship. According to the President:
“True preparedness means having federal and state and local governments all coordinating effectively, and as you just heard, one of the most important [...]

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With the hurricane season officially beginning on Monday, we will soon be hearing some names over and over. The National Hurricane Center website shows the list of names for Atlantic storms in 2009: Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor & Wanda. Some background information [...]

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President Obama today issued a proclamation declaring May 24th-May 30th “National Hurricane Preparedness Week”. The proclamation reads:
Each year, hurricanes threaten the safety of American families in coastal and inland communities. These powerful storms can cause heavy rainfall, high winds, tornadoes, and storm surges, which can in turn bring severe flooding, power outages, damage to homes and [...]

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With all the focus on the environment on Earth Day, I wanted to reiterate a point about the connection I think should be made between the public service campaigns on global warming and emergency preparedness. 
It is my contention that the two efforts are complementary and should be more linked closer together in the public’s mind — and [...]

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One of the suggestions I’ve made to emergency preparedness communicators is that they talk more about their own personal efforts to ready themselves and their families. I think it makes what can be an imposing and off-putting process seem more accessible and relatable for average citizens. So, I was happy to see a video that FEMA [...]

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