In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has a column about the nation’s lack of readiness for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), “‘We Are Totally Unprepared’: Nine years after 9/11, a chilling complacency about WMD attacks.” She writes:
The most important overlooked story of the past few weeks was overlooked because it was not surprising. Also because no [...]

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In his end of the show commentary on MSNBC’s “Hardball” Thursday night, Chris Matthews asked President Obama to: “put out an offer to the people of America – not just to the youth, but to anyone who can participate. Create a modern Civilian Conservation Corps, and deploy it in all the states of the Gulf. [...]

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SunSentinel.com in South Florida has an article, “Social Media Likely To Play Role During Hurricane Season,” which describes how local government and media are increasingly using the new information distribution platform in their disaster preparedness plans:
Before a storm hits, the Internet-driven sites will allow people to monitor a tropical system’s progress, receive evacuation orders and [...]

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The latest issue of the Natural Hazards Center’s informative newsletter, Disaster Research, has an interesting article about the national media’s lack of coverage of the Tennessee flooding. The piece, “15 Minutes Lost: Disaster Media Disses Tennessee Flooding,” provocatively asks whether that oversight was necessarily all bad for the locals:
While disaster news coverage is often characterized [...]

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During his tenure, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has been trying to somewhat reposition the agency’s role in the nation’s emergency preparedness for and response to disasters. And that effort was on display last week when he appeared in the White House media briefing room with press secretary Robert Gibbs to discuss FEMA’s activities during the [...]

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Also today in the New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt raised a wording question that has both journalistic and policy implications when it comes to disasters. As part of the column, “Semantic Minefields,” Hoyt wrote about a petition organized by Sandy Rosenthal of New Orleans asking the Times “to issue a style memo requiring that news articles [...]

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As the Gulf Coast oil spill approaches the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, national and local groups are recruiting citizen volunteers to assist in the response both at the scene as well as remotely through the web. Below I am posting a CNN.com article with a list of organizations that were assembling lists [...]

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On the subject of incentives mentioned in the above post, I just saw an online preparedness campaign created by Mynorthwest.com called, “3 To Get Ready Preparedness Challenge”. The campaign asks Washington state residents to take 3 preparedness steps and reach out to 3 friends through either Facebook, Twittter or email — and offers a prize package, [...]

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Like most kids, I never liked getting shots when I was younger. Yesterday morning, I was recalling those days and thinking whether it would have been easier had they been given with the Health Commissioner, the School Chancellor and a room full of television cameras in the room.
That’s exactly how students at P.S. 157 in [...]

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In the Spring, when federal officials requested that the media to use the term “H1N1″ instead  of “Swine Flu” to describe the pandemic, I — being the obedient oldest child that I am — followed their instructions and have been careful not to write “Swine Flu” in any of subsequent blog posts.
However, I continue to [...]

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