In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

A two-day drill, Exercise 24 (X24), was launched today by San Diego State University’s Immersive Visualization Center in large part to test how social media would be used to respond to a crisis. According to a CNN.com article, “Fake Earthquake Disaster Drill Tests Facebook, Twitter”:
The idea is to test the speed and widen the scope of responses [...]

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The City of Dallas wants the public to “help us determine how the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) can better serve you when it comes to social media.” Dallas OEM has created a short survey with a few basic social media questions for citizens. It is also polling other public safety agencies on the same [...]

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On Saturday, the first-ever “Global CrisisCamp Day” will be hosted in London, Toronto, Washington D.C., Calgary, and virtually to encourage people to lead CrisisCamps and volunteer their expertise and skills to create innovative approaches, resources and tools for crisis response and global development. I would be attending the event in Washington but have a medical appointment, and [...]

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On Thursday night, twin tornadoes and a microburst went through New York City killing one person, ripping out 150 trees and damaging a number of cars and homes.
Tornadoes are clearly not typical here in the Big Apple — though we had a similar if less serious incident with them earlier in the summer. But it [...]

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One of the objectives of this year’s National Preparedness Month (NPM) is to highlight the value of personal technology for citizens in emergency situations. So, I wanted to mention that the simulation company, Depiction, will be holding a free webinar this week on that subject – “Preparing Your Community with Personal Technology” - Thursday, September 16, 2010 7:00 PM [...]

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As the U.S. marks the ninth anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to post some ideas that I think would help raise citizen preparedness and engagement. The recommendations come from discussions that I have had with people involved in all aspects of the issue, my own experiences as a parent and CERT member in New York [...]

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Gary Oldham from the blog, Wingineering, offers a nice case study and analysis of the use of Twitter during three recent emergencies — the New Zealand earthquake, Colorado fires and San Bruno gas explosion.
In this post, “Twitter to the Rescue: Social Media’s Evolving Role in Disasters,” Oldham highlights the role of “dedicated and thoughtful ‘keynote’ [...]

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The New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and the Ad Council today launched a new Facebook application to help New Yorkers find a safe place to meet their families or friends during an emergency.
According to the press release:
Located on OEM’s Facebook page, the new interactive web mapping application allows New Yorkers to select [...]

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I was very happy to be asked to do a guest post, “LAFD: In Case of Emergency, Read Blog,” on the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) popular blog as part of a special series it is doing for National Preparedness Month.
I recommend checking the LAFD blog the rest of the month to read more tips and [...]

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As government emergency management offices and non-profit disaster relief groups increasingly utilize Twitter and Facebook as part of their operations, I thought I would check with some leading practioners in the field to see how the two social media platforms are being employed in their work with the public.
It turns out that in most cases [...]

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