In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

 In the January issue of Science, there is a nice feature on the use of social media in responding to disasters. (Thanks to my friend Jimmy Jazz for bringing it to my attention.) The article, “Crisis Communications” by Lea Winerman, covers some recent examples — the Virginia Tech shooting, Southern California fires, and Chinese earthquake — where [...]

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As described in the previous post, FEMA Administrator-Designate Craig Fugate’s trip from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C. to begin preparations for his Senate confirmation hearings has not gone exactly as planned. ‘Followers’ of his Twitter feed, disasterrus, have not only read that Fugate was delayed in Atlanta and missed a connecting flight, but they also got to [...]

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I wrote recently that I thought the Twitter feed, Disasterus, of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate provided some interesting and even fun insight into the activities of the future FEMA Administrator. In a tweet earlier today, Fugate wrote:
Tallahassee this morning, flying out to DC to begin briefings to prepare for Senate Confirmation 
In the era of [...]

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Martin Jones, creator of the informative National Terror Alert website, has just launched the Homeland Security Response Network, “an online, collaborative community of concerned citizens, and government and community leaders” which is “designed to promote discourse and community involvement, and help to create safer, more secure communities, with an emphasis on engaging citizens at the community [...]

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A recent Wired.com article highlights the potential of a relatively inexpensive mapping software in disaster preparation and response:
Thanks to disaster-simulation software inspired by videogames, David Friedman has a new family member: Jordan, a yellow Labrador retriever puppy. The software helped emergency workers in Louisiana rescue Jordan – and 15,000 other stranded pets – during Hurricane Gustav. ”Going by boat [...]

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Bad news for the emergency management blogosphere is good news for the people of the Northwest and the nation. Eric Holderman, who created the excellent blog, Disaster Zone, has taken the job of Security Director for the Port of Tacoma, Washington.  
Eric is the former Emergency Preparedness Director of Washington’s King County. He was one of [...]

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I was reading FEMA nominee Craig Fugate’s Twitter feed yesterday and found an interesting Government Technology article he tweeted about in January that I had missed when it initially came out. According to the piece, “Governments Use Twitter For Emergency Alerts, Traffic Notices And More”:
When Twitter’s founders launched the service in 2006, they advertised it as a way to [...]

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With a snow storm heading up the East Coast, my Blackberry has been buzzing with public email and text alerts about the weather situation, like this one from the State of New York’s Emergency Management Agency: 
“WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM EST MONDAY FOR MULTIPLE COUNTIES…A WINTER STORM WARNING [...]

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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 [...]

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I want to bring your attention to a terrific article, “New Media’s Moment In Mumbai” in Foreign Policy Journal, written by a friend of this blog, Chris Battle. Chris edits the excellent Security Debrief blog and is a partner in the Adfero Group.
In the article, Battle points out the use of social media by the terrorists in organizing [...]

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