In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Earlier this year, James Karl Buck, a graduate student arrested in Egypt while documenting local riots, sent out a one word Twitter message — “Arrested” — just before he was taken in custody by Egyptian police. As a result of the message, members of Buck’s Twitter network were able to get the word out, mobilize and then create enough outside [...]

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One of the important goals of the American Red Cross’ Social Media Unit I just visited in Washington is drawing from (and spreading) creative preparedness 2.0 work being done in their chapters around the country.
This week, they invited Robin Parker, one of the founders of the Oregon chapter’s Cross Blog, to headquarters in Washington to help out with their social media efforts in response to the Midwest floods.   
 

 
 
 
Cross Blog’s Robin [...]

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While I was in Washington, D.C. Thursday, I visited the American Red Cross‘ Disaster Response Center to learn more about the growing role of new media in the Red Cross’s response efforts during the Midwestern floods and tornadoes.
Wendy Harman and Claire Johnson of the Red Cross’ Social Media unit — which coordinates the organization’s online public affairs initiatives — kindly took a moment from their busy [...]

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Reader Jonathan Haber was kind enough to send me an article in yesterday’s Washington Post about how Montgomery County, Maryland’s e-mail alert system didn’t notify thousands of people after a major water main break, because the two employees who know how to operate the system were out of town. According to the Post:
When those two employees couldn’t be reached, a third employee [...]

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With many parts of the country suffering from extreme weather emergencies, David Stephenson, the guru of Preparedness 2.0, among other things, has reposted his ’21st Century Disaster Tips You Won’t Get From Officials’ and a video version via You Tube on his blog, stephensonstrategies.com. They are well worth reading and watching. The tips focus on the:
“…smart use of personal communication devices, especially in [...]

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A fellow CERT member just sent me this interactive web quiz on earthquake preparedness. It doesn’t take long (only 10 questions) and is easy to use for all ages. Go to: www.nwcn.com/sharedcontent/features/flash/quake/during.html
In all candor, your preparedness expert got only 6 out of 10 answers correct — earthquakes are not my strength — so I definitely learned something from [...]

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I know you all already get too much email (including, for some of you, the weekly summary of this blog). And the idea of getting any more, particularly from the Department of Homeland Security, may not sound on first blush very enticing
However, if you are interested in citizen preparedness — or for that matter any aspect of homeland security – I suggest you go to [...]

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As I reported in an earlier post, a question asked by many residents of the buildings who could not get back into their apartments after the crane collapse on Friday was how they could recharge their cell phones. In fact, keeping your mobile device powered during and after an emergency situation is crucial – so you can both communicate with others and get the latest information. As mentioned often on this blog, [...]

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A little Friday afternoon humor  (with a citizen preparedness 2.0 angle)
About an hour ago, I received an “Arlington Alert” e-mail from Arlington, Virginia OEM as I signed up for with the subject line: “Rapid Fox”. I opened it with some curiosity and read:
A fox that bit a woman in south Arlington has tested positive for rabies, Arlington [...]

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NPR’s Melissa Block had an interesting story about how many Chinese throughout the country communicated with each other directly after the earthquake using text messaging:
The first word about the massive earthquake in China did not come from the news media. In China, some 600 million people have cell phones, and when the quake hit, many reached for them — but not [...]

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