In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

At a White House press briefing yesterday, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate reported that many Tennessee flood survivors who had been displaced from their homes were accessing the agency’s new mobile version of its website, M.FEMA.gov, with their mobile phones and PDA’s to get information and register for recovery relief.
It underscores the fact that the mobile device may [...]

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Nathan Hodge of Wired.com’s Danger Room blog has a good post, Preparing For The Next Haiti, With Maps, Texts, And Tweets, which discusses the impressive high-tech volunteer response to the earthquake. Hodge attended the Haiti Tech Meetup yesterday at the U.S. State Department yesterday and spoke to a number of those involved in the recovery [...]

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I just wanted to mention something quickly, which I thought was a nice – albeit small – touch. The Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness has a Twitter feed @GOHSEP which has been very active during the oil spill response. It has been distributing a lot of spill-related information for the public, [...]

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From the HerNashville.com website is an article, “Geeking out for a cause: Nashville flood response takes to the web,” which nicely describes how local residents have helped galvanize the city’s relief efforts using technology:
I’m just in awe of the way Nashville is responding in the face of this surreal, overwhelming crisis. And the way Nashville’s [...]

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Another thing you can do to help in the cleanup of the Gulf Coast oil spill is to participate in CrisisCommons‘ crowdsourcing efforts. A post on the group’s website explains:
CrisisCommons is working hard with a number of other organizations, including NGOs and educational institutions, to develop a common crowdsourced platform for reporting the effects of [...]

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On the KnowTheNetwork.com blog, there is a fascinating post, “Tornado Alley, Twitter Style,” by Keith Crawford. He offers a terrific case study of how Twitter — and in particular the hashtag #ARwx created by one Tweeter — outpaced the mainstream media in informing his Arkansas community when a tornado struck this week:
Apr 30, 2010 may well [...]

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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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FEMA today announced the launch of the agency’s new mobile website, m.FEMA.gov. According to the FEMA press release:
The mobile website makes it easier to access critical information regarding emergency preparedness and what to do before and after a disaster right on a smartphone.
“Smartphones are becoming more prevalent, affordable, reliable and more viable to locate and [...]

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The National Weather Service has just launched an experimental program that will be using Twitter ‘tweets’ to help monitor “significant weather information.” The Weather Service website explains:
Why Twitter?
An advantage of searching Twitter for weather reports is the capability to utilize recently added “geotagging” — geographical information that is associated with something, in this case individual [...]

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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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