In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

With the 2010 Hurricane Season starting today and the oil spill in the Gulf, the Louisiana Department of Social Services is encouraging residents to pre-apply online for Disaster Food Stamps. The Louisiana effort underscores the importance of citizen advance planning for disasters when it comes to their daily needs (whether it be government assistance or [...]

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With Virginia’s third-annual tax-free preparedness supplies holiday week starting today, the Governor’s top preparedness adviser told me in an interview that the idea has been a win-win-win’ success increasing focus on disaster readiness among the public, business and the media. ”The holiday gets people’s attention, says Terrie Suit, assistant to Governor Bob McDonnell for Commonwealth Preparedness, “before [...]

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As we mark the anniversaries of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, I wanted to again mention a bill which would create a ‘tax holiday’ for preparedness supplies and “Go-Bags,” introduced in the New York State Assembly by Assemblyman Jonathan L. Bing. Under the legislation, New Yorkers would be able to buy emergency supplies without paying state sales tax between September 1st-11th and purchase pre-made “Go-Bags” tax free [...]

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CaliforniaVolunteers is providing a useful web page with a list of ways the public can help in the state’s response to the wildfires. The site, www.californiavolunteers.org/index.php/Disaster_Volunteering/detail2/, offers this short overview:
Due to dangerous wildfire conditions, please do not travel to the areas affected by the fires without explicit instructions from a qualified emergency response organization. In [...]

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MercuryNews.com has an article, “Got Swine Flu? Tweet It?”, about Santa Clara (California) County’s Public Health Department’s H1N1 flu prevention campaign which will aggressively utilize social media tools to focus on young people:
When students return to school this fall, school nurses will once again chase after them with hand sanitizer. Familiar posters about sneezing into [...]

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A new report gives state and local health departments mixed grades for distributing information through the internet to the public during the H1N1 outbreak. According to an article in U.S. News & World Report:
After the U.S. government declared a public health emergency in April, 46 of 50 state health departments posted some information about the [...]

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The State of Virginia’s “Hurricane Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday” week will run from May 25th-May 31th. Louisiana’s preparedness tax holiday weekend will take place on the 30th and 31st. 

During those periods, sales tax will be lifted on purchases of preparedness-related supplies and equipment including batteries and flashlights; bottled water and coolers; tarps, plastic sheeting and duct tape; smoke detectors [...]

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CaliforniaVolunteers has just launched an innovative effort to reach out to blogs targeted at mothers in order to promote disaster preparedness. The agency, the lead state office responsible for coordinating volunteer activities, is organizing in-home disaster-preparedness events in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area hosted by bloggers. The sessions focus on California’s online [...]

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On Tax Day, I thought I would highlight Virginia’s second annual Hurricane Preparedness Tax Holiday which will run from May 25-31. During that week, sales tax will be lifted on purchases of preparedness-related supplies and equipment. Though the state’s Department of  Emergency Management considered last year’s week successful, I wanted to see if the agency was making any changes [...]

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One of the most impressive public-private citizen emergency preparedness partnerships in the U.S. is Oklahoma’s McReady campaign now in its sixth year statewide. As part of McReady, Oklahomans can enter a contest to win a safe room and emergency radios.
The campaign includes displays in McDonald’s restaurants throughout the state with information focusing on floods, tornadoes, lightning, emergency [...]

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