In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In his end of the show commentary on MSNBC’s “Hardball” Thursday night, Chris Matthews asked President Obama to: “put out an offer to the people of America – not just to the youth, but to anyone who can participate. Create a modern Civilian Conservation Corps, and deploy it in all the states of the Gulf. [...]

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Thanks to Sara Estes Cohen’s Twitter feed I found out about a new group in New Orleans, Evacuteer.org, that is recruiting volunteers to help in the event of an emergency evacuation of the city (an eventuality whose chances increased today with the announcement by Mayor Mitch Landrieu that he might order a full evacuation before [...]

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That’s the excellent question asked in a post by Elizabeth Grossman on The Pump Handle blog. The answer, Grossman finds, is still — like the crisis — evolving. She writes:
As the unprecedented offshore oil drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico unfolds and extraordinary measures are being taken to protect vulnerable coastal and marine environments [...]

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There’s an excellent CNN.com roundup of some of the civilian-driven initiatives responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The article, “Citizens Monitor Gulf Coast After Oil Spill,” describes the efforts of groups such as the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Grassroots Mapping, Crisis Mappers Net and CrisisCommons to engage citizens to assist in the response:
Here is what MIT [...]

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There was an interesting and provocative post yesterday by Mark Chubb in the Homeland Security Watch blog, “Volunteer Does Not Equal Free.” Chubb, a senior civil servant in an emergency management agency, writes about a recent meeting in which he heard feedback from local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteer team leaders. He was struck [...]

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In the aftermath of the tragic shooting at Ft. Hood yesterday, the response of individuals at the base and the surrounding community displayed the value of first aid training and blood donation. First, soldiers at the scene used what they had been taught to treat the wounded. Then, hundreds of local residents responded to hospital [...]

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Thanks to the Twitter feed of CraigAtFEMA (a.k.a. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate) who just posted an Emergency Management article, “Iowa County Surveys Citizens to Determine Emergency Volunteer Capabilities.” The piece explains:
To garner a better understanding of what its residents could contribute to disaster response and recovery, Adair County, Iowa, is surveying its citizens to determine their [...]

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CERT members don’t volunteer for the fringe benefits. But nonetheless it was great that the USS Intrepid Museum offered free admission today to CERT’s as part as their “Safety Preparedness Weekend”. So, I took one of my daughters to the newly refurbished carrier which is docked on the Hudson River in midtown Manhattan. It’s always [...]

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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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On this blog, I try to highlight examples of people who show what can be done by a single individual in the area of citizen preparedness — and may provide inspiration to others. The story of one such person, Lisbeth R., was recently featured in the “Safety & Security” section of the Serve.Gov website. Lisbeth explains [...]

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