In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just announced that the state is creating the “first-in-the-nation Disaster Corps to professionalize, standardize and coordinate highly trained disaster volunteers statewide.”
Schwarzenegger colorfully tweeted out the news on Friday: “Check out our Disaster Corps…Because we believe in the 7 P’s. Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.”

Gov. Schwarznegger’s tweet announcement (photo credit: [...]

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In last week’s “Homeland Security Inside & Out” radio show, Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable, had some interesting criticisms of how authorities currently warn people on impending hurricanes:
*In response to questions from interviewer Dave McIntyre, Ripley said a fundamental problem is that the way we inform citizens of hurricane threats is “flawed. It’s not [...]

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Last week’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — And Why book contest asked: “What have you done in the last year to prepare yourself, your family, your workplace, your kids school or your community over last year?” Below are the winners with their entries; they will each receive a copy of the book’s [...]

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In the aftermath of yesterday’s Metrorail crash in Washington, D.C. which killed at least 7 9 and injured 70, Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable, offers an excellent post about the role of the public in the accident and in emergencies in general as well as the need for authorities to better account for citizens [...]

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The paperback edition of Amanda Ripley’s wonderful book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes And Why, goes on sale today. It includes a new section called, “How to Boost Your Survival Odds” which she added “because so many people asked for action items to apply the book’s conclusions.” To celebrate the paperback release, I [...]

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Amanda Ripley has an interesting article in the current issue of Governing, “Run for Your Lives, Please”. Amanda examines the issue of how best to alert people in advance of a disasters. She points out that before Hurricane Ike made landfall the National Weather Service put out a rare “certain death” warning which got the attention [...]

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If you are interested in the issues discussed on this blog and you will be in the Washington, D.C. area on Friday, I recommend a panel discussion, “Citizen Preparedness: Harnessing an Engaged Public”. The event is sponsored by George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI). It is the fourth and final event in HSPI’s Presidential Transition Roundtable [...]

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The next installment of the video series “What Should We Tell The Public” features Time magazine’s Amanda Ripley, author of The Unthinkable. As I mentioned in previous posts,The Unthinkable is a fascinating book that anyone interested in or involved in emergency preparedness — or for that matter anyone who ever thinks about what they would do if faced with [...]

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I want to highlight two recent items from the blog of The Unthinkable author Amanda Ripley.
First, Amanda posted an excerpt from her book and Time cover story with recommendations on how to refine your own “disaster personality”. She lists five areas — Attitude, Knowledge, Anxiety Level, Body Weight & Training — where you can actually [...]

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At the end of Mayor Bloomberg’s Gracie Mansion reception Wednesday night marking the 5th Anniversary of the City’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program, his staffers handed out “Million Trees NYC” pamphlets promoting the Parks Department’s initiative to plant a million trees over the next decade. Whether it was intentional or not, this was a rare time where [...]

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