In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Also today in the New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt raised a wording question that has both journalistic and policy implications when it comes to disasters. As part of the column, “Semantic Minefields,” Hoyt wrote about a petition organized by Sandy Rosenthal of New Orleans asking the Times “to issue a style memo requiring that news articles [...]

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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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A day after Colorado State University released their forecast that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be “above average”, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has recorded a video urging the public to begin preparations.
The preliminary report, according to CNN.com, predicts 15 named storms and eight of those becoming hurricanes:
Forecasters William Gray and Phil Klotzbach said that [...]

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As I had mentioned last week, the first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness took place this weekend in Mountain View, California. The event — which came out of discussions at the inaugural Crisis Camp held in May of 2009 in Washington, D.C. — was aimed at identifying key challenges and developing technological solutions to ‘real world’ problems [...]

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As part of the inaugural “Random Hacks Of Kindness: Disaster Relief Codejam” (RHoK), a group of more than 150 leading crisis and technology experts are coming together for the next several days to work on identifying key challenges and developing solutions to ‘real world’ problems related to emergency management and response here in the U.S. [...]

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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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FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate went to the offices of Google in Mountain View, California to discuss how the company and the industry can help the agency’s disaster preparedness and response efforts.
Fugate shot a short video there (below) about the goals of the meeting which he says was to help the government figure out how “we [...]

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He’s back! The much anticipated return of @Disastersrus (a.k.a. Florida Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate) to Twitter with a new identity and under a new management occurred yesterday as now Federal Emergency Management Administrator Fugate launched his new feed @CraigatFEMA.
Based on @Disastersrus and his public statements thus far as Administrator, I can almost guarantee that @CraigatFEMA [...]

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U.S. officials are reevaluating the government’s original post-9/11 Ready.Gov citizen preparedness recommendations and in public statements are already reprioritizing what they are urging Americans to do to prepare for disasters.
It means that Ready.Gov’s “Get A Kit, Make A Plan, Be Informed” framework — which has been used by many federal, state and local preparedness sites since [...]

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With “National Preparedness Month” (NPM) a little more than a week away, the H1N1 flu could make September a real-life ‘teaching moment’ on the importance of emergency preparedness, according to Ready.Gov’s acting director Becky Marquis. I spoke to Marquis at FEMA headquarters on Thursday to preview some of Ready’s plans for the Month.
The NPM’s kickoff [...]

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