In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In prepared testimony yesterday for a House subcommittee, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate reiterated his concern about the lack of U.S. citizen preparedness in some pretty strong language. He told legislators that “personal disaster preparedness is and must be a national priority” and it “needs considerable national attention,” recommending that “every elected and appointed official at every [...]

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In a rollicking keynote address at the Annual Natural Hazards Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado yesterday, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said that the public was a too often overlooked and unlocked asset in emergency response, but he also called on that same public to take more responsibility for preparing for and mitigating disasters. Fugate kicked off the 34th [...]

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Calling citizens part of “the nation’s emergency response team,” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate is urging Americans to prepare for emergencies this July 4th Weekend:
“As we take this opportunity to observe the July 4th holiday with loved ones and friends, we are reminded of all we have to be thankful for and why it is so [...]

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FEMA Administrator met with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler and Office of Emergency Management head Joseph Bruno to discuss New York’s emergency preparedness efforts and to bolster the relationship between the City and the federal agency.
I spoke with Fugate after the meeting on the steps of New York’s City Hall and [...]

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In a recent Blogger Roundtable, new FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate while extolling the value of the CERT program misspoke and called it the “Citizen Emergency Response Team”. The actual name for these citizen-staffed squads is “Community Emergency Response Team.” Yet, Fugate is not alone in occasionally making that same slip. I hear it a lot [...]

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Bill Firestone was Florida’s first Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program coordinator from 1998-2001 (under new FEMA head Craig Fugate). Firestone now runs a consultancy EM Training. He is also a reader of the blog and sent me an email reacting to Fugate’s comment I wrote about urging CERT members to be “ambassadors” in their communities. [...]

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As part of the Obama Administration’s voluntarism initiative, the United We Serve summer service program launches today. It will conclude with the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11.
You can participate in United We Serve events across the nation this summer by visiting the new White House website, Serve.gov (http://www.serve.gov/).  To encourage participation in [...]

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In the June issue of Homeland Security Today magazine, there are a couple of interesting articles with relevance to public preparedness:
1) “From Florida To FEMA” by Michael Peltier is an interesting profile of new FEMA head Craig Fugate. The piece notes Fugate’s focus on changing the public’s expectations, mindset and responsibilities on preparedness. In Florida, he tried [...]

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In his first ‘Blogger Roundtable’, new FEMA head Craig Fugate said today that increasing citizen preparedness will be a major priority for the agency and the “one area you’ll hear me talk about more often about.” He acknowledged that the emergency management community “hasn’t done a good job of using the public as a resource” [...]

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On Tuesday, the day after Hurricane Season officially starts, recently confirmed Federal Emergency Management Administration head Craig Fugate will be holding a ‘blogger roundtable’ — a telephone press conference for bloggers like myself. The purpose of the roundtable is to draw attention to the need for personal and government preparedness, especially as it relates to [...]

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