In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

With the hurricane season beginning, FEMA has a free E-mail subscription service that delivers news updates and disaster-related information directly to your computer or wireless device, such as: when a major disaster is declared, where local recovery centers are located, what kind of financial aid is available, how to obtain disaster-related assistance, and what to [...]

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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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During a visit to FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center on Friday, President Obama said that preparing for hurricanes and other disasters was a “personal responsibility” and a responsibility of citizenship. According to the President:
“True preparedness means having federal and state and local governments all coordinating effectively, and as you just heard, one of the most important [...]

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President Obama today issued a proclamation declaring May 24th-May 30th “National Hurricane Preparedness Week”. The proclamation reads:
Each year, hurricanes threaten the safety of American families in coastal and inland communities. These powerful storms can cause heavy rainfall, high winds, tornadoes, and storm surges, which can in turn bring severe flooding, power outages, damage to homes and [...]

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From my own personal experience, I know that children are key motivators in influencing their parents behavior. So that is why educating kids on preparedness is crucial to attaining the goal of a more prepared nation. But a key to any new educational emergency readiness initiative in the schools is that it complement existing curricula [...]

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Acting FEMA Administrator Nancy Ward speaking at the National Hurricane Conference in Austin, Texas on Wednesday underscored the need for the general public to do their own risk and communications assessments as storm season approaches. And, she said in an interview now on FEMA’s YouTube channel that the agency would be continuing to expand its use of [...]

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 In the January issue of Science, there is a nice feature on the use of social media in responding to disasters. (Thanks to my friend Jimmy Jazz for bringing it to my attention.) The article, “Crisis Communications” by Lea Winerman, covers some recent examples — the Virginia Tech shooting, Southern California fires, and Chinese earthquake — where [...]

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I wrote recently that I thought the Twitter feed, Disasterus, of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management Director Craig Fugate provided some interesting and even fun insight into the activities of the future FEMA Administrator. In a tweet earlier today, Fugate wrote:
Tallahassee this morning, flying out to DC to begin briefings to prepare for Senate Confirmation 
In the era of [...]

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It’s National Flood Safety Awareness Week, and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service and FEMA are warning the public, particularly those in the Midwest, to prepare for the possibility of spring flooding. According to their Awareness Week website:

Most Americans ignore the risks of flooding, assuming they aren’t in a flood zone. The reality is, floods are [...]

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