In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

On Thursday night, twin tornadoes and a microburst went through New York City killing one person, ripping out 150 trees and damaging a number of cars and homes.
Tornadoes are clearly not typical here in the Big Apple — though we had a similar if less serious incident with them earlier in the summer. But it [...]

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On Friday evening at 8:19 PM, I received the following notification (via both text and e-mail) from New York City’s NotifyNYC alert system:
“Alert issued 7/23/10 at 8:20 PM. The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Warning until 9:00 PM for Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx. Immediately go indoors and/or to the lowest floor [...]

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Starting today, NotifyNYC, New York City’s emergency alert system, will cover the entire Big Apple. Notify NYC was first launched on a limited basis in December 2007, offering participants in four pilot areas of the City the ability to register for alerts and notifications about significant events in their communities. Notify NYC services are available by email, text [...]

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Fifteen minutes ago (at 9:58am), I received an E-mail and text alert from New York City’s Notify NYC alert system saying:
This is a message from Notify NYC. Notification 1 issued 05/11/09 at 10:00am. As per the FAA, a military plane will fly down and back up the Hudson River between the hours of 10:30 to [...]

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At 10:39am today I received a text message and email from the City of New York’s NotifyNYC alert program saying that: “Planes observed flying over Lower Manhattan were part of an approved federal activity.” I happened to be at a hospital clinic at that moment so I had no idea what that message meant. A [...]

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With a snow storm heading up the East Coast, my Blackberry has been buzzing with public email and text alerts about the weather situation, like this one from the State of New York’s Emergency Management Agency: 
“WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM EST MONDAY FOR MULTIPLE COUNTIES…A WINTER STORM WARNING [...]

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As I reported in an earlier post, a question asked by many residents of the buildings who could not get back into their apartments after the crane collapse on Friday was how they could recharge their cell phones. In fact, keeping your mobile device powered during and after an emergency situation is crucial – so you can both communicate with others and get the latest information. As mentioned often on this blog, [...]

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