In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

As described in the previous post, FEMA Administrator-Designate Craig Fugate’s trip from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C. to begin preparations for his Senate confirmation hearings has not gone exactly as planned. ‘Followers’ of his Twitter feed, disasterrus, have not only read that Fugate was delayed in Atlanta and missed a connecting flight, but they also got to [...]

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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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One of the interesting and fun things about Twitter is that you can sometimes get to know about someone pretty quickly — their daily activities, hobbies, personality, etc. — from their feed. For example, I have been ‘following’ FEMA Administrator-Designate Craig Fugate on Twitter, and I have enjoyed learning about him.
On Sunday, Fugate, currently Director of [...]

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President Obama has announced his intention to nominate Craig Fugate as the next Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA). It is excellent pick. Fugate has distinguished himself as Director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
Fugate understands the importance of the public in disaster preparedness and response and has made citizen outreach a focus [...]

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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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More precisely, Administrator R. David Paulison held a 45-minute q & a with the public yesterday using the microblogging tool, Twitter. 
Paulison took questions and offered answers (within Twitter’s limit of 140 characters or less) to all comers on the agency’s Twitter account, femainfocus.  A “tweet log” as well as an audio file and full transcript of the event [...]

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Like most Americans, I have been closely following Hurricane Gustav on television, radion and web media news outlets. In addition, I wanted to bring your attention a number of online resources that I have been monitoring as well:
The American Red Cross offers two web-based information sources that I find very helpful:
Red Cross’ Online Newsroom which can [...]

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The blog “Web Strategy by Jeremiah” does an interesting, multi-media analysis of the role of the social messaging service Twitter (as well as other civilian media coverage) in reporting a propane gas explosion in Toronto early Sunday morning. In the post, titled “Crises Tracking on Twitter: The Benefits -and Dangers- of New Media,” Jeremiah (Jeremiah Owyang, [...]

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Earlier this year, James Karl Buck, a graduate student arrested in Egypt while documenting local riots, sent out a one word Twitter message — “Arrested” — just before he was taken in custody by Egyptian police. As a result of the message, members of Buck’s Twitter network were able to get the word out, mobilize and then create enough outside [...]

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I have a piece on citizen preparedness in today’s Washington Post “Outlook” section. It can be found through this link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051603735.html
If you are arriving at the blog on for the first time as a result of the article, welcome. I hope you stick around.
I would love to hear any comments, criticisms, or questions about the story or anything regarding citizen emergency preparedness.
Below [...]

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