StormSmart National Blog » emergency services

Sixth Graders Learning Emergency Management

Wesley Shaw — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:47:03 +0000

This is all kinds of great:

Fast, Perfect, and Cheap Disaster Response

Wesley Shaw — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:03:47 +0000

“The federal government is a support role. So if you think FEMA responds to disasters or that we’re in charge, first of all, we’re never in charge, we’re always in support, and and we work for a lot of different folks.”

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate delivers a great TED talk on the federal role in disasters, what we’re doing wrong when we respond to them (most of the problem being how we think about disasters and the people caught up in them), and how we might/must use social media to meet our goals, even if our goals are to get a little more sleep. Check out the video below.

Easy Live Steamflow Information Tool

Wesley Shaw — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:57:52 +0000

Somehow we’d missed this tool, but the USGS has built a handy tool for finding current stream/river levels. File this away to use during your next storm event.

USGS WaterWatch

Thanks, Pam!

Are You an Emergency Manager? Why You Need Social Media (and it needs you)

Wesley Shaw — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:22:42 +0000

A new article from USA Today takes another look at how emergency management officials are using social media. We’ve seen these before, but each one adds new evidence to this simple idea:

If you’re working in emergency management and NOT using social media, you’re hampering your ability to do you job.

This study from the Red Cross showed how much people were using social media (and it’s now pushing 9 months old, so you can bet the numbers are up). If you think twitter and Facebook are mostly used by teenage boys, keep in mind that a survey found that 75% of people tweeting about the massive earthquake in Haiti were were women, with an average age of 40.

What this USA Today article (and others like it) add are specifics for how people are using tools like Twitter and Facebook during emergencies. These accounts only add to the list of things that emergency managers need to keep tabs on during crisis, but the numbers suggest they’re not optional.

“Japan Crisis Showcases Social Media’s Muscle.” (USA Today)

Amazing Tsunami Photos (Japan)

Wesley Shaw — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:16:49 +0000

Incredible collection of tsunami/quake/nuclear reactor photos gathered by the Boston Globe.

Perhaps the most troubling part of this? That a massive wall of water dropping large ships into neighborhoods and houses into the sea might not be the worst of it. Hope those nuclear engineers are lucky and we’re all fortunate.

The Big Picture, Japan: Earthquake Aftermath

Horrible and Terrifying (Japanese Tsunami)

Wesley Shaw — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:19:10 +0000

Wow. If you live anywhere near the ocean and this doesn’t scare you, it probably should.

Comprehensive (and Free!) Emergency Management Outreach Toolkit

Wesley Shaw — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:07:32 +0000

. . . and when I say “comprehensive,” I mean “comprehensive.”

Ready.gov has come out with an emergency preparedness outreach plan they’re calling Resolve to be Ready in 2011, and it includes everything from press releases, newsletters, and links to videos to (are you ready for this?) tweets that you can cut and paste to your twitter account.

Did I mention the Rex the Ready Kids Mascot costume rental form? That’s him to the right.

If you’re looking to help your community be prepared for disasters, it doesn’t get much easier than this.

Resolve to be Ready Toolkit (PDF).

Why and How Businesses (and Municipalities) can Prepare for Disasters

Wesley Shaw — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:29:57 +0000

The folks over at the Education Disaster Education Network (EDEN) have come up with a brief video explaining why it’s so critical that businesses develop a business continuity and disaster preparedness plan. Easy enough to translate most of it for municipal offices/departments, too.

Worth a quick watch, and a good outreach tool you can use to help your community’s businesses be ready.

An Argument for Not Returning to Normal [Editorial]

Wesley Shaw — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:07:13 +0000

An interesting editorial by Global Ethics professor Tom Sorell on why our natural post-disaster instinct to return things to normal is so often exactly the wrong response, and why we instead ought to work to “usher in discontinuity.”

The problem with returning to “normal” is obvious: we’re often returning to the same conditions that put the people and/or property at risk in the first place. While the instinct is deep-set, Sorell argues, we must fight it:

[U]nless continuity has a significant value of its own, the determination to go on exactly as before may have little to be said for it. Emergencies may better be seen as occasions for fresh starts and rethinking. Because they take life and make death vivid for those who survive emergencies, they properly prompt people to appraise lives that are nearly cut short.

Short, and well worth a read.

“On Not Returning to Normal” (via The New York Times)

Facebook vs Twitter: Which to Use for What in Emergency Management

Wesley Shaw — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:41:11 +0000

Another good post from John Solomon over at In Case of Emergency, Read Blog. Here, he’s looking at how emergency management professionals use the two most popular social networking tools, Facebook and Twitter. In his interviews, he discovers that the two are NOT interchangeable.

It turns out that in most cases the two services are being utilized in somewhat different ways by different types of external users. Twitter is being used mostly as an informational source with speed and news being paramount for more of an official audience, while Facebook pages tend to be more of a place for public discussion and community building with more depth (i.e.. multi-media) and emotional involvement often for average citizens. But in a crisis, the two platforms will be used similarly to distribute and solicit emergency information. Both, officials say, have been very helpful to their informational outreach to the public.

Interesting that the option isn’t one or the other: for maximum effect pros need to use both.

Definitely worth a read.

Emergency Managers Say Twitter & Facebook Being Used Differently — Twit: More “Informational,” Speed, Official Audience; FB: More “Emotional,” Community-Building, Public Discussion/Feedback. Though In Crises, Both Will Be Utilized To Distribute/Gather Info For Public, at In Case of Emergency, Read Blog