Friday Roundup – Sports, Drills and the Cloud

On a rather soggy Friday morning, I sit at my keyboard to update you on this past weeks comings and goings in the emergency preparedness world.  Three morsels for you to chew on today.  The first on sports facilities, the second on tests and drill and finally we wrap with our heads in the Cloud.

If you were at home or the office, if preparations have been made, your world is relatively ready.  However, what if you are at a place where thousands of others are gathered, it is enclosed and the entrances and exits are fine for an orderly exit, but not a mass one.  Our first article speaks to emergency preparedness at sports facilities.   This downloadable PDF covers in basic lists the responsibilities of all the facility personnel.   From the Facility Manager who has to coordinate and provide leadership to the Facility Food Personnel who need to have sufficient food and water in the event of a disaster.  It goes on to detail Preparing the Disaster Plan to make sure everything that can be done is done in event of a catastrophe. Good advice.

Speaking of making plans and making sure personnel are well versed in their roles, I am posting several links to emergency planning tests and drills that local councils are making in their area.  What I like about these initiatives is that after the various natural disaster seasons have calmed down, area emergency managers want to ensure they are ready.  The one from NPTelegraph.com speaks to how to handle an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in rural Nebraska.

The Cloud.  Depending on which generation you are born into, this conjures up different meanings.  Doing a quick google search brings the realization that “The Cloud” has nothing to do with nature but all to do with computing.

Sigh!

Our final article today is titled “10 Disaster Preparedness Questions to Ask Your Cloud Services Providers”.  It covers a lot of computer jargon but the bottom line for Emergency Management people and their IT department,  is how do we stay online and reduce or eliminate downtime during a natural disaster.  Your business life depends on it.

Until next week… Keep Calm and Carry On.

Friday Roundup – The Onion, boomers & weddings

Greetings on a sunny Friday in July!  As much as Emergency Preparedness is a subject that requires a sober, balanced, well thought out approach, there are also humourous ways to look at it.  Our first link is to an audio click from The Onion, from there we move on to Emergency Preparedness for Boomers and we conclude with another humorous bit called the  Wedding Day Survival Guide

The Onion is a satirical humourous look at the world through print, audio and video.  The latest one titled “Roommate Eats Emergency Preparedness Kit” is a fine example of their tongue in cheek humour.  It does exemplify that emergency preparedness supplies can be had from what is available in your home.  Long term planning and food storage is of course the preferable course of action. 🙂  You can stay on top of their humour straight from the twitter feed @TheOnion

The baby boomers are moving into the “older” category and resources are opening up specific to emergency preparedness for older adults.  The website is ThirdAge.com Health for Boomers and Beyond.   There is a link to resources from the Center for Disease Control  for the aging population.  On this website you can find downloadable PDF’s from the Red Cross and other articles for Caregivers in emergency situations.  You may be in this category or may have loved ones at this ripe “young” age.  It is worth checking out and getting informed and prepared.

Speaking of being informed and prepared… your Wedding Day is one of the biggest days you prepare for in your life. From the good folks at Examiner.com we have this: The CDC have released a guide titled “Wedding Day Survival” to it’s disaster preparedness plans.  It is a tongue and cheek approach much like the Zombie Survival Guide released last year.  Following the principles of Get a Kit, Make a Plan and Be Informed, they suggest a brides kit should include a few sedatives and and extra band aid or two for that clumsy flower girl who may get injured.   Making a plan should include emergency phone numbers and a plan for contacting guests in the event of an emergency.  Finally, stay informed by checking the weather report and keeping an eye on those out of town relatives who visit the open bar a little too frequently.

That’s a wrap for this week.  Stay informed and be prepared!

 

Friday Roundup – Pets, power outages and MONEY!

The summer weather here on the west coast has finally arrived.  We are basking in 20 degree temperatures after enduring a June that did not reach the high teens more than once or twice.  Natural disasters have struck across our fair country from flooding in the interior of BC to wildfires in Northern Ontario.  Emergency preparedness is being driven home time and time again.  This weeks round up includes our pets, a couple of companies that lack essential emergency preparedness and money, money, money by the pound.

What about fifi and fido?  Or fluffy and kitty?  As much as we prepare for our families and loved ones for an unexpected emergency, we must not forget our pets.  AdoptaPet.com blogged about emergency preparedness and your pet  and have come up with a number of  recommendations that all pet owner should be aware of.  Prepare extra food and water for your pet, medications if required, leashes and tags and collars.   Be aware of your pets favorite hiding places so you will know where to look when time is short.

A rather alarming picture emerged after the powerful storm on the Atlantic coast exposed the lack of emergency preparedness.  In Northern Virginia, 911 emergency phone service did not exist for most of the weekend.  The power company struggled to get electricity back on line in an area that has come to expect outages in extreme weather.  The two companies in question,  Verizon and Pepco have explaining to do but more importantly, what will be done in preparation for the next one.

Finally, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $971 million to continue improving preparedness and health outcomes for a wide range of public health threats within every state, eight U.S. territories, and four of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, including more than $10 million for Mississippi health care and public health preparedness.  A couple of the recipients are listed below.  Serious $$! I am all for this as long as the money is used to educate and put in place measures that will benefit the community as a whole.

RI to get $6.9M in emergency preparedness funds

Illinois receives $28 million for public health and health care emergency preparedness

Hawaii receives $6M for health care emergency preparedness

Till next week…

Friday Roundup – Flooding, water bottles and more than insurance

Greetings from Victoria BC where I have been busy checking out this weeks articles, blog posts and product reviews to pass on to our readers. One provincial department that I follow on Twitter is @EmergencyInfoBC.  They are fantastic on keeping us up to date on breaking emergency news, events that are promoting safety and awareness and are full of  great tips.

From Emergency Info BC we have the following tips during flooding season.  It’s Flooding-Now What?  Be Flood Smart!  The information includes safety on the roads, with electricity and gas, boating and how to prevent illness.  They have a guide called the Guide to Disaster Recovery to help get people started which can be downloaded.

Finally an article regarding emergency preparedness and small businesses. Don’t stop at insurance to protect business in disaster speaks to the other measures every business should implement above and beyond insurance.  Insurance will only help so much.  Tips like creating redundancies, establishing alternative sourcing for supplies and negotiating reciprocal contingency plans and cooperative agreements with local competitors.  If every business identifies the scenarios they may potentially fall victim to based on geography, they may be able to survive.  It finishes with an interview with a family business that learned the hard way through experience.

Bye for now!

Friday Roundup – Stakeholders cry foul, credit crisis and healthcare

Good Friday to you all! Looking at the press and blog world and what pops up in the emergency preparedness and self-reliance realm, I have a few great items to share today. Being Canadian, I am always on the lookout to what affects us here north of the 49th parallel. The first news item I am happy to say is homegrown… although it is not making Canadians happy.

There is a justifiable uproar happening in Canada as the federal government has ended a 30 year (yes that is 30) funding program called the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program designed to help cover the costs of emergency preparedness.  As with most government program cuts, it is being billed as “a deficit reduction measure”.  According to public accounts, the government has allocated nearly $184 million in funding since the programs inception in 1980.  Here’s hoping it will return in a different guise as the initiatives the funding has created benefit us all.

Looking over the boarder, we have a rather alarmist point of view of the looming global credit crisis titled 20 Reasons Why America’s Next Bank Holiday Will Be a Nightmare.  Great name for an emergency preparedness website by the way… SHTFplan.com (When it hits the fan, don’t say we didn’t warn you).  They list how this will affect each and everyone of us who rely on the “digital realm” with Debit and Credit and go on to give their observations and mitigation strategy.  For example having a Stash of Cash (small denomination bills),  gasoline credit card (if they won’t take checks or VISA they might take their own CC) and knowing the brick and mortar location of your utility companies.

The recent flu epidemics and the regular natural disasters put increasing pressure on hospitals to provide care to impacted communities.  The article has a good Q&A with two healthcare professionals: Jennifer Elliott, nursing director of emergency services, critical care and patient access at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., and Stacy Douglas, emergency department manager at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tenn. Worth a read if it is your field.

Till next week… Be Aware, Be Prepared, Be Totally Prepared!

Friday Roundup – Insurance, tax holiday and Apps

It was one of those weeks that culminated in a Friday Roundup being posted on a Saturday morning!  Not to worry though, the wait is worth it with three great posts for your emergency preparedness interest.

We start with another Insurance Industry news item.  A proactive stance is required by the Canada’s property and casualty insurers to discuss earthquake preparedness with consumers.  Rather shocking statistics state that only 60% of BC consumers have earthquake insurance and only 2% of the rest of Canada.

I really like this next story and would hope more cities, counties, states and provinces can join suit.  A TAX holiday!!  The weekend of July 6-8 see’s the state of Alabama rolling out a tax holiday for severe weather preparedness products.  The program follows the states successful back-to-school sales tax holiday.  Sweet Home Alabama!

 

Until next week…

Friday Roundup – Communication, zombies and insurance

Moving into the month of June, activity seems to be increasing with emergency preparedness around North America.  Is it due to economic unrest in Europe or the continued wild weather?  This weeks roundup includes an article on mobile communications and earthquakes, the CDC denying the existence of Zombies and the Insurance industries take on disaster preparation.

First up is the headline, Mobile communications and earthquakes: a very “disturbing” marriage.  My first thought is: what??  Mobile communications would be the ideal marriage from first glance.   The author,  Armand Vervaeck from Earthquake-Report.com a website that follows and has reported on every major earthquake over the last 12 months, has concluded that communication problems are one of the recurring problems that exist.   Armand explains the major problem is mobile connectivity after a quake and lists the 3 main results from this.  He goes on to layout an effective way that the authorities and Networks can manage behaviour after an earthquake.  Very interesting reading and solutions that CAN work. (This article is no longer hosted online, however a similar study may be found here.)

We move on to the Zombie news item that left me a little perplexed.  The article is called “CDC Denies Existence of Zombies Despite Cannibal Incidents”.  I was really unsure if this was tongue in cheek or not.  If it was, it was more than a little “zombie” off colour.   These were actual events that happened with very disturbed people.  Regardless, the CDC has continued the theme with their Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.  Have fun ya’ll.

Finishing the week we have a look at how the Insurance industry is weighing in on emergency preparedness.  The good folks over at InsuranceNews.net bring us the following headline:  “Insurance is Key to Disaster Preparation”.   This was issued by the Texas Department of Insurance at the beginning of the official Hurricane season.  They make some great tips and observations from creating a home inventory to checking your policy.  They have even created an app called the myHOME Scr.APP.book.  It can be downloaded via iTunes.  Just search “NAIC”.

 

 

 

http://insurancenewsnet.com/article.aspx?id=344681&type=newswires

Friday Roundup – Hurricanes, seismic wallpaper and survival

As we move into the month of June and another week (National Hurricane Preparedness Week) has highlighted emergency preparedness in North America, I would like to start by introducing a new innovative product hitting the markets.

This is absolutely jaw dropping…  Seismic wallpaper!   A glass fibre fabric that combines with a special adhesive giving both strength and stability to masonry.   The product was developed in cooperation with scientists from the Bayer MaterialScience and industrial and academic partners.  Scientists have concluded that 60-70% of the damage in the New Zealand earthquake of 2011 could have been prevented if the product was installed. This wallpaper could revolutionize construction techniques in earthquake zone areas of the world. Check out the video.

Next, the vendors have moved in for promotion during the National Hurricane Preparedness Week with the International Bottled Water Association joining the “Be A Force Of Nature” Campaign.   The campaign started on Earth Day and continued through April 28 during the first-ever National Severe Weather Preparedness Week.  The campaign is a joint effort of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (twitter @FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (twitter @NOAA).  Along with the usual know your risks, make a plan, get a kit, the campaign encourages individuals to “Pledge to Prepare” and be an example for others to follow.

 

Friday Roundup – Disaster recovery, FEMA and power outage

As we move into the last week of May with Emergency Preparedness Week in our rear view mirror, we build on the awareness that the week has afforded us and kick off with a website that is getting lots of press.

The 40 Days and 40 Nights training course by AbsoluteRights.com shares the expert techniques for preparing everything needed for a full-scale disaster recovery.  Their course has 6 modules that covers everything from food, water, fuel, safety and medical and trauma care.  There is training and tips on how to avoid becoming a target and advanced survival and preparedness topics.  You can find a good review of the course here from the good folks at Apocalypse Survival Guide.

Under the heading of Caring and Sharing we have this from FEMA.  The US government Federal Emergency Management Agency has posted an article just in time for the long weekend on Three Opportunities for Sharing Preparedness this Weekend.  Aside from the usual – Know the risks, have a plan, build a kit – they encourage you to talk to your friends and family and practice your family fire plans.  There are handy links in preparation for nest weeks National Hurricane Preparedness Week.  Follow FEMA on twitter @fema.

After the power went out in the City of Iqaluit for over 6 hours on May 22, 2012,  a new initiative was struck to better coordinate the different departments of the City (fire, RCMP etc) and “beef up” for emergency preparedness.   Considering the remote location, fragile infrastructure and severe weather the city is exposed to, this initiative, once executed will serve the community well.

Friday Roundup – Zombie preparedness, video and a blog

How awesome is a “Zombie Preparedness Week”?  Emergency Info BC has been busy and active with their Zombie Tips video series.  They tweet under the handle @EmergencyInfoBC and provide updates on Earthquakes, Floods, Wildfires and other natural disasters that are occurring.  This weeks tweets have included links to their Zombie videos that are humorous and have attracted widespread media attention.

The opening video was this Zombie vs little girl piece.  What a great kickoff to the series.  Everyday another Zombie Tip video was added with this one on Wednesday.  I believe that this campaign (following on the heels of a US campaign on the same theme) has raised the awareness level a lot higher, resonating with the younger generation.  Well done!

A good blogger, page titled There’s A Storm Coming… are you prepared? wrote this very well researched, linked and written article.   In it he brings the points home about the unexpected results of something going wrong and the importance of being prepared.  His concluding scenario of a drive home and finding your normal route being blocked due to a catastrophe is particularly poignant.   Definitely a blogger to bookmark and follow.