National Preparedness Month - Volunteer Mobilization Exercise

Volunteers Needed: Emergency Preparedness Exercise

Individuals are needed Saturday, September 25, 2010 to act as mock emergency volunteers.

Volunteer Fairfax, the Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management, and the Fairfax County Health Department will be testing their Volunteer Reception Center (VRC) plans, which assign volunteers to the needs of emergency response and recovery specialists.

If you are interested in acting as an emergency volunteer for this event or would like additional information, please contact Volunteer Fairfax.

This exercise is also being done in coordination with other volunteer agencies in the region. If you are interested in participating but not local to Fairfax, please contact your local volunteer agency to see if they are participating or contact Volunteer Fairfax for a list of other participating agencies.

Red Cross makes a difference at Ft. Belvoir

The American Red Cross hosted a Preparedness Kit-making event at Ft. Belvoir for military families.

Checkout the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPbPTxxdS4

Additional discussions about National Preparedness Month can be found at http://www.facebook.com/citizencorps

Landline, Cellphone, Email

A classroom parent mentioned they wanted to receive any important notices by email and not using the phone tree.

A phone tree? That is so 70’s.

However, it is important to remember that some people are still “stuck in the 70’s” using old technology. Not everyone advances at the same pace. Not everyone has a cell phone.

If this organization were to go to a unified alerting system, which is the current trend with technology, there is one small problem. This organization has problems with email and their internet provider almost on a weekly basis.

A further dependence on technology might not be the best immediate solution for them.

This brings up several major issues for the school, how do they handle emergency alerting? What happens if something happens to the building and all the records are inside? Can the parents be contacted?

But the real question, which came up as a result of all this, what is their emergency plan for the school? If such a plan were in place, then how to handle student emergency records would not be an issue. It would also be clearly documented the process for taking care of the students and where they might be relocated.

With all these questions that still remain, where do we start?

Understanding the processes that are in place, making sure that everyone knows them, looking at the legal requirements for an emergency plan at a school, and working with professionals to meet those requirements. Then, later in the process, leverage the technology to support those operational business requirements.

We will leave testing the process or conducting exercises for a discussion for another day.

Once you have all of this figured out, what about the company you work for?

Ric Skinner joins the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Leadership Team

The Neighbors Helping Neighbors started almost one year ago as part of National Preparedness Month 2007. Since then, we have grown from a local resource to sharing best practices to every state and over 65 countries internationally.


As part of National Preparedness Month 2008, we are pleased to add Ric Skinner as a member of Neighbors Helping Neighbors Leadership Team. Ric will be sharing best practices from teams across the United States, serving as a National Representative.


Ric Skinner is a volunteer GIS Advisor to the Tri-EPIC Regional Emergency Planning Committee for four towns and hospital in south central MA. He is a member of the Sturbridge (MA) CERT and is actively trying to organize the CERTs in the four towns into the Tri-EPIC Regional CERT.

He is a Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP) with 35+ years experience gained in hospital/ healthcare, healthcare preparedness, emergency management/ disaster preparedness, state cancer registry, environmental assessment, fisheries biology, wetlands delineation & mitigation, biomonitoring of wastewater effluents, electric utility industry, environmental permitting, and probably a few others he has neglected to mention.

Ric has recently started The Stoneybrook Group to consult locally, regionally and nationally in the above mentioned areas and is very interested in consulting opportunities. He also enjoys outdoor photography, wooden ship modeling, small stream restoration, and has recently received a grant to research, GPS and map historic assets in Sturbridge.

Additional information about Ric can be found in the Sturbridge Times magazine. He can be reached at ric.skinner@gmail.com

National Preparedness Month Unplugged

How about a National Preparedness Month Challenge Like No Other!

What would happen if there was a disaster? No power for an entire week?

Do you have food in your house that does not require power to cook? What would we do without a microwave oven? The world's greatest invention!

In honor of National Preparedness Month and to do something good for the environment (think Green), unplug your microwave on Wednesday, September 3!

Unplug it for the entire day, for just one day. Eat a home cooked meal with your family and discuss your family emergency plan.

Start here on Ready.gov to learn how to create a plan for your family.

Photo Source: wikipedia.com

Partnering With Other Communities For National Preparedness Month

We are pleased to be partnering with the

Tri-EPIC Regional Emergency Planning Committee

and providing material for the

112th Annual Charlton Old Home Day.

Tri-EPIC REPC includes the Massachusetts communities of Charlton, Dudley, Southbridge, and Sturbridge.

As part of National Preparedness Month, representatives will be on hand to discuss the Tri-EPIC REPC, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Citizen Corps, and other related programs.

National Preparedness Month - Coalition Partner

For the second year,

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

is a proud Coalition Member of National Preparedness Month 2008.

For additional information on National Preparedness Month, please visit

http://www.ready.gov/america/npm08/index.html

or

http://www.ready.gov/

_________________________________________

During the month of September,

in addition to multiple speaking engagements,

we will be comparing different

preparedness tips from around the world.

National CERT Group - CERT connecting to CERT One Neighbor and Community at a time.

As we get closer to National Night Out and National Preparedness Month 2008, please consider joining the Linked In Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Group.

There were several non-location specific CERT groups on Linked In and the managers of those five groups got together to form this one group, linking CERT volunteers across the United States.

Please note: This is not a new CERT team, but a way to link CERT volunteers.

Ready Travel - Concept for National Preparedness Month 2009

Dear Erin Streeter, Director, Ready.gov, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,

As we prepare for National Preparedness Month 2008, I would like to propose a concept and/or theme to be incorporated into National Preparedness Month 2009 - "Ready Travel".

There are many Americans who travel domestically and internationally, both on business and vacation.

But why is "Ready Travel" important?

For example, if there is a conference in Washington DC and people attend from California, will they get an emergency alert if the city needs to evacuate, should I shelter in place, etc.?

In addition, many of the alerting systems in the United States require people to register. If I live in Virginia, but work in DC occasionally or attend a conference there, should I and do I register for both systems? What if I also sometimes go to a college or school campus, as they often have different alert systems? This brings up another issue about location based alerting systems.

Last month, when I was speaking at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, it was raining pretty hard outside. After I spoke, I was talking to the people from a local emergency management group about how I received an alert back in Fairfax, VA, but if there was an alert in Toronto, I would not know. Would you believe, there was a similar alert going on in Toronto at the same time? Most people at the conference had no idea. I decided to ask the hotel if there were any alerts and they said they were not aware of any.

These examples highlight the need for increased "Ready"ness for travel. Those traveling outside their local cities within the United States, but also those from the United States traveling internationally. As well as, those from other countries visiting the United States.

As you are aware, I maintain a blog "Neighbors Helping Neighbors"
(http://citizencorps.blogspot.com/). Through the website, we share best practices and lessons learned both within the United States and internationally. It is clear there are many documents and resources available in the United States.

You may also want to take a look at these resources out of the United Kingdom. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-living-overseas/publications



PS. Hi Erin :-)

Neighbors Helping Neighbors Blog Joins National Preparedness Month Coalition For Second Year

For additional information on National Preparedness Month in the United States, please visit:

http://www.ready.gov/

It is hard to believe that this website was launched almost a year ago, as part of National Preparedness Month.

Taking National Preparedness Month Across Borders - Showcase Ontario

http://www.showcaseontario.com/2008/

During National Preparedness Month, Andrew Levy, upon his return from the IBM Corporate Service Corps project, will go beyond United States borders again and share lessons learned and best practices from multiple countries.

As part of this years theme, "Working Together - Working Smarter", participants will leave this featured presentation with:

1. Increased knowledge of how to leverage citizen groups for emergency response.
2. Understand ways to reduce load on Government during an emergency.
3. Learn how to reduce redundancy in public and private emergency programmes.
4. Be able to increase citizen participation in emergency simulations.

Last month, Andrew spoke at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, Canada, where he was asked to return to speak to this audience.