Ready for Life

With social media and emerging technology, public health agencies can utilize more tools than ever in a public health emergency. In this panel at South by Southwest (SXSW), social media strategists and researchers, working in the front lines of the pandemic H1N1 response, will discuss strategy, innovations and the changing relationship between citizens and government. [...]

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Hurricane Ike just off the coast of Texas. We lost power about 30 minutes after this screen photo, and are still without power ten days later. When power returns, what worked and what didn’t. The short answer is we are doing okay, no physical damage and only downed trees and limbs on the fence and [...]

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Here is how you know what you need for a hurricane or storm and the few days after when things get uncomfortable. Pick a weekend, it can even be at random. If you need, tell your family ahead of time, but just shut off the power. Try it for 12 hours, a day… shoot, even [...]

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Tropical Storm Edouard is up and slowly moving West towards Texas while gaining strength. This storm seems to have caught most people with their pants down. It has formed and made the news within a matter of hours, not days. It is a perfect example of why planning early is necessary. I bet the stores [...]

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Water and mosquito eggs are the only two ingredients for a world of frustration, pain and even worse. Now, with the pesky little Culex mosquito carrying stronger and more virile strains of the West Nile Virus, bites can lead to serious illness. A recent trip to the Houston Hurricane Preparedness Workshop and meeting the Houston [...]

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Hurricane Workshop – This is a free event scheduled in Houston on Saturday, June 7th, 2008. It’s good to see several local organizations working together to promote this workshop on preparing for the Gulf Coast natural disasters. Looks like they even have a nice blog started at 2008 Hurricane Workshop From the blog: Focused on [...]

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CNN reports the FCC has approved an emergency alert text based system. The major cell phone carriers have indicated they would work with the FCC to deliver text-based messages in the event of emergencies. Customers would have the option to opt-out. As I have indicated before, the only good emergency system is one that is [...]

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NY Times article in Fashion and Style: Faced with a confluence of diverse threats, people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes. No longer the domain of gun-toting, camo wearing extremists, survivalists are going mainstream.

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A few month’s ago, we traveled out of town to volunteer for a charity event. During the 3 days, I loaned my travel first aid kit to a colleague and we lost track of it during the closing ceremonies. He promised to find it and send via mail. While looking for it, he commented it [...]

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