HR Talk

Emergency Management Magazine hosts a series of conferences around the U.S. for Emergency management and responders.  These events are actionable, thought-provoking summits for all-hazards professionals and industry experts to share expertise, best-of-breed solutions and best practices around preparation and response to disasters caused by nature and enemies of state.  Its a free program for Emergency Management professionals.  Its a great space for networking and its  filled with fast fact filled and informative presentations.  Below is a link to the presentations in Miami in December which included a presentation by Humanity Road on Crisis Communication strategies in Social Media.

For 2012 they kick off the year in Seattle, to see when they come to your area visit http://www.emergencymgmt.com/events/2012-All-HazardsAll-Stakeholders-Summits.html

Followership: The Mirror Image of Leadership
Garry Briese
Local Program Integrator, Wide Area Resiliency and Recovery Program, Denver UASI

Crisis Communication Strategies in Social Media
Crisis Communication Strategies: Video
Cat Graham
Vice President, Humanity Road, Inc.

Evolution of Social Media for Emergency Management
Jeff Baranyi
Senior Solutions Engineer, Esri

Secure and Manage your Information Driven World to Ensure Business Continuity
Dale “Dr. Z” Zabriskie
CISSP, Symantec Evangelist, Symantec Corporation

Why Satellite?
Tony Bardo
Assistant Vice President, Government Solutions, Hughes

Emergency Operations Centers – New Advancements in Interoperability
John Degory
Chief Operating Officer, Knowledge Center

Harnessing the Unstoppable Wave of Mobile Devices
Dale “Dr. Z” Zabriskie
CISSP, Symantec Evangelist, Symantec Corporation

Can you prepare for the hazards of a volcanic event? Yes. Besides an evacuation plan, one of the most critical items you should have in your disaster kit is a mask or respirator. If you do not have a respirator, a dust mask will substitute to some degree. If you do not have a dust mask, wet a bandana or kerchief and wear as a mask to help reduce inhalation of ash.  http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/

Be prepared for the hazards that can accompany volcanoes:
Be familiar with mudflows and flash floods, Landslides and rockfalls as they are hazards associated with volcanic eruption. Listen for unusual sounds that might indicate moving debris, such as trees cracking or boulders knocking together. Ash: Cover your mouth and nose. Volcanic ash can irritate your respiratory system. Wear goggles to protect your eyes.   Keep skin covered to avoid irritation from contact with ash. Volcanic events often have earthquake or tsunami risks as well so be familiar with these Earthquakes, Tsunamis. The most common hazard to deal with for Volcanic events is ash fallout.

What to do if volcanic ash is falling (Source)
• Don't panic - stay calm.
• Stay indoors.
• If outside, seek shelter (e.g. car or building).
• Use a mask, handkerchief or cloth over your nose and mouth.
• If warning is given before ash fall starts, go home from work.
• If at work when ash fall starts, stay indoors until the ash has settled.
• Do not tie up phone lines with non-emergency calls.
• Listen to your local radio for information on the eruption and cleanup plans.
• Do not wear contact lenses as these will result in corneal abrasion.
• If there is ash in your water, let it settle and then use the clear water. If there is a lot of ash in the water supply, do not use your dishwasher or washing machine. Water contaminated by ash will usually make drinking water unpalatable before it presents a health risk.
• You may eat vegetables from the garden, but wash them first.

English
US Volcano lists: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/about/volcanoes/volcanolist.php  
Volcano Hazards Poster English: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/64/  
Pilot instructions Aviation: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3116/fs2010-3116.pdf  

Spanish
Cuáles son las Amenazas o Peligros Volcánicos? PDF
Antes de una erupción volcánica PDF
Volcanes de Canarias http://www.volcanesdecanarias.com/index.htm  
¿QUÉ ES LA CENIZA VOLCANICA? PDF



 

Defining Disaster

There are different types of events and this should be considered when planning for your future and your family.  Discussing how to plan for an incident requires an approach to categorizing the nature, size and duration of events.  For the purposes of this article, incidents can be considered in four different categories, Hazards, Emergency, Disaster and Catastrophic event. The post disaster time frame is typically divided into three phases: acute or short term (1 month or less), intermediate (1–12 months),or chronic or long term (12 months or longer).[1]

Hazard:  has the potential to cause harm to health, life, safety, or the environment and increases vulnerability, although it may not require a rapid response.  Learn how to reduce hazards in your home and how to recognize hazards in your surroundings.  

1.  Emergency:  A level 1 event is an event that moves beyond the potential of a hazard and poses an immediate threat to one’s health, life, or surroundings.  Examples of an emergency would be a fire in your home.

2.  Disaster:  Extraordinary situations that require an immediate response, but can be adequately managed at the local level by designated responders, such as police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and public health officials using local resources (Guha-Sapir, 2000) Essential services such as food, water, housing, health care, and sanitation are usually disrupted for prolonged periods of time.  World Health Organization defines a disaster as an event involving 100 or more persons, with 10 or more deaths, an official disaster declaration, or an appeal for assistance.  Disaster could be an isolated tornado.

3.  Catastrophic Event: is a sudden and extreme disastrous event, causing an upheaval in the order of communities, which requires an extensive recovery process that fundamentally changes the surrounding environment (Homeland Security, 2008). Catastrophic event example would be Hurricane Katrina, or the Japan Earthquake.

Below are some examples of disaster level planning.

National Defense University
Under a partnership between the National Defense University and the Naval Postgraduate School, the STAR-TIDES initiative hosts quarterly experiments at a remote field site in Paso Robles, CA (Camp Roberts). These experiments explore the edge of the possible within humanitarian operations, focusing on the creation of a common operating picture between all responding organizations–civilian and military, domestic and international.  STAR–TIDES (Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research–Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support) is a networked effort that combines centralized and decentralized types of organizations. Its greatest strength is an extended network of interested individuals, businesses, government offices (civil and military), universities, and other entities.  The underlying model for STAR–TIDES and its whole-systems approach to infrastructure solutions is based on the Hexayurt Project’s "six ways people die" model.  These are too hot, too cold, thirst, hunger, illness, and injury. Shelters can help mitigate the first two risks, supply chains can address thirst and hunger, public health and medicine can mitigate many illnesses, and safety and security can reduce the likelihood of injury. These are too hot, too cold, thirst, hunger, illness, and injury. Shelters can help mitigate the first two risks, supply chains can address thirst and hunger, public health and medicine can mitigate many illnesses, and safety and security can reduce the likelihood of injury.  You can read more about National Defense University http://www.jfsc.ndu.edu/ (Source)

Arizona State University
DMML http://dmml.asu.edu/ School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering.  The mission of DMML HA/DR group is to enhance communication and coordination between governmental and non governmental organizations during disasters.  "At DMML, we carry out research and build systems that use social media and crowd based sources to enable speedy response during disasters and events of crisis." The DMML research focuses on developing computational methods for data mining, machine learning, and social computing, and designing efficient algorithms to enable effective problem solving ranging from basic research, text/Web mining, bioinformatics, image mining, to real-world applications. The research includes (i) dealing with high dimensional data via feature selection and feature discretization; (ii) social computing, identifying the influentials in the blogosphere, group profiling and interaction; (iii) integrating multiple data sources to overcome ambiguity and uncertainty, (iv) employing domain knowledge for effective mining and information integration, and (v) assisting human experts by developing effective methods of ensemble learning, semi-supervised learning, and active learning with hierarchical classification, subspace clustering, and meta data.

Summer season is not only a time for cookouts and swimming, but mosquitoes.  Mosquitoes spread various illnesses from Malaria to Dengue Fever.  Dengue Fever is caused by any one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes. There are not yet any vaccines to prevent infection with dengue virus (DENV).  The most effective protective measures are those that avoid mosquito bites.   (source)

 Reducing your risk

In an article to Oahu on a recent outbreak the CDC stated “We need the public’s help to clean up mosquito breeding areas by emptying all standing water, and checking gutters and other areas that collect water.” Is your home mosquito resistant?  Take a tour and check for the following

Top 10 Mosquito Love nests (Courtesy Ontario Ministry of Health) :
                -Bird Baths 
                -Old Tires 
                -Unused Containers such as barrels 
                -Flower pot saucers 
                -Swimming pool covers 
                -Wading Pools 
                -Clogged gutters/eavestroughs 
                -Clogged drainage ditches
                 -Small containers such as cans or bottle tops 
                -Unused Childrens Toys  or vehicles

• Protect against mosquito bites by applying repellant containing DEET (20-30%) or picaridin to skin and clothing;
• Repairing window and door screens to keep mosquitoes from entering indoors; and
• Wear lighter-colored clothing that covers and protects skin from biting mosquitoes.
• Bed Nets: When accommodations are not adequately screened or air conditioned, bed nets are essential to provide protection and to reduce discomfort caused by biting insects.

Know where the risk exists:   Whether you are travelling abroad or staying home, be aware of where disease outbreaks may be prevalent, check HealthMap.  With HealthMap's Outbreaks Near Me application, you have all of HealthMap's latest real-time disease outbreak information at your fingertips.

TRIVIA QUESTION:   Along the Ring of fire, which fault line is the only one  that has not  had a significant earthquake in the last 50 years:  Juan De Fuco has not had a major eruption within the last 50 years

The north-west coast of the U.S. could be devastated by a huge movement of undersea plates known as a ‘megathrust’ earthquake, scientists say. A review of the dangers posed by the Juan de Fuca plate released in the wake of the Japanese quake has raised fears that the Pacific seaboard could be similarly ravaged.

The horrifying possibilities have been brought to light by data researched by the Active Tectonics and Seafloor Mapping Laboratory at Oregon State University. And the results are shown in a documentary, Megaquake: The Hour That Shook Japan, which is set to go out on the Discovery Channel in the UK this weekend.

And geologist Jeffrey Park, director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, said in a recent – separate – article: ‘History tells us that more megathrust earthquakes could occur in the next decade, but we have no evidence that the recent rate of nearly one megathrust per year will persist for longer than that.’

National Volunteer Week

We would like to Spotlight some very special people who have contributed many hours of service at home and abroad.   We are deeply thankful for their service to the public and would like to recognize them here.

 Today, we honor Christoph Dennenmoser.  Christoph is working as EMS paramedic for German Red Cross Rescue Services. He is volunteers as Disaster Manager and teacher and is doing Public Relations.  The connection of disaster management and Information Technology and the immense possibilities in an effective use of Social Media in disaster situations is what raised his interest in the work of HumanityRoad. As team leader of the urgent needs cluster he enjoys being able to bring in his experience as Disaster Manager and passion for new media for serving people in need .

Christoph joined Humanity Road in 2010 and has provided support for Haiti, Brazil, USA, Japan, New Zealand, Egypt and others.  He is also a very active member of the media monitoring team with the Standby Task Force.

In March, Christoph served as lead volunter for Humanity Road in X24 Europe, a global social media exercise which was held March 28, - 30^th, 2011.  Humanity Road partnered with San Diego University VizCenter, and European Comman for this global exercise which attracted 39,000 people from 94 nations and was featured in domestic and international news coveraged including CNN and Fox News. The exercise involved a quake and simulated tsunami in the Adriatic Sea causing damage to the Adriatic Basin.   During the academics day, Christoph provided a very informative presentation on the Red Cross and Red Cresent Society.  In advance of the drill, Christoph provided over 100 hours in core planning preceding the event.  during the exercise he served as overall Operations Lead and lead for Humanity Road.  Additional Humanity Road volunteers provided 140 hours of volunteer service to the exercise.