Conclude

As I finish up my blogging journey for my class I have learn that I am not a fan a blogging. But this is a good network to use to get the work out about certain topics. But to write on here everyday it not for me! It has been interesting posting and learning how to do it along with getting feedback from others.

Thanks for ready my blogs and hopefully you learn a little bit more emergency management.

Medical kit part 2

I have decided to post the second part of the medical kit video because I thought it was interesting all the stuff they can fit into such a small space!

FEMA

FEMA is a government ran program it stands for Federal Emergency management Agency...They help at the federal level with grants and over seeing and declaring what is a disaster place if a tornado has hit a certain area the governor calls FEMA they come and look at the damage and they say if it is a disaster country if so the people that live within the that area they get grant money to help with the damage. But the person has to apply for it.

Incident Command post

The picture above is an example of a Incident Command post. This is like a temporary head quarters for emergency managers to work out of when a emergency has happen. The inside of these vehicles are just like a camper but it is a conference room on wheels. By having these types of vehicles they are able to communicate, observe the damage and be able to conduct teams and tell them where they need to go.

Emergencies......The meaning of the word:

When you think of the word emergency what word comes to mind?

Hurricane Katrina disaster relief experience

Spring break 2009 I had the opportunity to experience New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina. I got to meet families that are still living in FEMA trailers still to this day waiting for their new home to be built. The only was homes are going to be re built from the hurricane is by volunteers that come in a work for a week or so. This was a mission trip we worked with the New Orleans disaster relief team! I have learned through this experience by talking with the people that went through the disaster and how interesting it is sitting there listening to what they have to say about the hurricane!

Each house that has to be at least 7 mounting block high off the ground prevent flooding
My team and the family we build home for. We set the foundation!

Emergency training experience through Northwest

Northwest offers a training from people interested in emergency management or just wanting to know what all the excitement is all about . I have gone through the Atlantica HOPE training in March 2009 and went back this year at a student mentor we have had over 5o students go through this training. You learn how to negotiate, working as a leader and as a team and also get to be out in the field while the disaster is unfolding. You a lot about yourself when you go through this four day intense training in Indian River state college in Florida!

Chopper at work!
student roll play as victims of a disaster. Us the trainees going through the simulation learn first aid and how to apply the skills in the field!

Life flight taking a student that role plays on a hot run!

Why I love emergencies

The reason why I am interested in emergency, whatever it maybe either from medical related to natural disasters. It has been an interest of mine. How I got started into liking this profession was that in summer of 2008 I was a health coordinator at a local summer camp in Iowa. Before campers came we where struck my tornadoes left and right.

There was the small town in Iowa that wasn't too far away from where I was working for the summer that was hit by a tornado. There was a group of us that wanted to help out with the disaster relief effort.

There was a small group and got into our cars and went to Attica, Iowa where we stayed for 3 days working on helping cleaning up the town. We where there within less then 12 hours of the disaster happening. The atmosphere of the the small town was still in shock of what had happen. This is when I knew this is what I wanted to do for my profession helping people once a disaster has strike!

Parkersburg Tornado

Above: Picture of F5 tornado that struck Parkersburg, Iowa summer 2008, Below: picture taken after the tornado had struck the rural town of Parkersburg, Iowa.

Parkersburg, IA disaster

A small rural town located in North Central Iowa was completely blown away by a F5 tornado in Summer 2008. All of the town had to be re-build the school was a team effort by the families and volunteers to re build. It was done by the leadership of the Parkersburg football coach that him and his team worked hard and long hours to re build their school and a year later to play on the same football field after the disaster hit. But on June 24, 2009 coach Ed Thomas was shot at gun point in front of team members and other students that where in the weight room that morning! He is a hero to the small town of Parkersburg and to the state of Iowa! This town has gone through alot within the last few years but through love, hope and faith they have stuck together!

Tornadoes in Maryville, MO.?!?!

April 24th, 2010- No one was hurt!

Thoughts about disaster relief

I think its surprising to know that there are people that are willing to volunteer their time to help a stranger out! Today I was asked to volunteer by help painting a house that was hit my a disaster a few years ago. I favorite part about disasters is the relief part and seeing everyone come together as a team and help on another out!

You never know when one minute you have everything and then the next you might loose it all! We have to appreciate everything that we have cause again we never know when we are going to loose it!

Home Emergency Kit

When a disaster strike you want to be prepared at home because emergency professionals might not be able to rescue you right away. An average person should be prepared so survive on their own for five days.

Communication aid for responding to a emergency

Wild J. David ; 8 March 2008. “Blogging System would aid communication responding to disasters.” A team at Indiana University has done a research paper on disasters and how blogging can help with communication. Their thesis is that they want to find ways of improvement of communication of technology during a disaster.

"In the wake of recent disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, it was clear a lot of useful information was generated in blogs and other social computing sites, but there was no systematic way to use the information, and help responders and others get a real sense of what was happening," said David J. Wild, assistant professor of informatics. "Further, problems of reliability and trust hampered good use of this information." (quote take from: http://newsinfo.iu.edu).

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/5127.html

Time to Rest!

Too much crisis can take a toll on the nerves!

The Cycle of Crisis Response ...

This is article explains how the social media is helping with getting the word out when a crisis happens. But it also explains how the social media is being used to get complaints from readers because when someone is blogging most of their comments you find today are complaints towards the writers word of choice or if their point of view is wrong then in rude terms the reader will comment negative things. And this is what makes me not a fan of blogging because of the complaining that goes one. Blogging should be informative to the readers eye not negative and crude.

http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/12/social-media-as-a-crisis-management-tool/

Facebook and emergency management!

Social Media University, Global(SMUG). 7, August 2007. “Facebook

Crisis Communication.” EBSO. In relation to other articles this one explains the pros of why Facebook is good to have in relation to when a crisis has happened because you can be prepared for events you expect to happen eventually by establishing a secret group in Facebook for crisis communications. “For example, a local government agency in southern Florida could create a secret group “Fort Lauderdale Hurricane Information,” and pre-populate it with information from its pre-written evacuation plan.” (2007, August)This example gives good reasoning of why social internet media is good when it comes to a crisis event.

http://leeaase.wordpress.com/2007/08/07/facebook-crisis-communications/

Fan or not a fan of blogging?

This article clearly points out the pro and cons of blogging likewise are people blogging for the right reasons. Pro: Some bloggers like to tell about their life history while others like to use this form of communication or networking to find out other opinion about a certain subject. Con: You have to have a good subject that is interesting because if the reader is not interested by the first few sentences of the blog then they will go one another person’s blog. Which is a waste of time to even blog if you not going to have someone blog. This article touches on the fact that people used to use diaries to write personal messages but blogging has taken over time and it is now all about posting life events on the internet and getting feedback from others. This article supports my thesis that blogging has values to a certain point that blogging can be too much along the lines of sharing everyday life events with strangers.

http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-blogging/2008/09/17/

Humanitarian and emergency management

Montero, Begoña & Rodríguez. “A Natural Disaster management DSS for Humanitarian NGO’S.”

Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play a growing role in the response to natural disasters, but despite being largely demanded, there is no available decision support system (DSS) specifically designed to address their problem. In this paper it talks about a decision support system (DSS) to aid those Humanitarian NGOs concerned with the response to natural disasters. Such a DSS has been designed avoiding infrastructural requirements and constraints of emergency management by NGOs. A data-based, two-level knowledge methodology which allows damage assessment of multiple disaster. scenarios is presented in order to address that problem. Validation results show viability

Tweets are not popular with Twitter

Pepitone, Julianne, CNN staff reporter. “Twitter users not so social After All”.

Twitter was one of the most new and popular social media online. In this article it explains that Twitter is not the most talked about social networking tool on the web anymore. Because the user of Twitter tweets an average of 73 percent of users tweets an average of 10 times and the rest of the time people are following actors and other popular business. Basically if an actor or actress tells their fans to follow them of their daily interactions then they should get a Twitter account. Twitter users are just using it to stock their favorite actor.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/10/technology/twitter_users_active/index.htm?hpt=C2

U.N. News Centre, 2010 January 17. “Rescuers still finding survivors

in Haiti U.N. reports.” The news article explains how search and rescue teams are using different ways of trying to find victims that are still in need of being found alive. The ways that are being used to find victims in the rebel are included but not limited to: Over 40 teams – comprising nearly 1,800 rescue workers and more than 160 dogs – are working tirelessly under difficult circumstances after the 7.0 magnitude tremors, which the UN estimates has destroyed 10 per cent of the buildings in the hardest-hit city, the capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving 300,000 people homeless. Another unique way is technically Facebook and Twitter are new and upcoming ways of find people alive because the victims can easily access this from their phones. In my thesis I think that technically helps in good ways when it comes to crisis

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33501&Cr=haiti&Cr1

This is a video shows you that this medical kit is as small as 725 oz. But there is so much within this kit that is surprises me how much you can fit it in just a small bag while working in the field!

Disagreements about a profession

I don’t know about you but when I think of emergency I feel things being disorganized, crazy out of this world experience. I like to be on the go that is why this profession is like on the go all the time and you never know what you are going to be doing from day to day. A lot of traveling is involved with this profession.

But one of the disagreements people, schools and some communities is that when the local emergency manager wants to try and help prevent things happening people don’t either want to listen or they have the impression that the crisis will never happen. Yes you have never lived through a tornado or gone through a hurricane but it never hurts to learn about what you can do to prevent yourself from getting hurt.

Now the new thing is disaster simulations that companies goes through so if the crisis happens the person has that knowledge of what to do and won’t freak out like others will. They can take control and deal with the situation because the emergency personal are not the ones that are going to be there right away to safe you it is going to be the knowledge that you learn from the simulations that is going to safe you. If you are every in a situation!!

Confused?

This is may help those who have no idea what emergency management is? And what our job title is or what we do?

Good Ice cream Gone bad!

When you think of ice cream you think it’s a sweet, cold tasting treat. But customer’s of Schwan’s frozen INC. Had a wake up call because in October of 1994, the company had a salmonella scare that made over 600 people ill.

How this company reacted to the poisoning of the ice cream what that they used their trained skills call crisis communication and the president of the company let the media know right away what kind of action was going to be used to take care of this problem.

How they went about doing this was that the president wrote a letter to all customers telling telling them what product was making people sick, what the symptoms were the company would pay for the test to be taken. They also sent out employees to each home to give them a refund of their money.

I feel that is was a good thing for the company to do because it shows us that they care about their customers and they were trained in how to take care of a situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/21/us/salmonella-poisoning-outbreak-may-be-linked-to-tanker-trucks.html?pagewanted=1

The right fit?

I this topic may seem uninteresting to some or kinda interesting to others. But this is the right fit for what I want to do with my life! When you were in school and you hear your teacher ask you what you want to be when you grow up! You say either a doctor, a nurse, a vet, or a teacher are some of the common things you hear from students. But as a child I never thought I would go from once wanting to become a nurse and help people to actually being in the emergency management field! I know usually when you thing of a nurse you relate to emergencies but in emergencies their is a whole another world of job opportunities!

C-C.E.R.T.

What in the heck does this mean you may ask? It stands for Campus Community Emergency Response Team. This is a FREE program through Northwest Missouri State University. It is an opportunity for students & faculty to learn light search and rescue, you learn how to put out small fires, triage and first Aid! This is a hands on course that only takes a few days to do it is easy to do and looks GREAT on a resume NO matter what your major is. You never know when you can use these skills on the job here at school and this is something that you can take with you no matter where your education takes you! I HIGHLY recommend I have taken this when it was first offered a few years ago it is well worth your time! To help so many people and it only takes a few days to learn hands on!

http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

This course will be starting in February, 2010 is you are interested or wanting to more about it comment and I can get you more information to you. The course is taught here at Northwest and everything is provided for you at no extra cost.

Communication within a crisis

The way technology is today there are so many different ways of commutating such as tweeting with tweeting for updating a status through facebook. It take seconds to do and its our new way of communication. When the 7.0 earthquake hit a few weeks ago in Haiti. One of the ways of to finding trapped victims was when the victims would tweet or put on their facebook status of where they can be located. It was quick and easy to do from their very own cell phone! Check out this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32645434

Lucky to live in the United States

As I am typing I am thinking about how we are lucky to live in the United States with the freedom that we have. And I reflect on what is happening in our world today crisis wise. With the victims of Haiti and the aid that they are getting not only from the United States but also from other countries as well. It is neat to see how people quickly reacted to the heroic event. There are so many ways to help out and next week I hear that here at Northwest we have opportunities to help out starting next week there will be fundraisers starting on campus and the donations will be sent to Haiti and help in the relief effort. I as a college student myself we don't have much money but if we have loose change laying around it could help wonders. It doesn't take much!

You never know......

Many may wandering what is a emergency manager? What might they do and why is there such a thing as a emergency manager?
These are some questions that I get every time when I tell someone what my minor is in college.
I going to answer these questions.

What a emergency manager is someone who deals with disasters, if a disaster of any kind strikes we are trained to start relief effort right away it may be along the lines of working with mental health or helping out with light search and rescue, also along the lines of medical care as well.

Reason I have chosen this career path and why this is so interesting to me is because not only to help people. I love the fast pass, not knowing what is going to happen and always being on the go kind of work. Because whenever a disaster strikes you never know when you will be called to help the relief effort.