Those folks over at the Arizona Department of Transportation. They really know their stuff. All of the way up from Phoenix, on I-17, there were message boards displaying warnings about “Winter Driving Conditions” ahead. Most of the way to Flagstaff the roads were clear and mostly dry.
And then you top out on the Mogollon Rim and run into this!
Next time, I’m staying in Phoenix.
A scene from New London, CT at 6:35pm this evening.
If you’re interested in watching Social Media in action, here are some Twitter hashtags that I’ve seen come across within the past hour. The list will shrink some as more people start using the same tags.
#blizzard
#noreaster
#nemo
#blizzard2013
#MAwx
#RIwx
#CTwx
A standard hashtag for weather related reporting is the “#STwx” tag, with the ST replaced by the two letter ID for the state.
If you are interested in #SMEM, start monitoring some of these hashtags and run scenarios in your mind about how you would reply and respond to what you are seeing.
Any event that is not directly affecting you, or your area, is an opportunity for training and practice.
All humor aside, New England is in the cross-hairs of a major storm today.
Social Media is hopping with updates and statuses:
#MA Storm:I-90 speed reduced to 40mph, Exits 1 to 6.
— Mass. Transportation (@MassDOT) February 8, 2013
Snow has started, #blizzard warning in effect for all #Connecticut – DOT warns people stay of roads. State of Emergency declared, #NEMO
— Pushita Loffreda,EMP (@PKLoffreda) February 8, 2013
In the initial onset of this storm, Amateur Radio may not be needed, but Social Media will be buzzing with information, updates, damage assessment information, and status updates.
For the radio amateur, this is a wonderful opportunity to watch Twitter and see how Social Media works in a disaster such as this. I’m already seeing notifications of shelter locations.
#Winter storms & #blizzards can knock out power. Make sure you have a plan for staying warm if power goes out ready.gov/blackouts
— femaregion5 (@femaregion5) February 8, 2013
This one is a bit on the late side, but FEMA tends to tweet out the same basic messages quite often, in a rotation, so this will have been tweeted out not to long ago, too.
There are several people on Twitter who retweet almost every relevant item that they find. You can follow a couple of these people, and then filter out what you see by further following the users that tweet out what you like to read.
I follow @GetMeOutNews on Twitter. She retweets a bunch of info, all day long. A lot of it doesn’t pertain to me, but some of it does. I look at the original senders that she is forwarding from, and sometimes follow them directly for faster updates.
Huh? “Follow,” “tweet,” “retweet?” This week I’ll post a primer on Social Media for Ham Radio operators. It’s nowhere near as hard to learn as the Q signals and ARL RadioGram numbers.
73 & stay warm, David
The Region 8 office of FEMA just posted the above pictured tweet.
Is 72 hours long enough anymore? I guess it depends on the size and impact of the incident.
Ask the residents of New Orleans during Katrina, or Staten Island during Sandy, if 72 hours of supplies were adequate.
Every government preparedness agency, on any level, along with most nonprofit preparedness groups, have preached “72 hours” for a long time.
Maybe it’s time to change. Instead of having a stock “72 hour kit,” take a look at the agencies in your area and build a kit that will sustain you until you expect help to arrive. Huh? Look at the agencies and their capabilities. Do you think help will arrive swiftly?
What are the most likely disaster scenarios to occur in your area? Have they happened in the past? If so, how long did it take for roads to open up, stores to have groceries, gas stations to work, etc?
Look at the results of previous incidents, and plan around those. If the average “back to sustainable levels” response time is 2 weeks, you better have supplies on hand to last that long.
In a recent Twitter conversation with a emergency preparedness professional located in Oklahoma, he had this to say: “WHAT is YOUR plan? If your insurance, FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, NVOAD group, neighbor, Uncle, Mother, Sister, Brother, does not show for three days, what will you do?”
FEMA is telling us, by way of messages similar to the above pictured Tweet, to be ready to survive on your own for a while. In nice-nice words, they are saying that you’re on your own for at least 72 hours after an incident.
Looking at the size and scope of major disasters recently, maybe 72 hours isn’t long enough. Maybe 2 weeks also isn’t long enough.
Plan to survive, but also remember that if you need to evacuate, how much of your stash can you take with you?
Check out a blog posting by Lloyd, KC5FM, who commented on this subject a couple of weeks ago: KC5FM Blog
Do YOU have a plan? Do you know what to do?
