EMI Self-Training

FEMA’s EMI site.  The independent study program is accessible here.

In particular, these two courses would be a good place to start:

• IS-230.a Fundamentals of Emergency Management
• IS-100.HE Introduction to the Incident Command System, ICS-100, for Higher Education

There is also an Introduction to ICS for federal employees, and numerous other courses available, with course materials.

Updates, Updates!

The blog here languished while I was working on a number of simultaneous projects.  I just failed to post!

Here’s what’s going on in CCRT land.

The Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association has started two squads of trainees through the Pasadena Fire Department’s PERT training, which is a localized version of the CERT training program.

The BHNA CCRT knowledge management system is in alpha release, using the Community (Open Source) edition of Alfresco.  By “alpha release”, I mean the box is up and running, and that’s about it.  Content population will follow hopefully rapidly, and once we get the cosmetics enabled we’ll start opening it up to participants.

California’s DisasterVolunteers

The State of California has made a number of strides towards preemptively engaging the citizenry prior to major disasters.  The DisasterVolunteers section of the California Volunteers site is a good jumping off point for Californians looking to become more involved.

In particular, you should look at the California Citizen Corps, the Community Emergency Response Teams program, and the Medical Reserve Corps (more information on all those here).

Emergency Digital Information Services

The State of California’s Office of Emergency Services has an information system that allows people to subscribe to alerts, or browse them via the web.

Community Response Grids

The 911.gov project over at the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab looks intriguing. Ben Shneiderman gave the keynote at last year’s ISCRAM, and also had a conference paper on the community response grid project.

Cisco NERV

CCRT Blog Live

This is the first post of the CCRT blog.  This blog has several purposes, the main ones are:

1. Record my efforts to organize a community crisis response team for the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association in Pasadena, CA
2. Provide useful information to other organizers who are looking to put together a CCRT for their neighborhood, town, or municipality.
3. Raise awareness among the populace about crisis response, regional disasters, and how information sharing and information systems can help plan for these events and provide timely information to abate the impact of these events when they occur.
4. Encourage other community organizers, trained responders, and concerned citizens to join in the discussion and add their knowledge and experience.  If you’d like to contribute, let me know!