Safety Messages in New Formats

We are constantly bombarded with messages, from the moment our radio alarm clock goes off until we finally power down the smartphone or tablet and go to bed.  With all the advertising and communications out there, it can be difficult to focus on really important information, and sometimes the competition between messages can be overwhelming.  Emergency managers must consider how best to engage with their communities and make sure life-saving information makes it through the clutter. Sometimes the best way to share that important information is to change the frame of reference for the audience and present it in a new or innovative way.  When a message is particularly well managed, it may also spur the community to take action on the message.  A great example of this is the #airplanesforallstate campaign.

Everyone knows that texting while driving is dangerous, and most of us know that thousands of teens each year are killed while doing just that, but do you ever really listen to that message?

What if we told you that every year, the equivalent of 12 jumbo jets of teens are killed because they are distracted by text messages while driving?

That's a pretty sobering statistic, and one that, because it was presented in a new and relevant format, it gathered some pretty significant attention- in fact, it brought an entire community together to raise awareness in Spokane, Washington. As public safety and emergency management professionals, it is important for us to constantly evaluate our messages and keep them fresh, so that they make it through the millions of other messages bombarding our communities every day. We must also consider how to make our messaging relevant to our audience, and craft and deliver them in a way that encourages our communities to take ownership of the message.

I have included the #airplanesforallstate public safety message, and the fantastic community outreach program it inspired, below.  If you'd like more information about this program, please visit The Hodgson Agency at www.thehodgsonagency.com

Airport Security

TSA: Bloated and Ineffective. So, what else is new?

About an hour ago, the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a press conference to discuss the contents of their report “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform”.  Not surprisingly, the contents of the report are largely unfavorable in regards to TSA's effectiveness and highly critical of the bureaucratic weight of the organization. (You can download the report here if you're interested in reading for yourself.) Also unsurprisingly, TSA has retaliated with a series of statistics meant to prove their worth.  My current favorite is the number that in the past 10 years, TSA has prevented over 1,100 guns from being brought on airplanes.  Seriously? Firearms? That's it? If TSA has screened over 5 billion passengers in the past ten years, that amounts to .00002% of all non-authorized passengers trying to get guns in the cabins of airplanes, or roughly one person for every 4.5 million people.  Roughly 637 million passengers fly into or out of U.S. airports every day.  The odds, then, of you being on a flight that might have had a gun in the cabin if TSA were not screening on any given day is more than 1 in 141 million.  Holy buckets.  (Also, if TSA is so worried about guns, why can't I fly with a full tube of toothpaste, hmmm?)  The report notes that the current threat trends to aircraft are no longer considered to be hijacking, but rather explosives smuggled onto planes in order to bring down the aircraft.  I'll leave my personal feelings on that assessment out of it (okay, maybe a quick soapbox: aircraft are no longer the most vulnerable part of our travel infrastructure, so we're wasting time, money and opportunity on all of this! Okay, back to the show.) but the report does also note that the previous efforts to implement effective explosives screenings were unreliable and expensive. How's that for a nice cluster of contradictory efforts?

Anyway, the point is this: TSA is a big, fat, ineffective money-draining organization, and the Country is broke.  This report, at least to me, seems specifically designed to target funding reduction at the TSA, and it exploits the laughable efforts of airport security as legitimate rational for that recommendation.  Here is my concern: While TSA airport security measures are, in fact, outdated, ineffective, inconvenient, borderline-illegal, and generally scoff-worthy, the TSA overall is responsible for a lot more than airports.  Our rail lines are still mostly unsecured, and our harbor security is...well, privatized. I suppose that wouldn't be such a problem if so many of our ports were not foreign owned.  I agree TSA needs better leadership and needs to tighten up procedures and staffing across the board...but maybe the solution is to implement effective security measures against our actual vulnerabilities, instead of the high-profile ones? Just a thought.  Frankly, I'll take my chances that a crazy person might bring a handgun on a plane.

Holy October, Batman!

September is a busy month for emergency managers- the National Preparedness Month campaign run by FEMA each year pretty much dominates my time.  In October, I spent my weekends assisting with a Community Emergency Preparedness Training program, or CERT for short.

I have a love/hate relationship with CERT.  The CERT program asks citizens to donate 32 hours of their time to learn about basic survival skills in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, including basic disaster-based first aid, and basic search-and-rescue techniques.  The program also focuses on skills that might apply in non-disaster scenarios, such as explaining the importance of proper chemical storage around the house, or letting participants practice using a fire extinguisher. (For those of you who have never put out a fire with an extinguisher- its not quite as stupid-proof as one might think!)  I love the emphasis on personal preparedness and on giving individuals lifeskills they need to protect themselves and their families.

Local CERT classes are available with varying degrees of availability around the country, and every jurisdiction handles them a little differently.   If you have time, they're usually a lot of fun and full of good skills. If you don't have time for a full class, consider joining a shorter BeReady program, which spends more time on the preparedness skills and less time on response skills. (I prefer these programs, myself!)

Homeland Security Dollars at work...sort of.

This article was released by The Denver Post the other day, as part of a three-part series to explore where, exactly, the $354 million in federal homeland security grant funds allocated to Colorado since 2001 have been spent. As a professional in this field, I admit I was apprehensive when the reporters first started showing up and asking some questions, and I still think some of the representations in this article are...skewed. Overall, though, I think its pretty well done and I think it is worth looking at.  I'll be focusing on specific topics in the upcoming days, so check it out for discussion. Plus, you might see some familiar faces in there!

Social Media Outreach is Growing

Social media is gaining traction in the emergency response and management world.  A few years ago, the use of Facebook or Twitter seemed like an unconventional and perhaps dangerous means of communication with the public...and I'll hazard to say many emergency management professionals were either totally unaware of, or only partially aware of, what those two sites were even for.  Now, the use of social media in the emergency management cycle is routine and expected.  The public turns to Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, online blogs, online news sources and other similar venues for status updates.  The expectation of real-time updates that are readily available is growing among all population and age demographics.

To help incorporate this new form of communication into the outreach networks, the Coalition driving National Preparedness Month created a list of pre-set Tweets and Facebook status messages as part of the toolkit distributed to participating members.  There is one for each day, and each coalition member is encouraged to update the Tweet or FB status with local information.  We, as leaders, are supposed to encourage our followers to re-tweet or re-post the status messages to increase the outreach and awareness. Some of them are a little cheesy, and I can see where thirty days of these might get a little old, but I'm going to do my best to participate anyway.

Besides...one update a day about preparedness can't be more annoying than the daily status updates some people have, right? Right??

Safety Girl Roadside Kit: I want one!

Hey! During National Preparedness Month, I'm in full-gear encouraging my friends, family, neighbors, and e-followers to build or maintain their 72-Hour Emergency Kits.  Kits should be included at home, at work, and one in the car. Do I have a kit? You bet! The one in my car is the least impressive though, which is kind of sad since I spend most of my time in the car.  I was working on some research for my next National Preparedness Month flyer at work, and I found this gem: The Safety Girl Roadside Emergency Kit. The contents are not all that remarkable, actually, but the container is awesome. I want one.