Posts tagged: emergency management

A Mix of Characters: PEMC 2011 in Kingston

For much of this week, I was in Kingston for the Provincial Emergency Management Conference. This is an annual conference organized by Red Cross Canada, bringing together municipal, provincial, and federal delegates from the field of emergency management. We had folks from Fire, Police, EM offices, provincial ministries, and even a few municipal administrators. While [...]

Friday November 11th, 2011 in , , | Comments Off

Twitter Is Worthless for Emergency Management Unless You Bring Your Brain with You

Just because lots of people are saying the same thing doesn’t make it right. That’s the problem with the open & democratic realm of Twitter. I’m not advocating an elitist rule-by-experts world, but Twitter to me demonstrates how ludicrous things can get when you have lots of people with just a little bit of knowledge [...]

Tuesday July 12th, 2011 in , , | Comments Off

Demand Faster Emergency Communication from Your Government

We live in an age of rapid, nearly-instant communication. Emergencies depend on the rapid exchange of information between those who are on-scene and those who can support them, between those who have information to protect others and the public who needs that information to keep safe and help themselves. Internet technologies are among the fastest, [...]

Tuesday September 21st, 2010 in , , , , | Comments Off

Hand Sanitizer Doesn’t Expire, So Why Do They Have Expiration Dates?

During the H1N1 pandemic at the end of 2009, the Province of Ontario was distributing kits of supplies to healthcare professionals in the field. Many of the kits being distributed contained hand sanitizer that was, technically, expired. We received calls from doctors’ offices and medical institutions about the expired hand sanitizer asking us if it’s [...]

Thursday September 9th, 2010 in , , , | Comments Off

Logistics Makes for Successful Emergency Response Team Deployment

My academic instruction and my own continued readings reinforce the premise that logistics will make or break an emergency response effort. My experience and what I hear from other deployed teams strengthens my belief in the absolute importance of logistical considerations. The debrief session from one of our emergency response teams’ deployment for the G8 [...]

Thursday August 19th, 2010 in , , , , | Comments Off