When the 1997 edition of FEMA’s Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation Library on CD ROM was released in July 1997 it was an immediate hit. Full of popular brochures in easy to access graphic image files and the first of the new mitigation fact sheets prepared for the general public, it was very well received.

The 2^nd (1998) Edition of the Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation Library on CD-ROM includes 31 mitigation fact sheets produced by FEMA’s Mitigation Directorate since then, each with instructions for a specific mitigation measure. Two thirds are designed for homes and one third for businesses. Some can be adapted to each.

It also contains the revised CFP brochure, Helping Children Cope with Disaster (L-196, ARC 4499).

And a major addition is The Extension Agent’s Handbook for Disaster Preparation and Response. (See also the item following on the Handbook’s availability on the Web.)

Basic CFP brochures that are cologoed with the American Red Cross are on both the 1997 and 1998 disks.

This CD, like the 1997 edition, is primarily for disaster educators who want to reproduce high-quality educational materials at a professional print shop. For individual printouts of materials developed by FEMA, the http://www.fema.gov Website is the best alternative. To order the CD-ROM, call 1-800-480-2520.

Extension Agent’s Handbook for Emergency Preparation and Response

David Bilbo Recognized

Earlier this year David Bilbo was promoted and appointed George Hyman Professor of Construction Science at Texas A&M University.

Shortly after, he was appointed Senior Volunteer Consultant, Community Disaster Education Program (CDE), National American Red Cross.

The Texas program is a model others could well follow or adapt. David developed the Handbook in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Extension Service and the State of Texas. All of which says he is one of those very special experts whose knowledge and judgment the public disaster education community has learned it can rely on.

Mitigation in Public Education for Disaster Resistant Communities

As noted earlier, the new FEMA Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation Library on CD ROM (1998 Edition) contains 31 fact sheets covering mitigation measures for homeowners and businesses to help prevent and reduce disaster losses.

If your community is developing a program to become more disaster-resistant, offer to work with those planning the disaster education activities associated with those efforts. Give them the benefit of your experience in disaster education, and also stay open to fresh ideas they come up with.

Input Requested for Disaster Safety Message Resource Utilization

For those interested in Disaster Safety and who wish to provide feedback for a work in process, Beth Navin, an American Red Cross intern will be developing a listing of Standard Disaster Safety Messages until November 20. That leaves little time but your input is still important. This work is endorsed by the National Disaster Education Coalition (NDEC), and is funded by a grant from the Lowes Home Safety Council.

A "message" communicates an action or behavior that someone should know or do. "Disaster Safety" encompasses the entire scope of Community Disaster Education (CDE) messages in the Red Cross CDE program, as well as other disaster preparedness and mitigation messages. (The public does not differentiate between preparedness and mitigation as the emergency management community does.)

Beth is been meeting with colleagues from NOAA's National Weather Service, the U. S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U. S. Fire Administration (FEMA), and the National Fire Protection Association to confirm the disaster safety messages we, as national organizations in cooperation with local affiliates, jointly provide. She is also developing information that explains WHY we should say each message, not just because it is technically sound, but also to help deal with folklore, myths, and misinformation that is "out there."

The intent of the product being is to provide a standard reference document (both in print and electronic/web-based) that can be used by ANYONE who is providing disaster safety information for the public. Users would include disaster and fire educators, public affairs/public relations folks, mitigation specialists, managers and officers, teachers and curriculum development specialists, etc., i.e. the entire disaster education community.

The Red Cross (and NDEC partners) would like your input on a few things which will help them with this work, specifically:

1. If you make presentations to the public, what would be most helpful to you to select messages appropriate for an audience?

2. What organization of the final product would be most helpful to you? (that is, by subject, by audience, by priority of message related to time or space available, other)???

3. What can we do to get across the point that the messages in this resource are "approved" by all national agencies and should be the consistent messages given out by anyone at any level?

4. How do you suggest we obtain "buy in" from potential users of the resource? Since we don't have time to write to every Red Crosser, every emergency manager, and every fire department, what can we do to a) get them to know this resource is available, and b) get them to accept the messages in it as the correct messages?

5. In these days of providing disaster safety messages via the World Wide Web, what can we do to ensure that web page creators use this resource for disaster safety messages they may be disseminating? (We do plan to put this resource on the web in addition to printing it for those without web access.)

Your input, thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and advice will be most appreciated. Please reply ASAP to

Rocky Lopes
lopesr@usa.redcross.org
(703) 206-8805

(Background. The National Disaster Education Coalition (NDEC), which includes the American Red Cross, NOAA’s National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, National Fire Protection Assn., and FEMA, with NEMA and IAEM as Associates, has over the years worked together successfully to promote the use of consistent and reliable messages by all agencies. These organizations provide messages via a number of different forms and media: print, audio, video, electronic, for the mass media and in response to individual requests; posting on the Web; integration into manuals, guides, and training and education course materials; and personal presentations on the media, in disaster education seminars, in schools and the like.

This is an opportunity to consider how best to tie this resource into all of our dissemination systems and all of our programs, from communicating emergency public warning to teaching preparedness and building it into training courses. RBS)

Disaster Education Organizer’s Course

When a hurricane smashes into virtually the entire coastline, even a seasoned crew like North Carolina’s has to adjust schedules a little. So hopes to carry out the second pilot of the new Disaster Education Organizer’s Course in North Carolina during November have given way. Probable now is sometime in February. The materials are looking good. We’ll outline the contents here shortly after the pilot is held and evaluated. (If you’re new here, the course is being developed jointly by FEMA’s Community & Family Preparedness Program and the American Red Cross’ Community Disaster Education program, to cover broader disaster program development, management and oversight responsibilities than the Red Cross Presenter’s Course emphasizes.)

Focus on the Schools

In the long run, public disaster produces an educated and prepared public best when knowledge about hazards and how people protect can themselves from disaster gets into the primary and secondary grades (K-12). Schools help prepare us for life. Hazards and disasters are part of life. And kids bring information home to the rest of the household—more than you’d think.

There is a lot of competition from other subjects pressing for time in the schools. One of the best entrees is to have in hand materials teachers can use just as they are in their classes, information in forms appealing to kids and effective in imparting information people need. Become familiar with curriculum materials FEMA provides (see p.28 of the 1998 CFP Conference Report, noted above) and what the Red Cross has available or under development.

Talk to science, health or other teachers and find out what would help them best to teach hazard awareness and disaster prevention and preparedness to their students. Get acquainted with their principals, superintendents and curriculum development staff.

And if you find particularly good and effective materials that would help teach what disaster education curricula cover, let us know about them, too, and we’ll share them, through these Updates and on the EIIP emforum.org Website.