WFTND Blog Information

An emergency manager trying to make a difference.

The name of the blog comes from a conversation with my daughter, where she told me that I was always looking to help people be prepared for the inevitable emergencies in life.

I started this blog as a place to assemble all the information that I was getting every day and to share my thoughts and ideas on emergency management.

I had no idea how much of the blog would wind up being what's in the news. While it does not take a lot to add a blog entry, I just did not realize how much of my day was involved with simply keeping up with what's going on. All of the posts, whether what's in the news or comments or just a piece of information, have a purpose; to get us thinking, to get us talking, and to make things better - in other words, to make a difference.

Hopefully this blog will save you some time and energy, or help you in some other way. If you would like to see something, please let me know.

Posting an article does not imply that I agree with the comments in the article. In fact, in many case, I do not agree, but feel that the comments should be part of the discussion. All opinions are welcome. I only ask that you remain considerate and professional of other opinions.

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Favorite Quotes for the Emergency Manager

  • “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • “Failing to plan is planning to fail”
  • “Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.” Denis Waitley
  • "Station 51, KMG365."
  • “One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” Arnold H. Glasgow
  • “An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster”
  • “The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” Douglas MacArthur
  • “My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by emergency. When they are needed badly enough, they are accepted.” Buckminster Fuller
  • “Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”
  • "If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, ..." Rudyard Kipling
  • "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldous Huxley

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

TECHNOLOGY TIPS: Emergency Warning Functions in Telephone Systems

Modern telephone systems have a public address or paging function either built in or part of a connected controller. If you have ever been at a retail store and heard the overhead speaker announcement that diapers are on sale in aisle 4, then heard a sound like someone hanging up a phone, that is an telephone system PA function.

This function can be a critical (and often overlooked) part of an emergency warning system. Whether in a retail store or an office setting, the ability to announce to every phone in the system of an emergency can be invaluable. Look for features such as all or selected paging, paging to phones and/or stand alone speakers, and the ability to integrate with other warning systems. A very important function is the ability to add a passcode to prevent unauthorized use.

Here is an example of how this works. The emergency coordinators in an office building monitor the weather radio. A tornado warning is issued. The emergency coordinator picks up any phone in the system, punches in the ALL CALL passcode, and announces a take cover warning to everyone. The warning goes out over the telephone speakers (whether the phone is in use or not) and over stand alone PA speakers. Once the tornado has passed, an all clear announcement is transmitted the same way. A step up in functionality could be integrating the weather radio alert directly into the telephone system, with either an ALL CALL or designated phones.

Contact your telephone vendor or IT provider for more information.

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