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September is National Preparedness Month (NPM10) , and as you can see by the widget atop my sidebar, I’m a coalition member myself.
Joining is free, easy, and important. I hope you’ll all find ways to take part.
Building individual, family, business, and community preparedness is something I’ve stressed repeatedly in this blog over the past 5 years, because frankly, I’ve seen what happens when people are unprepared to deal with an emergency.
You can click on the PREPAREDNESS link in my sidebar to dozens of my essays on the subject, but a few recent ones I’d call your attention to include:
In An Emergency, Who Has Your Back?
NPM10 And Building A Culture Of Preparedness
An Appropriate Level Of Preparedness
FEMA issued a news release yesterday outlining and updating this year’s National Preparedness Month campaign, which I’ve reproduced below.
July 28, 2010
No.: HQ-10-146
FEMA News Desk: 202-646-3272
News Release
Seventh annual National Preparedness Month, in September, encourages Americans to take steps to prepare
WASHINGTON - The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) today announced that to date more than 1,900 national, regional, tribal, state and local organizations and businesses have pledged their support and joined the 2010 National Preparedness Month (NPM) Coalition. This is approximately 200 more than last year at this time. The registration for the Coalition continues through September.
This September marks the seventh annual NPM. Led by FEMA's Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and The Advertising Council, NPM is a nationwide effort encouraging individuals, families, businesses and communities to work together and take action to prepare for emergencies.
NPM Coalition members will sponsor events and activities throughout the month highlighting the steps that individuals, families and communities can take to prepare. Ready and The Advertising Council will also introduce new Spanish-language public service advertisements in conjunction with NPM activities. Additionally, the Ready Campaign released a new NPM Widget to help promote the month.
"National Preparedness Month is a great way to get Americans and our communities and businesses to come together in planning and preparing for a disaster," said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. "Disasters can hit any place, any time, so it's essential that we take concrete steps together, now, to ensure a better response later."
This year, NPM focuses on encouraging all Americans to take active steps toward getting involved and becoming prepared. Preparedness is everyone's responsibility. Americans have to work together as a team to ensure that individuals, families and communities are ready. Individuals are encouraged to: make a family emergency plan; put together an emergency supply kit; be prepared to help your neighbor; and work as a team to keep everyone safe.
National Preparedness Month Coalition membership is open to all public and private sector organizations. Click here to register for membership.
Follow FEMA online at www.twitter.com/fema, www.facebook.com/fema, and www.youtube.com/fema. Also, follow Administrator Craig Fugate's activities at www.twitter.com/craigatfema. The social media links provided are for reference only. FEMA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies or applications.
FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
For those of you on Twitter, look for the hash tag #NPM10 for tweets relating to National Preparedness Month.
