Chlorine Training for #OKfire #OKhazmat folks available

Attached is a flyer for an upcoming class to be held in March 2013.  Please notice that participants have a list of items they should bring for class. Pg. 2 of Flyer

Please distribute to all potential emergency response, industry, LEPC, and emergency management partners etc..  This should include Federal, State, Local and Tribal entities.

This is a free class and will be very robust.  Multiple stations and various rail cars and tank trucks will be on site for hands on learning.

There are 2 offerings.  March 20, and March 21 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.  More details on the flyer.

Thank You!

John

Why is 72 hours not long enough?

Over on the FEMA web site, proposing a change from 72 hours to a week preparations while Dooms Day Preppers don't seem to think that's not long enough.

Why change?

1.  If you have to evacuate, are you going to carry your six months of supplies with you?  Folks, there are people from New Orleans who have not returned.  They don't plan to return.  They will tell you the bus trip would have been more enjoyable with the 72-hour kit.

2.  Then there are the people who won't do the 72 hour supplies, even with a calendar.  These are the same people who don't plan, don't heed warning, don't evacuate when told.

Why is it the Government's job to provide you an "Are You Ready", a handy 800-BE-READY number to order it, give you a calendar to use to help you build a disaster supply kit, offer training in Community Emergency Response Teams, and then take the blame when FEMA is not fast enough to help you?

When you read that story, why is are the homeowners not using their insurance to cover emergency housing?  Many homeowners and renters insurance policies pay for loss of use, including motel rooms.

OH, wait, they did not heed the warnings and chose to stay rather than leaving.

Do you have your 72-hour kit?  Do you have a plan?  Have you practiced the plan?  Have you helped your neighbor?

Weather Training announced #OKwx #AltusOK #tweko

The spring 2013 OK-First class schedule has been launched and we are
now taking applications for all classes! You can find the best class
for you at the following link:

http://okfirst.mesonet.org/news.php?event_id=440

For all of our current OK-First certified and assistant participants,
we strongly encourage you to apply to one of our 7 re-certification
classes, all of which will focus 100% on dual-polarization radar. Even
if you took a re-certification class as recently as spring 2012,
taking a spring 2013 re-certification class will help you make use of
the new dual-pol data that is now fully operational across Oklahoma as
of mid October (and the entire region will be done by mid April).

As a reminder, to keep OK-First access each agency's Certified
Participant is required to attend re-certification training at least
once every 18 months. While I don't like doing it, we do put accounts
on probation and de-activate them when this requirement is not met.

And as final piece of news to share - the Mesonet/OK-First team is
currently in the process of completely re-designing the OK-First
website. The new site will not be ready until approximately next
summer, but we are putting a lot of work into designing a brand new
data area (that can function on different devices), new training area,
and building a capability to eventually offer some online OK-First
classes. Stay tuned for that!

Please share this message with anyone in your office or anyone new to
OK-First who you think might be interested in the training and data
access.

Thanks for everything you do for our country!!

____________________________________
James Hocker
Program Manager, OK-First
Oklahoma Mesonet

Who has time for social media?

Over at LinkedIN, there's a PIO group:  #SMEM

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1932428&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

and one on LinkedIN

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1932428&type=member&item=76071533

One of the concerns I have about Social Media is, if we have PIO
groups on all, when will we have time to be Public Information
Officers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites is the
list of social media sites, excluding the dating sites.

If we say we are going to join only the "popular" ones, who decides
"popular" and when they become "unpopular" for one reason or another,
what then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_social_networking_websites
is a list of defunct sites, including three Yahoo attempts but it does
not list the announced exit of Google Buzz.

I am on the big ones ... Facebook (hate it but I'm here), Google+,
Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIN ... and still network on email groups both Yahoo and
Google. At some time, I am going to draw a line in the sand.

Have you drawn your line?

Where is it?