INSTEDD Open Source Emergency and Disaster Software
Emergency and disaster organizations with skinny budgets and big technology dreams, come on down! The nonprofit group INSTEDD—Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters—has developed a suite of open source software tools aimed at helping the emergency community improve resilience, communication networks, and response. With applications for mapping, modeling, data sharing, and communication, you’ll want to give these free tools a test drive. After all, the price is right.
NSF Recovery Act Documents
This page is one-stop shopping for everything you need related to the National Science Foundation’s recent stimulus boon. Find information on the Recovery Act and NSF programs, official NSF statements related to the act, and sign up for RSS feeds of the foundation’s weekly stimulus spending reports.
Firewise Firecamp
Turn your YMCA or local day camp into the next super hot hangout for middle schoolers with a little help from the Firewise Firecamp kit. The online curriculum has information on logistics, learning goals, organization, and lesson plans. Smokin’!
Planet Hazard
With all the discussion about global climate change and the worldwide efforts to stanch it, the climate crisis might seem a little far removed from daily life. Bring it home with Planet Hazard’s search of polluters in your neighborhood. Based on information from the Environmental Protection Agency, Planet Hazard will produce maps listing polluters, pollutants, and polluting industries by city, county, state, and nation.
Homeland Security Response Network
The newly launched Homeland Security Response Network is designed to get citizens and government talking about preparedness by offering a multitude of ways to communicate. From forums and chat rooms to blogs and Twitter feeds, there’s a host of social mediums to get your word out. And check out Intellispace, which promises to aggregate real-time social and traditional media during a disaster.
Undersea Tonga Eruption Photos
A picture’s worth a thousand words—enough said about this multi-source collection of photographs capturing the March 13 eruption of an undersea volcano near Nuku'alofa, Tonga.
The Stafford Act and Priorities for Reform
Is the Stafford Act a helpful guide in marking the line between federal and state disaster response responsibilities or a roadblock to rebuilding in the wake of really big events? Many have asked, and this report posted at Berkeley Electronic Press attempts to answer with an eye toward the act’s weaknesses, what causes them, and how they can be addressed.