Situational Awareness --- theres an app for that

I have talked about planning, connecting with family and friends and one of the things I haven’t talked about at length is situational awareness.  As our friends at Wikipedia define it “Situation awareness involves being aware of what is happening in the vicinity to understand how information, events, and one's own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future.”  So it’s being aware.  How?

 It IS more than the 5 o’clock news; below I am going to list some websites and apps that you can use to become more “aware”.  Most are websites and apps (I am addicted to my I pad for awareness, and most of these apps are free) but you can just use the supplied web link to save in a folder in your favorites on your computer, you could name it…Situational awareness!

Site/explanation	Link
Weather Underground- one of the first web based weather sites. Lots of good info here	http://www.wunderground.com/
PDC World Disaster Alerts – List and shows physical disasters worldwide (one of my favorites)	http://pdc.org/iweb/disasteralert.jsp?subg=1
Wind Alert – important if you are someplace cold, or forest fires, or wind surfing	http://m.windalert.com/
Shelter View – Red Cross open shelter list. In case you need one, or a loved one calls from out of town, you can direct them in a disaster	http://app.redcross.org/nss-app/
FEMA – disasters & maps- where are declared areas, links to hurricane maps, flooding, etc	http://www.fema.gov/hazard/index.shtm
Tsunami Evac –shows inundation areas- certainly for per-planning before that beach vacation	Apple Store
The weather Channel – need I say more	http://www.weather.com/
BBC (British Broadcasting Company) its often good for an outside view of our news reporting	http://www.bbc.com/
Twitter- it’s not for teens anymore- Most local Emergency Managers are on twitter for emergency information at the very least. You can learn a lot by searching and picking and listening	https://twitter.com/

So there you have it, a beginners list for building situational awareness. Often times things that affect us begin far away, so it’s best to pay attention beyond the five o’clock news show. And remember by time it makes the 5 o’clock news its already old news.

disaster_dave