Emergency Preparedness Google Tools: Public Alerts
Google just announced the release of Google Public Alerts:
Public Alerts provide warnings for natural disasters and emergency situations. They appear based on targeted Google searches, such as “Hurricane Sandy”, or with location-based search queries like “New York.” In addition to the alert, you’ll also see relevant response information, such as evacuation routes, crisis maps or shelter locations.
You can see current alerts at http://google.org/publicalert
A pretty sweet feature on the the Google Public Alert homepage is the ability to search for disaster trends for your state or province. Put in your state and you will see how many alerts have gone out for hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, forest fires, blizzards and floods.
Action Item:
YourPreps Category:
Communication
There is a service through Verizon as well. A few months back it was 10PM and I was sitting on my couch watching a movie when I got an emergency alert on my phone about a tornado warning in my area. I was surprised because I wasn’t expecting bad weather at all. Luckily my area was not hit by the tornado, but I was grateful to be on alert-mode. I will have to check out the Google Alert service now, too, because Verizon only sent a warning, but provided no emergency information.
Lindsey: It’s good to know that Verizon is offering an alert service to their subscribers. Technology and disaster notifications are amazing and they are some of the reasons that we have less fatalities in America due to natural disasters.
Services like the one you mentioned and apps from Google and the Red Cross are great since they give us so many options through a device that many people are never without. But mobile phones and the services they rely on can break or get overwhelmed. Because of that, for your home we also recommended adding a standard weather radio to your preps.
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