Don’t gatekeep these tips

Don’t gatekeep our best safety tips – share them with your whole family! All month long, we hope you share these preparedness tips with everyone! #NatlPrep #Ready Americans Stand Ready!

We hope you are widely sharing all these preparedness/safety tips. In fact, not only sharing, but also ASKING your communities to share within their communities too.

Our collective information is bee-hiving it a collaborating with way that is beneficial for all. Abd sharing information is good for any audience that we regularly engage with and perhaps reach a few that we don’t engage regularly with.

Additionally, weird that people think that a big city will thwart a tornado.

Truth be told, Mother Nature doesn’t care about size as she will send a tornado anywhere.

So keep this in mind as you educate others on the possible hazards.

Although they hear it from me all the time, my family gets regular weather updates from me all the time that I share from the NWS-Chicago and NWS-Honolulu teams. This way, they know they are getting the info from the foremost authority, not some self-proclaimed “expert/guru”.

So be consistent in sharing sourced information and regularly address concerns when there is severe weather inbound to your area.

Keep them informed and be one of the trusted sources of information for your family and friends.

@rusnivek

Being informed on the sich #NatlPrep

Day-2 of National preparedness month!

Being informed of the dangers and knowing what to do in an emergency is critical to the safety for you and your family. #NatlPrep #Ready Americans Stand Ready!

The hardest part of any emergency or disaster…is actually knowing what to do.

The theme of knowing the dangers and being informed is always an easy sell because the nature of our business is always changing. Compounding the problem even more is that every disaster/emergency is NOT the same.

One more time for the people in the back – no two disasters are alike.

This makes it challenging for Emergency Managers to urgently inform and educate their communities because the variability of preparedness will always be changing.

So take a few minutes more to appropriately educate your audiences on how to find the right info. I would suggest you start with severe weather in your locality…this way, you have a wide dearth of topics to cover.

Then, as they get more comfortable with the weather preparedness, then move them on to bigger sandwiches (like cyber threats, HAZMAT, or even active shooters etc…)

I see bright things for your preparedness efforts this year.

Go forth and do good stuff.

@rusnivek

Welcome to 2026 National Preparedness Month!

Kicking off an entire month of preparedness as we join partners from across the U.S. as we enhance your preparedness level for any emergency or disaster. #NatlPrep #Ready

September is always National Preparedness Month and it’s a great time to better your preparedness efforts.

This year’s theme is Americans Stand Ready so follow along all month long on social media.

BTW-Did you know that September is also:

  • National Recovery Month
  • Hispanic Heritage Month
  • Suicide Prevention Month
  • National Coupon Month
  • National Library Card Sign-up Month
  • National Potato Month
  • National Classical Music Month
  • National Chicken Month
  • National Service Dog Month
  • National Honey Month
  • National Rice Month
  • National Pain Awareness Month
  • National Mushroom Month
  • National Americana Month
  • National Sewing Month
  • National Mortgage Professional Month
  • National Piano Month

The more you know, the better you’ll be prepared right?!?

Esp in case of a hot potato or real chicken emergency. Boom!

And thank goodness it’s not Monday #NPM

IYKYK

Glad you are along for the ride. Let’s goooooooooooooooooooooo!

@rusnivek

Catastrophic flooding/avalanche in Nepal/Tibet

After closely following the avalanche in Nepal/Tibet that just occurred, I feel the worse is yet to come. By now, you’ve seen the videos of several areas being demolished and obliterated.

For the sake of trauma, I will NOT repost all these images or videos.

I am NOT on standby to go or deploy out to this area. And for those wondering, all of my current work is relegated to domestic assignments (within the US).

But let’s start thinking about the hazards and ramifications.

The ice shelf/avalanche seemly started this causing a debris flow to go down the side of the mountain. Many of these small towns line the river.

Well above the small towns, there appear to be a few tributaries and lakes that hold back the flow. But with all the debris coming down, the river and outlets gets blocked from the debris causing more challenges with flow control.

But when it finally gives from the pressure and the clogging of debris, the dams breach causing huge flash flooding to occur.

These cascading effects are common in disasters and rarely is it only one type of disaster responsible for immeasurable damages/loss of life.

Ostensibly, I’d like to think the local officials were aware of these issues prior and readied emergency messaging for all mobile devices in the area. This way, in case of catastrophic issue, they could be ready to send the evac notice to everyone.

As you know, most of that part of the world operates solely off mobile devices (not laptops, desktop computers) so I hope local officials were able to send out information early to those in affected areas.

IMHO, I think we will see thousands of causalities including many who will never be found.

It’s waaaay to early to tell how many teams will be needed to rescue or extricate/recover bodies but I hope many agencies are providing aide to those primary agencies.

Now might be a good time for your agencies to engage with your local emergency management agency to see how they can better position themselves and enhance their preparedness efforts with all other public safety partners.

@rusnivek

Midweek grooming!

Middle of the week pick me up as we round the corner to the 2026 National Preparedness Month!

Since we all know the star of the pet preparedness posts, we know KacyTheDog has to be fresh for all her glamour shots.

Just shy of her kabillionth birthday, I believe her adorable posts on pet preparedness has helped many be better prepared and ready for any emergency or disaster.

@rusnivek

Godzilla at Haneda airport?!?!?

How am I just finding out that Haneda Airport (Japan) has a gigantic statue of Godzilla on display for everyone to see!?!!??!

An official statue sanctioned by Haneda Godzilla Global Project – and it welcomes you too!

Dang it. I gotta figure out how I can get there to see her IRL.

My friends said it’s about 131 wide and over 20ft tall!

OMG OMG OMG

@rusnivek

Mother nature and her temper

It seems like Mother Nature has been beating the crap out of us lately with storm after storm after storm after storm…Maybe MAYBE she likes us again!??!!?

At least this week, it’s been a bit better.

Kinda. Well, at least we have good partners like NWS-Chicago to help forecast our efforts in the field. Their coordinated calls early on are definitely helpful esp with all these ongoing large scale events and public activities.

If you don’t already, consider following your local National Weather Service Office for critical weather information 24/7…..at no cost to you.

@rusnivek