Back at it because there is no rest for the weary. Welcome to ICS-300 here at DuPage County OHSEM! Here’s DuPage County OHSEM’s Director Murray Snow welcoming everyone to the start of our class.

Glad to see so many of our partners here to learn and contribute good disaster information. Participants from 4 counties and 12 different municipalities from across the State of Illinois.

Being the first agency to deliver the new 2019 version of the ICS courses in Illinois, we are able to showcase the efforts of Emergency Management through collaboration and coordination.

New version also has more time for classroom activities and group work.

Using the infamous….I mean famous Central City, we are able to work through several scenarios to help better allocate resources to any disaster or emergency. And unifying efforts on any disaster can make all of us more agile in response/recovery.

As we continue on, we talk about transfer of command, unified command, hit up some SMART Objectives, and critical PIO activities that can help pass information on to other partners in public safety.

Glad to share this information with our most trusted partners from across the State of Illinois.

As we continue to nurture solid discussion, we want to be cognizant of our agency’s contributions to the effort. We discussed Type-5 incidents that eventually turn into Type-1 incidents and the disaster pace of the escalation.

Hard discussions about effective response vs response and how much emotion plays into command efforts. In fact, we had some debate about comfort level and experience in an actual disaster.

Trust me, you can’t be picture perfect in a disaster.

Things will inevitably go wrong and your measure of a pro is how you respond accordingly. And believe you me that you are being judged as soon as you enter into theatre. No second guesses.

And yes, I’m wearing a tie. Calm down..

Looking forward tomorrow to day-2 of ICS-300!

@rusnivek

Despite the response effort…

Despite the challenges…

Despite the job…

Despite the disaster…

The one consistent factor that affects all deployments….is family.

Families across the US support their loved ones as they deploy out for days, weeks, months, and years. Regardless of service and disaster, families support those who are deployed – and proudly support their work wherever they are.

We all owe our gratitude and love for our families.

I cannot thank my family enough as they are the main drive that allows many deployed pros like me to do a job that I love.

Much alohas.

@rusnivek

Thank you to all of our most trusted public safety partners in Nebraska!

Now pulling my 1918554 T-card…

…ATT, FEMA PIO demobilizing.

@rusnivek

As we finalize the declaration period for disaster assistance, I wanted to take a few moments to recognize my FEMA team that worked the magic behind the scenes for all of Nebraska.

Say hello to my 2019 Nebraska Disaster Flooding FEMA External Affairs Team!

L to R: Donna, Tarisha, Cynthia, Charles, Rosie, Zuni, Jay, Fabian, @rusnivek, and Jessica.

This team worked tirelessly to help all 28 counties and one tribal nation recover from the ics jams, straight line winds, and catastrophic flooding across the State of Nebraska from March through July.

I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of the FEMA External Affairs efforts by everyone in the Joint Information Center (JIC). Not only playing their primary roles, but also several other roles as our staff got chopped due to the ongoing response to Hurricane Dorian.

Proud to share information to support all disaster survivors.

It was NOT easy covering the entire state as the lone FEMA PIO, however a strong External Affairs staff makes my job as the PIO much easier all thanks to the help from the JIC.

Trust me, one individual alone cannot make magic happen.

It takes a strong team with the same mission to make magic happen.

A rising tide raises all ships.

Catch you on the next big one peeps!

@rusnivek

Today is the last day to register for disaster assistance!

That’s right, you can still register by calling 800-621-3362 or going online at www.disasterassistance.gov

“Reporting live from the field, FEMA PIO Kevin Sur….back to you in the studio.”

@rusnivek

Ahhhh Thursday!

To help remind disaster survivors across the State of Nebraska, now on a last minute interview with NPR/NET Nebraska.

Thanks for the interview Kelsey!

We continue to share the efforts of the recovery process on Thursday.

@rusnivek

We as a nation will never forget September 11th.

Our mission is clear.

Our duty is to remain vigilant and provide protection.

We stand resolute w/ our partners in public safety across this great nation 24/7/365.

Reporting live from the heartland of America..

#PIO @rusnivek

Solid Tuesday start with an interview with 3 News Now (CBS affiliate) Omaha.

Today’s story will focus in on protecting our disaster survivors against fraudsters and scam artists. So it paid off when MMJ Ruta Ulcinaite called and wanted to schedule an interview.

Lots of questions on how to make sure visitors are really FEMA official employees…

…informing our audiences that FEMA employees never ask for money….

…and of course letting the public know we work closely with public safety agencies when issues like this come up.

And if you are going to ask, we’ve had multiple reports of people falsify information and are trying to defraud disaster survivors. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

It is imperative that we work with our partners in the media to get the word out to protect their viewing audiences on what to do and how to combat the mis-information for any disaster survivor.

Since our efforts are statewide, we have to reach a wide audience including TV, radio, newspaper, social media, etc….countless ways to communicate on ALL mediums. As the Public Information Officer (PIO) – it is your job to be the face of the agency as we continue to support the recovery efforts here for the 28 counties and one tribal nation.

Our efforts at FEMA are committed to helping these community before, during, and after a disaster.

Reporting live from the Joint Field Office with Ruta….

@rusnivek

Did someone say NET? NPR? PBS?

Glad I was able to finally make a stop here at NET Nebraska.

Dennis provided a quick walking tour and showcased their toys here in Lincoln.

WTF!

OMG….That. Is. Awesome. I would have never expected the NPR/PBS station to have this caliber of TV production!

Not only all the bells and whistles for infield production, but also studio time too!

Obv a HUGE venue that is modular to handle large press briefings with perfect sound, lighting, and all kinds of digital support.

Staff also relays the long time shows for production like the Backyard Farmer, the longest running locally-produced television series in the nation just celebrated it’s 67th season on NET.

All shot in studio or on location with NET Nebraska.

Outstanding support for a local show including the ability to flex up and do remote shows.

Great to see local support for a station that gives back to their community with meeting space, tours for kids, and of course solid programming for everyone.

Looking forward to sharing their documentary on the Nebraska disaster response “And the Floods came…”

@rusnivek

Closing out this Disaster Declaration, we want to make sure we hit all of our identified audiences. We’ve done lots of TV, radio, and newspaper interviews…but we still believe there is great benefit in the Public Safety Announcement or PSA.

In my deployment bag, I have a small hand-held voice recorder just for this reason. This little device has some seriously good audio quality and once I’m done recording the audio, I can plug the connecting USB into my compute and send it off via email in an MP3 format. Here’s an example of what a newer version of mine looks like.

So I guess you can say it’s a workable dongle.

However, I expect more out of my PIO peeps.

Most analog stations don’t have conversion software…esp in a disaster.

Does anyone have an MP3 player? (Still downloading from Napster?)

Wav files are waaaaay to big to send via email. (If you try to zip or condense, you will easily degrade the file.)

So you want another solution? YouTube it! The world currently uses YouTube as a verb so why not use tech to your advantage. A quick upload and splice w/ a screen shot of topic, duration, and key points is best.

Here’s our two PSAs that we are using 30-seconds and 15-seconds respectively.

and

Simple, nothing fancy, but news agencies can pull that PSA right off YouTube and use. Additionally, you can use YouTube’s analytics to measure downloads and other deets. Document, document, document right?!?! Proof is in the pudding…I mean analytics.

So how did we do this?

Step-1: Standard contrast picture (I took a picture of the wall).

Step-2: Overlay text graphics over background. Make sure contrast is clear and key info can be seen to reinforce key message being read by talent.

Step-3: Splice the audio-track over still picture.

Step-4: Upload to YouTube!

Step-5: Have another sip of coffee.

No need for a pro studio bec we don’t have that kind of luxury in the field. So here’s the down/dirty setup.

Awwww yeah. Lapel mic + phone holster + pillow = success. The pillow deadens the echos and the mic clipped to phone holster allows talent to project his/her voice as opposed to talk down to their chest.

And trust me, the natural mic on your phones will not do a good job (omni-directional w/ arbitrary sound isolation).

Sunday rest? Nope. External Affairs is continuing the hard charging effort meet the objectives set in this operational period.

@rusnivek