A few moments of peace before the big event tomorrow.
Looking forward to seeing everyone.
A moment of peace thanks Cromwell’s
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Author Archives: rusnivek
Vehicle vs pedestrian
Vehicle vs pedestrian = not a good outcome.
People – please be mindful as you walk in the cross walk. Please look both ways.
Drivers – please put down the phones and pay attention. Proceed with caution.
Free checklist for your preparedness efforts!
I often talk about preparedness efforts for any kind of emergency or disaster.
The hardest part is to get started in your effort…so grab a cup of coffee and get started today!
On a national scale, FEMA’s Ready.Gov program is a great start with several lists for FREE that you can use to get started.
Another great place to reference for any emergency or disaster is DuPage County OHSEM’s Emergency Preparedness‘s site that has a bunch of solid checklists as well as lots of links to other critical websites.
Regardless of where you live, your local Emergency Management Agency will help you hone your list to meet your needs.
Hope you got a good preparedness kit!
Another FEMA PIO Awareness course in Lake County Illinois
Another fine start to the FEMA PIO Awareness course here at Mundelein Fire Station 1!
Special thanks to DC Brents and the whole crew!
Lots to talk about as we intro the magic of public information to a new class. Of course we had a few words of wisdom from PIO John Nebl.
Great perspective and stories from Schaumburg Police.
If you were wondering, we are in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC)…so that’s a good thing.
Making your peeps train in the location that they would likely be activated to…is a solid practice.
With a diverse class, we are able to cover lots of topics and various situations. The all-hazards nature of this FEMA class allows us to better prepare our PIOs for any emergency.
Additionally, I love to share my experiences from large events and disasters with fellow colleagues from across the State of Illinois.
Training together better prepares us to coordinate and work together before, during, and after an emergency. That’s right, come on in and form Voltron.
Special thanks to all the staff from Mundelein Fire for the warm hospitality to our staff from the DuPage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Train like you fight!
A little breezy today – 4thOfJuly
A little breezy today.
Looks like Mother Nature is doing her part in helping celebrate – Happy #4thOfJuly Merica!
🇺🇸
Downburst with Thunderstorm at the EOC
Sometimes Mother Nature just wants to remind you of her power. Work this morning was a bit different as we saw the true power of how powerful a simple downburst can be.
As you can see, these gigantic trees were no match for the winds in excess of 50mph.
Like a pair of sticks, this thicc tree was split at the base, the thickest strongest point.
Dayum.
To give you some perspective of the size, take a look at this picture. See that Chief wearing the white shirt behind the tree? Yeah, that’s a big tree.
Keep in mind, there are two gigantic trees that instantly fell within seconds.
As you can see, our top notch ESF-03: Public Works pros are already at it with their chainsaw gang clearing priority paths for critical access.
For more detailed information on this downburst with severe thunderstorms, here’s the direct link to NWS-Chicago’s report: https://www.weather.gov/lot/2019Jul02_Severe
Stay safe and heed all the warnings of local public safety agencies.
You will…
Did you see this?
This is how we read and digest information differently.
While long form paragraph and detailed complex information needs to be communicated, I think the human brain doesn’t have the patience to wait. Our eyes are drawn to the headline.
Additionally, think about how you scrolled to take in this information too.
To catch the eye of your reader, write short, concise phrases.
July is here! #2019
July!!! 3Q and the start of the second half of the year is rolling! July will definitely be a busy one as
First week, lotsa planning including the IPEM and ICS re-certification process.
Second week popping a FEMA PIO Awareness course with my new friends at Mundelein Fire (Lake County, IL).
Third week is vacation. First one all year. Don’t bother me.
Fourth week, we got more on the ICS refresher and then a few more ICS classes including an ICS-400 course for our DoD partners and the Illinois Air National Guard.
Fifth week, we got more planning and fun with ICS, EM Courses, and the ramp up to a few brand new courses debuting with my office.
To recap, it’ll be an intense two region month with 5 and 9.
Hope to see you out there.
2019 Social Media Day with Grandma Hashtag
So in honor of 2019’s Social Media Day, I share the annual message from our very own Grandma Hashtag!
Here’s the link to her message: twitter.com/rusnivek/status/748707912206389249
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Day-2 of the FEMA Basic PIO Course here in KY
Day-2 of the FEMA Basic Public Information Officer Course here.
Glad to finally meet Lexington Fire Capt Jessica Bowman who is also one of the FEMA Master PIOs.
Great day to share some of the tools we use as PIOs. Here’s Sherelle and John talking about the importance and fashionable safety vests are for officials onscene.
Additionally, we discussed media being well visible as their safety is incredibly important. We can’t have our friends in the news business get hurt or become part of the incident.
And trust me, the more people who get injured in an incident, the more paperwork we all have to fill out….so be safe!
As usual, we had a very seasoned media panel from WLEX18 Bill Wilcox and Herald Leader Peter Baniak. Many thanks to both news organizations to spend time out of their busy schedule to spend with PIOs from across the state.
With all Basic PIO classes, we talk about the ability and flexibility for PIOs to do field reporting. Often times, reporters can’t get to a scene because of traffic or lack of staffing. Either way, we as government PIOs can help them out by packaging information they need from the scene. The tools needed to produce this kind of info is fairly easy to get, however the challenge is to put them into play.
By sharing the tactics and tools in class, I am able to improve the skills of any PIO by enhancing their ability to share solid timely and TRUSTED information with any of the targeted audiences.
As PIOs, we are beholden to so many audiences.
- Public
- Media
- Leadership
- Our internal teams.
At times, our job seems easy however once you dive into it, you can see the complexities of our efforts.
Don’t worry, we reviewed all mock on camera interviews. Tackled key concepts like redirects as well as some tips on how to give more positive non-verbals while being interviewed during crisis.
Super fun day with everyone. Lots of contributions from our partners from Fire, EMS, Police, Emergency Management, Energy, Coroner’s Office, Higher Education, Search and Rescue.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s FEMA JIC/JIS course!
Reporting live from the EOC….
@rusnviek
Where is @rusnivek? 