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

Busy Saturday as we close out the Disaster Recovery Center in Sargent.

Additionally, our Mitigation Team working the magic to help many disaster survivors rebuild their homes so that they are more resilient.

Late afternoon meetings with the DIV/SUP and operational updates too. Glad to be able to support our partners.

Most definitely a busy Saturday as we continue the statewide recovery effort. Proud to serve.

@rusnivek

Aloha Friday is here so that means we have lotsa lotsa…meetings.

Charles-gimme a smile!

Planning meetings, Command and General Staff meetings, and of course…External Affairs can support the plan. (Also, glad to hear that Operations can execute the plan!)

So what really happens? What kind of things are we doing? On a Friday? LOTS!

• Translated documents into Somali.
• Targeted audiences
• Infographics
• PIO Quotes
• Updated stats/figures of our operations
• Burn rates
• FEMA personnel assigned
• Allocation of resources
• Community leader assessment
• EM Director discussion
• State SCO Conference
• FCO chat
• Medical refresher on stroke for EA staff
• PSAs
• Reporter questions
• Phoner interview
• Media monitoring
• Social media analysis
• PIO Rapid Response
• Training
• Daily reports
• And of course one required mandatory FEMA HR annual class

Yeah, that’s 8-hours. All of that in the Joint Field Office in the Joint Information Center.

Some may have the misconception that all we as PIOs is talk to the media, pretty face for the camera, and that’s it. NOPE. Hard-working truly dedicated PIOs have very little free time during any operational period.

Just glad to share a bit of the behind the scenes efforts.

Happy #AlohaFriday peeps!

@rusnivek

FCO – from acting EAO – passing command back to EAO Zuni!

Phew, no one dead under my watch.

More importantly, aside from Zuni assuming command and a briefing with the staff, the change of command has to be formal. While easy just to say F2F that someone else is assuming command, I would also make sure that is documented in the IAP and other formal forms of communications. I opted for the IAP, F2F, and then follow up with an email outlining date/time of formal change of command. See, all the stuff we talk about in our ICS classes – I actually do in the field because they do make a difference.

Besides, being informal leads to being sloppy…esp in a formal liability setting.

<Now back to the regularly scheduled programming PIOing!>

We continue to do the work in Sargent as we field more new registrations for disaster assistance.

Our field pros are out doing door-to-door assessments throughout countless communities.

“Statewide, we have over 6,800 applicants for disaster assistance. FEMA has awarded nearly $26 million to applicants from the FEMA Individual & Household Program.” – FEMA PIO Kevin Sur

and

“Just within the last 2 weeks, our Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams have completed over 2,500 home assessments in some of the hardest hit areas in multiple counties.” – FEMA PIO Kevin Sur

Whoa. Those are staggering numbers.

Firing on all cylinders, we are full strength as we push on through this recovery operation.

@rusnivek

Wednesday is the official opening of our Disaster Recovery Center in Sargent (Custer County). This includes the onboarding of our new FEMA Corps Gulf-5 team. We got a 3.5 hour drive to get to the site so let’s roll!

As usual, we have our FEMA Individual Assistance and Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams and FEMA Mitigation Teams onsite to help out anyone who has questions or wants to update their records.

Additionally, we partner with the Small business Administration, to provide added services for survivors.

We are fortunate to have Nebraska Strong to help with survivors needs and can provide an added listening ear for mental health.

You see, a Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) is more than just taking information and getting people registered. We look at our efforts as the all-Hazards response to community recovery.

And not just hanging out, we popped a quick interview with the Sargent Leader reporter Lawrence.

Glad to showcase some PIO skills to our Gulf-5 team as we conducted the interview in the DRC.

Excited to spend more time with our FEMA Corps Gulf-5 team as they integrate into our response/recovery planning.

Proud to have this outstanding bunch with us in External Affairs – I look forward to working with you in FEMA!

Reporting live from the heart of the state….

@rusnivek

Tuesday is here and we gotta hit the ground running.

Glad to see a few of our staff back from Puerto Rico as they demob from the Hurricane Dorian response.

Our Operations Section Chief brought some bright eyed new crew from FEMA Corps to External Affairs.

Love to see some new talent on our side as we beef up our numbers!

Midday, I was privileged to see a few new FEMA hires take the stage with our FCO.

All from various backgrounds, that is truly what makes our organization unique.

Welcome to the team peeps!

No time for rest because we gotta staff an interview. Phoner!

And Danielle wants a headshot…so I sent her this one.

But apparently, she wanted one that I was smiling. Ummmmmm, I was smiling – THAT IS HOW I SMILE!

So I hope this one was good enough.

Jeez these MMJs.

And for those that were wondering, here’s her story.

Busy Tuesday. Tomorrow we hit up our new Disaster Recovery Center in Custer county. Third straight week of DRC action to serve all survivors statewide.

No rest for the weary!

@rusnivek

Still deployed here.

I have always said that the response phase is easy…but disaster recovery is the hardest part.

However, we are all closely watching hurricane Dorian.

Don’t forget, September starts National Preparedness Month. I know many of you are chomping at the bit to try out your preparedness kits…

@rusnivek

Don’t you have off on Saturday?!? NOPE.

Disasters don’t take weekends off…nor do we.

After the morning brief, I headed back out in the field to Buffalo County to staff part-2 of the package with NTV (ABC affiliate) and KFXL (Fox Affiliate) Brandon Cortes on our ongoing recovery efforts at the Disaster Recovery Center.

Soooooo, this story will include our FEMA’s Individual Assistance Task Force Leader Ellershaw…

…and SBA Cynthia Crowell…

…and our FEMA Mitigation Teams….

…and of course, your favorite acting External Affairs Officer / Public Information Officer!

Special thanks to NTV (ABC Affiliate) and KFXL (Fox Affiliate) Reporter Brandon Cortes on today’s interview.

Great to work with people who live in the community and are dedicated to the serving fellow citizens.

Reporting live from our last day here in Kearney in Buffalo County…

@rusnivek