As technology continues to redefine emergency management practices, the process of incorporating new concepts into daily practice and planning can be confusing. This is especially true if the concept sounds mysterious and cryptic — cloud computing often sounds complex
and bewildering.

The truth isn’t nearly that exciting. Cloud computing is more like regressing to the early days of network design. The “cloud” in cloud computing was the symbol network engineers used to illustrate unknown domains and large networks of servers located elsewhere. Using the power of other computers somewhere on the Internet — that’s what cloud computing is all about.

“Cloud computing is just hosted computer services,” said Pascal Shuback, a program coordinator for the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management. “It is simply using the power of other computers on the Internet.”

Read more @ emergencymgmt.com

Here at FEMA, we continually emphasize the importance of including and meeting the needs of the whole community. A principle foundation in emergency management is to continually take into account, understand, and support the needs of the entire community in the work that we do. It’s important for all of us to plan for the true, diverse makeup of our communities, and every day we make strides closer to achieving this goal. (more…)