The earthquake in Haiti is a devastating natural disaster, calling out for an international response. You can help by giving to the Red Cross here. It's also an important geological event, with key geographic information, and of a sort that Depiction can map very, very rapidly, especially with the Preparedness Add-on and data from the USGS. You can see how in our new video:

Depiction is reviewed in the November edition of QST Magazine*, and we're following that up with a special offer for QST readers, and a webinar for Amateur Radio Operators.

Tomorrow we're going to cohost, along with the Everett, Washington Department of Emergency management, the Everett Office of Neighborhoods, and the Snohomish County Red Cross, a new kind of disaster preparedness event.

Using Depiction, groups of people participating in the drill will make an emergency plan for "the Johnsons," a fictional family in North Everett. Then, an 8.0 earthquake hits, and the attendees will have to make decisions for the Johnsons, to get them through the crisis safely.

Today is the beginning of National Preparedness Month, and Depiction is proud to be a member of the National Preparedness Month coalition. We have some very cool things coming down the pipeline in the coming weeks, but for the moment, I wanted to take a moment and go over the three basic steps for preparedness, as described at Ready.gov--along with some thoughts on how Depiction might be useful.

Read the rest

September is National Preparedness Month, and Depiction is proud to be a member of the National Preparedness Month coalition. Depiction is being used by businesses, governments, emergency planners and more to prepare for and respond to disasters, and so we are excited about this opportunity to continue helping people become ready. Watch this space for news about the very cool things we have planned for National Preparedness Month.

Three stories this week popped out at me in the Disaster Resource Continuity e-GUIDE weekly email:

First, a company in Newark, CA (Risk Management System) has come up with a new earthquake simulation that is radically changing damage estimates for California and other prone areas (including the northwest). LA Bizjournal covered the story. This could affect insurance rates.

We have a new video up on YouTube, which shows a depiction of Stephen Flynn's scenario from Edge Of Disaster, chapter 4: "Disaster on the Delta".

Dateline: Grand Forks, ND. March 13, 2009

The National Weather Service is predicting a 50-ft surge in Red river around Grand Forks, ND. I wanted to play around with flood scenarios in Depiction, and I found great data to make this work. Click here to read more.