DisasterAssistance.gov is the official website devoted to helping disaster survivors. It’s a portal to help survivors locate more than 70 forms of assistance across 17 federal agencies via the internet using their desktop computer, tablet or mobile device. Using prescreening technology, DisasterAssistance.gov offers an anonymous questionnaire that generates a personalized list of assistance a survivor can apply for based on the answers. The site also provides other disaster-related information and resources to help before, during and after a disaster.

FEMA Encourages Families and Communities to Participate in National PrepareAthon! Day

Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is encouraging individuals, families, workplaces, schools, and organizations across the nation to take part in National PrepareAthon! Day on September 30th, 2015. Extreme weather is occurring more often across the United States, which is increasing the costs of natural disasters. According to a recent survey conducted by FEMA, fewer than half of Americans have discussed and developed an emergency plan with their household.

As part of National Preparedness Month and National PrepareAthon! Day, FEMA is encouraging everyone to develop and practice their family emergency plan to prepare for disasters that are known threats in their communities.

“The first step in preparing yourself and your family is learning the type of disasters that can happen where you live,” said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. “Your family may not be together when disaster strikes. Developing an emergency communication plan doesn’t cost a thing, and the time you’ve invested beforehand will make it easier for your family to reconnect.”

National PrepareAthon! Day is part of America’s PrepareAthon!, a nationwide grassroots campaign for action to increase community preparedness and resilience through hazard-specific group discussions, drills, and exercises. The campaign offers easy-to-implement preparedness guides, checklists, and resources to help individuals, organizations, and communities prepare for the types of disasters that are relevant to their area. People can take these simple steps to increase their preparedness:

Create a family emergency communication plan. Visit ready.gov/prepare and download Be Smart. Take Part: Create Your Family Emergency Communication Plan. Collect the information you need, decide on the places you will meet in case of an emergency, share the information with your family, and practice your plan.
Sign up for local text alerts and warnings and download weather apps. Stay aware of worsening weather conditions. Visit ready.gov/prepare and download Be Smart: Know Your Alerts and Warnings to learn how sign up for local alerts and weather apps that are relevant for hazards that affect your area.
Create an emergency supply kit. Be prepared for bad weather by creating an emergency supply kit for each member of your family. Visit ready.gov/build-a-kit for more ideas of what to include in your kit.

USDA and FEMA Partner on Summer Program

USDA STEM Camp partcipants make their presentations.

FEMA DAIP is not only a critical managing partner for the USDA on Disaster Assistance. FEMA also supported another USDA initiative, the Open Data Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) camp by providing USDA with valuable educational materials for the open data STEM camp focused on agriculture. FEMA’s Are You Ready disaster guidebooks were distributed to the students and used in their training as a key resource.

USDA is committed to providing USDA open data to federal, state, local, tribal, industry, academia, and the public to foster innovation, economic growth and improve American lives. The USDA Open Data initiative is referred to as OpenAg. To fulfill its mission, USDA must be positioned to provide outstanding services to its internal and external customers by recruiting, training, and retaining a world-class IT workforce that is flexible enough to meet rapidly changing business needs. Because information technology (IT) directly supports that mission, USDA needs to develop individuals with leadership competencies and a variety of emerging IT skill sets to continue its role as a dynamic organization capable of strengthening the American agricultural economy and building vibrant rural communities.

As a result, USDA partnered with GovLab/New York University and the Patriots Technology Training Center on this first of its kind Open Data STEM Summer camp.

USDA is tasked with providing national leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues. To support the USDA’s mission, the GovLab Academy designed and executed a dual pilot of a two-week open data summer program for Washington, DC-area teenagers. The goal of the camp is to help the leaders of tomorrow learn more about data, the tools of data science, and the ways they might be leveraged to improve innovation and security in the nation’s food supply and forest service. The camp provided an opportunity for USDA employees to support the goal of strengthening STEM education in this country by piloting an initiative that can be scaled and replicated across agencies and across levels of government.

Using data provided by the USDA agencies the camp participants worked on small, actionable projects linked to one or more key issues facing the USDA, in which teams of students had to find, qualify, and interpret relevant data, and then they were asked to create and present a compelling visualization of the data they have found and of its significance. The second group of students graduated on Friday, July 31st.

USDA thanks FEMA-DAIP for their continued support both as a managing partner, as well as supporting other initiatives, including the Open Data STEM summer camp.