Mayfield, Norcorss launch website to inform public

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HurricaneJoe22
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Mayfield, Norcorss launch website to inform public

#1 Postby HurricaneJoe22 » Mon May 14, 2007 10:24 pm

http://www.miamiherald.com/574/story/105301.html


EMERGENCIES
Prominent forecasters launch 1-stop storm help on Web
A new website for local and national emergency advisories will be introduced at this week's hurricane conference in Fort Lauderdale.

BY MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@MiamiHerald.com

Two of the nation's most prominent hurricane forecasters are launching a new crusade to help Americans deal with storms and other disasters -- and they hope to enlist recruits during this week's major hurricane conference in Fort Lauderdale.

''This may be the most important thing I've ever done,'' said Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County.

He and television forecaster Bryan Norcross are developing an Internet clearinghouse for preparedness and post-disaster advisories issued by government emergency managers in South Florida and around the nation.

Those messages include prestorm tips and evacuation orders, post-storm updates about rescue operations and relief distribution sites, and crucial information about terror attacks or other non-weather disasters.

''This will be like a national disaster network,'' Mayfield said.

The system is called America's Emergency Network and a prototype will be demonstrated for the first time at the Governor's Hurricane Conference, one of the largest gatherings of disaster-response experts in the country.

More than 4,000 emergency managers, forecasters, vendors and state and local officials are signed up to attend the weeklong conference that begins Monday at the Broward County Convention Center.

Norcross, WFOR-CBS 4's hurricane specialist, said free access to the new website will be provided to emergency managers, the public and the media, but he and Mayfield are lining up corporate sponsors and hope to be paid for their roles eventually.

''What we are creating is a presence for emergency management to let them push their information to people locally and to major communication centers so accurate and complete information reaches the public,'' said Norcross, whose work during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 earned him regional praise and national recognition.

Too much of that emergency information is squandered and never reaches the public, he said. It often is issued at sparsely attended news conferences that conflict with other, more important developments that dominate media coverage.

In addition, many cities are establishing their own disaster centers, even though emergency management tends to be controlled in Florida by state and county officials.

''No newspaper or TV station can possibly send reporters to cover all the emergency operation centers,'' said Mayfield, who retired from the hurricane center in January and now works for WPLG-ABC 10 as a hurricane specialist and for Florida Power & Light as a preparedness spokesman.

He, Norcross and several partners are dividing their website into subsections so each participating state, county and municipal agency has a designated but central place to post time-critical information, including video news conferences and audio material.

Residents and the news media will be able to navigate to those sites and find all relevant information -- live or archived -- waiting for them.

Assuming, that is, they have electricity and Internet access.

Emergency operations centers have backup power, so posting the information before and after a disaster shouldn't be a problem. But many residents might not be able to access that information after a power-cutting disaster.

Norcross and Mayfield acknowledge that, though they note that many news operations and residents also have backup generators. In addition, people in distant locations may be able to relay the information to relatives and friends inside the affected area.

Initial response from the emergency management community has been favorable, they said, and they hope the site will begin operating during the six-month hurricane season that begins June 1.

Norcross said South Florida's experience after Hurricane Wilma made it clear that a better system was required.

''After Wilma, we didn't know at the station what was going on in North Miami, for instance, because the cellphones were out and the information wasn't posted in a place we could find it,'' Norcross said.

''After the fact, I heard that they had plans and procedures to distribute supplies,'' he said, ``but we couldn't tell people that because we didn't know it.''
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#2 Postby theworld » Mon May 14, 2007 10:42 pm

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#3 Postby JonathanBelles » Tue May 15, 2007 4:47 am

ooOooo That it a very good idea. Now I dont have to search for road data.
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