Take The Pledge: Seven Minutes For Seven Days To A Family Emergency Plan 

Release Date: April 20, 2012
Release Number: R7-12-007

» 2012 Region VII News Releases

Kansas City, Mo. – To kick-off the first annual National Severe Weather Preparedness Week, April 22-28, 2012, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region VII office is launching the interactive social media campaign Seven Minutes for Seven Days to a Family Emergency Plan.

National Severe Weather Preparedness Week is sponsored by FEMA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. It is a nationwide effort designed to increase awareness of how severe weather impacts individuals, families, businesses and communities.

In support of the week’s goals, Region VII’s social media campaign asks individuals to pledge to take just seven minutes of their day every day for 7 days to prepare a plan that could help their family survive an emergency.

“This campaign breaks the task of creating an emergency family plan down into simple, daily steps that can be accomplished in just a few minutes,” said Regional Administrator Beth Freeman, of FEMA Region VII. “Life can get really busy, but planning for the unexpected—which we’ve seen a lot of in the last year or so here in the Midwest-is just a really important part of protecting your family.”

Starting this weekend and throughout next week, Twitter users will be asked to be an example for their family, their friends and their community by tweeting a message that mentions “@FEMARegion7” in which they pledge to take the Seven Minutes for Seven Days to a Family Emergency Plan challenge.

The campaign will be explained in daily tweets on www.twitter.com/femaregion7 throughout this weekend. Then on Sunday and through next week, tweets—to be posted daily at 12 noon—will guide individuals through the process of how to create and tailor their family’s emergency plan.

Anyone with Internet access, regardless of if they have a Twitter account, can easily follow the daily messages and create a family emergency plan simply by typing this into their browser: www.twitter.com/femaregion7.

The daily tweets will link to FEMA’s Web site www.ready.gov/emergency-planning-checklists, which has all the same information that will be broken down into easy steps for campaign participants.

Also as part of the social media campaign, participants will be encouraged to ask questions (of @FEMARegion7 on www.twitter.com/femaregion7) about how to develop the family emergency plan, if they have them, and they will be answered by FEMA experts. Daily tips will be posted explaining how to tailor the plan to meet specific family needs. Participants in the campaign will be setting an excellent example to others, so when they help spread the word by retweeting or mentioning the posts, @FEMAregion7 will tweet their username and say “thank you.”

In this developing era of social media and the quick movement of information – particularly during times of disaster—FEMA realizes the importance of engaging the whole community in all levels of emergency management. The instantaneous delivery of social media provides a way to engage individuals now, before disaster strikes, so we can establish ourselves as a source for vital information throughout all phases of a disaster. This is another step in the direction of involving everyone—every individual is an emergency manager–in disaster response, recovery, mitigation and preparedness.

Visit FEMA Region VII online at www.fema.gov/region7. Follow FEMA online at www.twitter.com/femaregion7, www.twitter.com/fema, www.facebook.com/fema, and www.youtube.com/fema. Also, follow Administrator Craig Fugate’s activities at www.twitter.com/craigatfema. The social media links provided are for reference only. FEMA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies or applications.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

Last Modified: Friday, 20-Apr-2012 16:55:50