The District of Columbia alert system (Alert DC) has just notified me that Tropical Storm Fay is no longer a threat to Washington D.C. The problem is that it never bothered to tell me in the first place that it could be one.

Almost immediately after FEMA released one year late its draft housing strategy, fingers blamed the agency of crafting an inconclusive strategy that delivers an incomplete approach for such a critical issue. From what I have been able to read so far, I agree with most critics that this is a half baked, uncommitted report. But that is precisely the whole point: not until the Federal network takes responsibility, clarifies FEMA's mission, and related excuses, will these reports add much significant substance to the issue. It is not only in the organization recent history that the downfalls of this system are exposed, but in particular as it relates to disaster housing. FEMA both enjoys and suffers the grey zone of its congressional mandate. In order to clarify responsibilities, and future actions, the Stafford Act that legitimizes FEMA is critically what needs to change to start a different process.

The fourth Monday of July marks the traditional start of hurricane season in the Virgin Islands. Hurricane Supplication Day is in fact celebrated as an official holiday in the U.S. part of the archipelago with dedicated services and praying around the idea of hurricanes landing on the islands. Deeply interwoven with religion, the day helps to ingrain a common notion of risk, and a community desire to be avoid the damages that a hurricane may carry. In short, the holiday may operate as a popular day in disaster preparedness.

InterAction and USAID have launched the Pandemic Preparedness Capacity Project to help prevent and understand pandemic disease outbreaks, in particular bird flu. The project platform has been crafted by Development Seed over open source technology with a great range of functionality for system administrators to access and manage data. The project offers a tremendous departing point to build up a platform to share knowledge and resources in order to prepare for pandemics. The bigger challenge remains in generating the needed conversation to see the effort grow to its full potential.

A new system to alert of domestic accidents for the elderly and disabled looks to self-sufficient digital monitoring, linked to SMS warnings. "Eldercare" has been developed by a team at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid, which proposes to use artificial vision to detect falls or fainting when the elderly are alone at the residence. Automatic detection triggers an alarm for the system to send SMS-MMS to relatives or a healthcare emergency center. The system aims to shorten response times eliminating the risk associated with slow reactions. Such a solution poses technological, access, and severe privacy related challenges, which will require careful attention.

A disputed failure in the service of Euskaltel - the leading phone provider in the Basque Country - leaves users out of coverage for well over 7 hours. Besides the effect on private communications, and the problems associated with that lack of capacity, the most critical problem lies elsewhere. The collapse also affected the access to SOS Deiak, the local emergency number.

The Spanish Ministry of Health has announced their public campaign to help prevent a possible heat wave this summer, and protect in particular those more vulnerable, such as children and the elderly. The initiative has been too quickly labeled as a very innovative effort to prevent the worst effects of heat waves, in particular around the main idea of using SMS notifications for weather alerts. However, on this occasion the emphasis on a misguided use of mobile communications may gloss over the actual limitations of the campaign.