Active Teams

ACTIVE in the United States:

NEW MEXICO (NM)

OSBOURNE VOST  / Los Ranchos EM

Supporting: USA – NEW MEXICO - ALBUQUERQUE - Los Ranchos
Osbourne is the Founding VOST, est. March 2011
More info:
A Brief History of Osbourne
Official Sites:
Facebook: Los Ranchos EM
Blog: Osbourne’s Corner
Contact: Jeff Phillips, Emergency Management Coordinator at Los Ranchos de Albuquerque @LosRanchosEM

NEW YORK (NY)

NY VOST / Suffolk County FRES

NY VOST primarily supports Suffolk County FRES (Fire Rescue and Emergency Services) on Long Island NY.

Suffolk County Government – Ways to Stay Informed: http://bit.ly/scoemVOST - scroll to the bottom for #SMEM links
Connect with us on twitter @NYVOST , Facebook and for activation status and team updates, visit www.nyvost.vosg.us.

Other resources currently in development include: YouTube

Contact: Joanna Lane, NY VOST Team Lead @joannalane

2012 ACTIVATIONS:

  1. Hurricane Sandy – October 25th to November 4th, with surge support from Humanity Road Volunteers.
  1. November Nor’Easter – Pre-op November 5th and 6th, activated November 7th to November 8th.

OKLAHOMA (OK)

OK VOST / Altus OEM

Supporting: USA – OKLAHOMA – OKLAHOMA CITY - City of Altus OEM and The National Weather Service in Norman, OK
What Is The Oklahoma Crisis Mappers Virtual Operations Support Team?
Virtual Operations Support Teams: Using Social Media to Promote Situational Awareness
Contact: John Butler, Team Leader, City of Altus (OK) EMA VOST @okcalvin , Lloyd Colston, City of Altus Emergency Management Director @kc5fm Team Twitter: @OKVOST  Activations

  • 2012 April Tornados
  • 2012 May Storms

US NATIONAL ACTIVE TEAMS

ERIKSEN VOST / PORTLAND NIMO

Supporting: USA – National Contact: Kris Eriksen, Public Information Officer, Portland National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) @kriseriksen

Activations

  • 2011: Shadow Lake Fire, Oregon

EPIC Case Study: Trial By Fire Kris Eriksen Podcasts: National Interagency Fire Center: Part 1 / Part 2 

  • August 2012: Barry Point Fire, Oregon

Transitioned to PNW2 VOST on August 16th

  • September 2012: Washington Smoke Information

Supporting city, county, tribal, state and federal agencies to coordinate and aggregate information for Washington communities affected by wildfire smoke. http://wasmoke.blogspot.com/

PNW IMT2 VOST / PNW2

Pacific Northwest 2 VOST. Primarily associated with a National Incident Management Team to help manage the response efforts of large scale natural disasters. These teams are made up of members from many local, state and federal organizations and respond to emergency needs throughout the United States. the IMTs are national incident management teams – they are not just fire-related. They manage response to large scale disasters and are interagency.

As well as being called out for wildfires, IMTs have also deployed for hurricanes, the WTC in 2001, and the Columbia Shuttle recovery effort.

Team Twitter: @PNWVOST

Facebook

Contact: Marlita Reddy-Hjelmfelt, Team Lead @TheRedElm

Activations:

  • August 2012: Barry Point Fire, Oregon

Transitioned from Eriksen’s VOST on August 16th 201

www.pnw2.com
www.inciweb.org/incident/3105/#
www.fs.usda.gov/fremont-winema

e-mail: barrypointorfire@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BarryPointOrFire
Twitter: www.twitter.com/barrypointfire
Word Press: www.barrypointorfire.wordpress.com

  • September 23rd – October 5th, 2012 : Table Mountain Fire (Gibbons/Whittington):

http://www.tablemountainwafire.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/TableMountainWAFire
https://twitter.com/TableMtnWAFire
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tablemountainwafire
http://pinterest.com/TableMtnWAFire/

PNW IMT3 VOST

Official Site

Contact: Jeff Phillips @_JSPhillips, Shannon O’Brien, Information Officer, PNW IMT3

Activations:

  • July 13th 2012: #LongDraw #ORfire

http://longdrawfire.wordpress.com/about/

WASHINGTON (WA)

CRESA VOST

CRESA VOST helps CRESA, Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency, monitor & share information during emergencies in Clark County, SW Washington.

Official site: http://cresa911.org/
CRESA VOST Application
What is CRESA VOST? 
Team Twitter: @CRESAVOST

Contact: Cheryl Bledsoe @CherylBle, Eric Frank @fyrechief

ACTIVE – Rest of the World:

NEW ZEALAND

NZ VOST

Supporting: NEW ZEALAND (NZ) – WELLINGTON

Blog: http://nzvost.vosg.us/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NZVOST
Team Twitter: @NZVOST

Contact: Caroline Milligan, Team Lead @mm4marketing SMEM.co.nz Inquire by email

Activations:

  • November 21st 2012: Volcanic eruption at Te Maari Craters, Tongariro

VOSTs in Development

The following teams are in development, potentially in development and/or participating worldwide in The VOST Leadership Coalition:

North America - USA

ARIZONA (AZ)

Arizona Emergency Management

Official Site

Contact: Ethan M. Riley, Public Information Officer, Division of Emergency Management, State of Arizona

CALIFORNIA (CA)

ALLIED AGENCIES VOST

Team Twitter: @AAVOST

Contact: Chris Hall, Team Leader @thefiretracker2 Autotelic-Connector-Social Media Ronin-HiTech startup Vet x5-Recovering Volunteer-FD Board Member (Ret.) MRC/CERT

OC VOST/ Orange County OEM

Supporting: Primarily Orange County Emergency Management Bureau

Contact: Mary Jo Flynn, Team Leader, @MaryJoFly

Team Twitter: @OCVOST 

COLORADO (CO)

Jefferson County VOST / Jefferson County

Jefferson County Type III Incident Management Team
Contact: Nathan Hunerwadel @SMEM911

HAWAII (HI)

HAWAII VOST

Facebook Group

Team Twitter: @HawaiiVOST
Contact: Burt Lum @bytemarks

ILLINOIS (IL)

IL VOST

Team Twitter: @ILVOST
Contact: Robert Dunne @Academy911

NEW MEXICO (NM)

TAKAI VOST

Karen Takai, Fire Information Officer at Sandia Ranger District

Contact: Jeff Phillips @_JSPhillips

NORTH CAROLINA (NC)

Winston-Salem

Contact: Kay Endriss, AP Statistics, Systems Modeling. Standby Task Force. CERT. @ekendriss

PENNSYLVANIA (PA)

PMRC VOST

Philadelphia Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) VOST. Primarily associated with public health emergency JIS response, but intention is to train and exercise for all hazards.

Contact: Jim Garrow, Philadelphia Department of Public Health Operations and Logistics Manager,  @jgarrow

PREPARE PUGET SOUND VOST

Supporting: USA – WA – Puget Sound Region

Contact: Pascal Schuback @schuback

WISCONSIN (WI)

BROWN County

Contact: Cullen Peltier, Director – Brown County Emergency Management @cspeltier

US NATIONAL TEAMS

ALASKA (AK) IMT / Alaska Division of Forestry VOST

Official Site

Contact: Maggie Rogers, State Fire Operations Alaska Fire Service Information Twitter: @AK_Forestry, Noah Huttinger @NoahSCFN, Jeff Phillips @_JSPhillips

National Institute of Health / Montgomery CERT

Contact: Steve Peterson, Emergency Management Specialist at National Institutes of Health Washington D.C. Metro Area

Montgomery County CERT 

National Weather Service

Contact: ABQ Kerry Jones, Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NOAA/NWS @peakwx and for El Paso, Texas (TX) TimeBrice, a meteorologist who works for the National Weather Service @timbrice17

 

North America – CANADA

CAN VOST

Building coast-to-coast-to-coast networks of EM, first responders and volunteers to help gather virtually and assist emergency management organizations, municipalities and agencies (such as the Red Cross, 2-1-1 and others) when disasters strike. Key functions (and many more could be added) could include:

  • monitoring social media for reputation-al threats and enhanced situational awareness
  • engaging on social networks on behalf of, and with the key messaging provided by, the activating agency/organization
  • acting as liaison with the Volunteer Technical Communities who provide crowdsourcing and crisis mapping support during disasters or exercises (such as Standby Task Force, CrisisCommons and Crisis Mappers).

Creating a Canadian Virtual Operations Support Team

CanVOST Members 

Contact: Patrice Cloutier, Team Lead, Strategic Communications, Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services @patricecloutier

AUSTRALIA

VICTORIA

VIC VOST / CFA VICTORIA

SMEM Presentation: The integration of social media into emergency service procedures in Victoria, Australia. The social media integration work was awarded the 2012 Australian Government 2.0 Excellence in eGovernment Award and Martin Anderson is the 2012 Australian Government 2.0 Innovator of the Year.

Team Twitter: @VICVOST
Official Site
Facebook
Contact: Martin Anderson, Digital Media Manager, CFA (Country Fire Authority), Victoria, Australia. @krjmanderson

EUROPE

UNITED KINGDOM VOST

This project aims to develop a model of VOST that works for the UK, that “Category One Responders” can feel confident in, and that is able to add value to emergency response in the UK.

http://www.vostuk.org - Official Website

Team Twitter: @VOSTUK

Contact: Ben Proctor. Provides training, consultancy and exercise design around social media and other online technology in emergencies.@likeaword

Digital Volunteer Groups

The following are participating in the VOST Leadership Coalition to explore possible areas of collaboration with VOST:

AMERICAN RED CROSS

Partnering with Dell, the American Red Cross launched a digital operations center on March 7th 2012.

Contact: Wendy Harman @wharman

LOS ANGELES RED CROSS CHAPTER

Contact: Alex Rose @u62

HELP FOUNDATION

Official Site 

Contact: Erika Lamberth @thehelpfoundation, Tony Lamberth @tonylamberth

HUMANITY ROAD

Humanity Road’s mission is to educate the public before, during and after disasters on how to survive, sustain and reunite with loved ones.

Official Site

Contact: Christine Thompson @redcrossmom , Cindy Becker @cinbee

Other Entities & Groups in the SMEM Movement

The following entities and groups have related interests in using social media for emergency management, but have different missions.

EMCampNM: 

http://emcampnm.wikispaces.com http://www.facebook.com/emcampnm http://www.twitter.com/emcampnm Founded in 2010, Emergency Management Camp New Mexico is an all-volunteer group for those interested in fostering use of social media in emergency management (SMEM) throughout NM. Contact: Marlita Reddy-Hjelmfelt, Tech Consultant and Founding Member of EMCampNM @TheRedElm

Stand by Task Force:http://blog.standbytaskforce.com/

The SBTF is not an organization, it is a platform, a shared space for those who have skills to offer (or are willing to learn skills) to assist crisis affected communities through the use of crowdsourcing and mapping technologies.

Crisis Mappers:http://crisismappers.net/

Crisis Mappers network leverage mobile & web-based applications, participatory maps & crowdsourced event data, aerial & satellite imagery, geospatial platforms, advanced visualization, live simulation, and computational & statistical models to power effective early warning for rapid response to complex humanitarian emergencies.

Crisis Commons:http://crisiscommons.org/

CrisisCommons seeks to advance and support the use of open data and volunteer technology communities to catalyze innovation in crisis management and global development. CrisisCommons actively supports CrisisCamp, a barcamp event, which seeks to connect a global network of volunteers who use creative problem solving and open technologies to help people and communities in times and places of crisis. The Wiki is where they collect notes, plan projects, and capture and share information.

 

VOST LOGO:

VOSTs in “Active” status may use and adapt the VOST Logo on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Use by VOSTs in development or offline for seminars, webinars, training, conferences, presentations, merchandise, apps, marketing, and the like are by request to be cleared in writing in advance by VOSG.us. We’re a new movement, hence things have to be reviewed on a case by case basis. Further details here.