It is day 2 of the DEM team's deployment to support the Westchester County Department of Emergency Services. In this em4SF Blog our Deputy Director, Rob Dudgeon, shares his sentiment about two of the guiding principles of emergency management: step in where needed and support each other; and always learn. 

This em4SF Blog comes to us by way of Westchester County, New York, where our Deputy Director Rob Dudgeon and a team of fellow DEM'ers have been deployed to help the Westchester County Department of Emergency Services support its community's recovery from Hurricane Sandy. In this Blog, Rob Dudgeon shares his thoughts and observations about team's first day on the job.

The flag stands as a sentinel over a landscape strangely desolate. This is not the neighborhood I remember.

I am a native of Colorado. Born and bred on wildfires, flash floods and the occasional winter blizzard. Far different than the pesky hazards that plague the Bay Area. I've seen shelves empty from seven weeks of winter storms that delayed trucks hauling loads of groceries. I've seen avalanches from heavy, wet snows and landslides from nature-less burn scars. The first natural hazard I remember facing was a flash flood in my neighborhood. I remember once the waters had crested walking outside to see the river flowing, hell-bent, down the street.

Last April the San Francisco Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) conducted its annual citywide drill. For those of us who were there, wasn't it cool?! And for those of us who were not, join the Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN) Director Daniel Homsey, NERT Program Coordinator Lt. Erica Arteseros and Advisory Board Member Lynn Jacklevich and experience the camaraderie of this social preparedness activity. Want to feel the camaraderie first-hand?

As we commemorate the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, which took place at 5:12 a.m.