Paragraph 1: As you’ve read through the articles and seen the media in regards to communicating risk during disasters, you’ve learned that risk and perceived risk is different for everyone based on many factors like education, past experiences, etc.

Think of some ways that residents may perceive risk prior to an impending hurricane like hurricane Michael, based on prior experiences; how would you communicate the level of risk to them when you are trying to communicate to an entire population or community all with different levels of experience, risk tolerance, education, etc.?

Paragraph 2: Over the past decade, social media has become more prominent in our society as a source of news, even becoming the main source of news for many.  This has also become the case for disseminating information for preparedness and response activities for different agencies across the board from daily emergencies to the less common large-scale disasters.

Agencies like the NYC MTA use Twitter to report train issues in real-time: https://twitter.com/NYCTSubway and NYC EM also uses Twitter for Notify NYC: https://twitter.com/NotifyNYC to notify NYC residents of planned exercises and unplanned events.

The younger population has taken up social media at a much faster pace than much of the older population. Think about how you would encourage and educate the older population in your community/city to take up social media outlets and use them to gain knowledge of emergency preparedness activities in your area?

Paragraph 3: Every community must prepare for and respond to hazardous events, whether a natural disaster like a tornado or disease outbreak, or a human-made event such as a harmful chemical spill. A number of factors, including poverty, lack of access to transportation, and crowded housing may weaken a communitys ability to prevent human suffering and financial loss in a disaster. These factors are known as social vulnerability.  Vulnerable populations often bare the largest burden during disasters due to their access and functional needs. 

Think about how you would communicate risk differently to socially vulnerable populations.  You can choose a specific vulnerability and address it directly or talk through it on a broader scale.