Overview of our site
We developed our website in early 2009, and organized the information based on our primary objectives.
Our objectives
- To inform you about the West Seattle Emergency Communication Hubs.
- To provide a springboard for other emergency preparedness information that can help you plan for a major emergency.
- To keep you up-to-date on West Seattle emergency preparedness efforts.
What will you find here?
Our home page — We added this landing page in 2013 when we migrated our site and converted it to WordPress. It provides quick access to the most popular features on our site including an embedded interactive Google map that shows the West Seattle hubs, the RSS feed from our Events Calendar, a USGS earthquake widget which shows recent west coast earthquakes above magnitude 2.5, the RSS feed of our ‘blog posts, and links to our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Welcome page – The Welcome page was formerly the home page of our site. If you haven’t visited our site before, the Welcome page is the best place to start…and it will lead you to the Overview of our site (this page you are reading).
What’s New – This section centralizes our new/recent information, since we have had some “growing pains” in the past few years. Our Event Calendar (which you also see on our home page) is linked from here. You’ll also find a link to the West Seattle Be Prepared ‘blog, which was launched in early 2011 and has since become our “go to” location for announcements, information about events and activities, and photos. We also have some earthquake-specific resources and translated versions of the hub maps in 8 languages linked from the drop-down menu on our ‘blog.
About the Hubs – In this section (see drop-down menu), you’ll find comprehensive information about the West Seattle emergency communication hubs, including maps and a FAQ. When we updated our site, we added videos that explain the various roles at a hub. You’ll also find new information about emergency communication hubs throughout Seattle (as of August 2014, there are 57 hubs throughout the city, with new ones to launch soon)!
Medical & First Aid – This section provides additional emergency-related details for residents of West Seattle (who may worry that we don’t have a major hospital here). Don’t miss our other two interactive Google maps that show area hospitals and veterinary clinics!
Resources – This section (see drop-down menu) includes links to official sources of emergency information, West Seattle news sources and other resources, planning tips and checklists, resources from other communities, training and safety information. There is useful information in this section even for those who don’t live in West Seattle!
Learn More and our Get Involved! sections — You’ll find information about our group and details about past events and disaster-readiness activities such as cross-neighborhood radio testing and more! These sections include previous activity reports on the Past Activities & Accomplishments page, (mostly organized by year), as well as some video and photos. You’ll find background information about the current West Seattle emergency communication hubs, as well as information about how new ones can be established. See the Call to Action page for ways you can help!
Not technically on our website, our West Seattle Be Prepared group page on Facebook is worth a mention here as we now have over 1300 members (as of January 2017)! You’ll find informational disaster planning and/or preparedness-related items, including some from scientific or community-focused sites. Join us!
Join us on Twitter too! It’s been used very effectively to help other regions that were hit by disaster. Tweet or follow us @wsbeprepared!
Need to find something quickly?
If you don’t see what you’re looking for, please get in touch! We ran into some issues with migrating our older videos, so those are currently missing from our site. Let us know if you find other issues.
Navigational note
Links that take you off our site open in a new window. Links within our site open in the current window, so you’ll need to use the back button.
Downloadable files
We’ve created printable maps (in .pdf format) of the West Seattle emergency communication hubs, as well as other useful documents; you can print them on standard letter (8.5 x 11 inch) paper unless otherwise noted. Most materials posted here on our website or on our ‘blog are in .jpg or in Adobe Acrobat .pdf file format. You can get a free .pdf reader from Adobe’s website if you need one. Note that many of these files are larger than 1 MB, so may take awhile to download depending on your connection speed.
