Emicus is the initial product for U.S. Emergency Operations Center Inc. The company’s mission is to fill a critical gap. While 91 percent of Americans live in areas of the country prone to moderate to high-risk of natural disasters, there is no central source of online preparedness or disaster information. Sources of real time data are minimal at best and today’s social media are hardly utilized. Research shows that both individuals and home businesses often fail to have a plan in place to cope with a major catastrophe. Information on how to prepare and secure your home or business for a disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake, though helpful, is scattered all over the Internet. When a disaster strikes, direct communication from government officials and relief agencies is fragmented at best and is often delayed in reaching those who need it most. After Charlie, Katrina and Ike, we saw these problems can slow preparedness, impede recovery and, most importantly, risk lives. Our approach is different – take the communication capabilities and speed of the web and mobile applications to disseminate information quickly and effectively. Plus, Emicus will harness the collective intelligence – the wisdom of the crowd – to aid individuals and business owners by collecting that information and allowing them to reach out and share it with family, friends and their communities. At the heart of Emicus is a data collection system that gathers information from a variety of sources – government agencies, news media, voluntary organizations, social networking sites and people in the impacted areas and presents it in a real-time interactive geospatial interface. This interface serves a wide variety of purposes from the location of available goods and services to a communication tool that can be used by first response and communication personnel. We believe that Emicus will be the only disaster information source that will rely on user-generated information and in turn provide this information to the public. User-generated content has proven to be a vital resource in catastrophic events such as the California wildfires, Virginia Tech shooting and the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. In addition to the geospatial information, the site will provide a wide variety of resources for individuals and small business. These resources include an emergency notification system that will allow individuals and businesses to communicate vital SMS messages, a preparedness center with information from leading preparation experts and a missing person database. http://emicus.com/

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