Susan Duenas, Disaster Preparedness Coordinator for the Oxnard (CA) Fire Department, was recently interviewed by Time Warner Cable West about disaster preparedness in Oxnard. Susan shared how the fire department, part of the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), is leveraging the Mobile Indicator™ app from Haystax branded as ‘Damage Reporter.” Citizens can register to be official damage reporters, download the app and start reporting damage. Reporting damage is as simple as taking a picture, categorizing it according to FEMA descriptors, adding a description and submitting. After submission, damage reports are automatically tagged with the location of the device and are sent up to the Haystax server, where they are stored and prioritized for display in both a list view and a geographic display. Susan talked about disaster preparedness efforts in Oxnard and encouraged viewers to participate in community emergency response training courses. These six-week courses cover basics like disaster preparedness, fire suppression, fire extinguisher usage, how to do medical first aid and triage, etc. Upon completion of the courses, attendees practice what they’ve learned with the help of volunteers. “At any given time, we’ve got a couple hundred thousand people (in Oxnard) and only 50 trained first responders, so we need to do everything we can to provide people the training to be able to do something to help their families, friends, coworkers, to be that first responder,” said Susan. Please click here to watch the full interview