Systems Whizzard

A Guide to Safety in Wartime

A Guide to Safety in Wartime

The US government has given us a new website since the attacks on September 11th 2001, http://www.ready.gov, in order to be prepared with any future attacks or national security issues. Its intentions and motivations are clearly good, though unfortunately the images used to guide people through the various proceedures leave a lot to be desired in clarity. The information page regaring the site bills the site "...as a common sense framework designed to launch a process of learning about citizen preparedness," but it seems the best approach may be as case in seeing how unprepared people can become if given only the images for their interpretations.

I've taken them and supplied them here, with what may be some common (and perhaps not so common) views on just what the images could be trying to get across to us. In an emergency people won't read the small message below an image, guiding the way to clarity and safety, carefully outlining the steps needed to get out of their predicament; they'll look for what attracts them the most, and unfortunately, that's where the government's images come in.

Unfortunately the images are ambiguous, so I've taken to providing a few subtitles for your safety in the event of future attacks or national emergencies. I hope the text accompanying the images provide safe and helpful results.

posted by Charlie @ 12:22 AM