We're about to have yet another flood event in our area, and I thought some of you might be interested in how my local emergency operations center and my neighboring township's emergency operations center manage to run on literally no budget at all.

We're using Wordpress.com's free version to let us create a dynamic web site with the most recent information. My township is at http://bridgetonema.wordpress.com and I can update that site with a computer, a smart phone, via email or even via a phone call with a voice message that will play on the site.

Another tool in our kit is Skype. Skype gives us an alternative communications channel that works great.

We also use Google Voice - my emergency management phone number is actually a Google Voice number that - under normal conditions - routes to my personal iPhone, but as volume goes up, I add in two prepaid phones (a Tracfone that's on Verizon and a new Metro PCS phone) and they also ring when my phone is called.

Of course, all of those tools depend on a working internet connection, and I have alternatives for that too. My iPhone is jailbroken and can act as a (slow but workable) hotspot for Wifi Access to the internet, and I also have a Verizon MiFi device for the same purpose. The Verizon MiFi device is actually for work, they let me use it during emergencies, otherwise it's $60 a month.

Of course, you can't be fully reliant on the telecom infrastructure being up, so I keep all my emergency management files synchronized with other computers by using Dropbox.

Dropbox keeps a common folder "in sych" across multiple computers and with their servers - but the cool part is that if two computers are on the same network, the shared folder will synch using only the local network - no external network needed. So I have 4 laptops all running dropbox software and all of them stay in sych if they are connected to the same wifi hotspot - even if that hotspot has no internet connection.

For software to keep documents and stuff up to date, we use Open Office, a complete office suite that creates MS Office compatible files (word, PPT, XLS) and it's free and runs on any old computer we can find.

We can't afford a county radio, which is a shame, because we have to borrow one from the fire company and they don't always have one to spare, but we've found that GMRS radios work pretty well in our area and they are CHEAP.