Disaster Relief
From RCC 2007
What can we learn about coordinating disaster relief using communities and technology?
If you have a strong enough community, the technology will follow.
Contents |
Stream of consciousness from the attendees
Some kinds of infrastructure have been relatively resilient to distasters. Cell phone networks have some measure of fault-tolerance built in. Some ISPs design their networks to stay at least partially available even under power and communication outages.
On occasion, relief workers have added infrastructure to support the relief effort (e.g., publicly available wireless networks), and thereby left the area with a permanent improvement afterwards.
After Katrina, lack of experience with technology was a big roadblock to many families filling out FEMA applications. Many victims did not know how to use the Internet nor had computers. One example from a high tech company was that their computers were given to Red Cross agencies and none were allocated for victim use.
KK's story
KK was in Pearlington, MS with with Burners Without Borders after Katrina. Many of the relief workers were able to telecommute to their day jobs and be on site to give aid. Lifestyle/work hours and technology made this setup possible. Kyocera donated an EvDO <-> WiFi router. They powered it by solar, and were able to reach Verizon's EvDO service. KK maintained the technology and performed tech support / user education both for relief workers and for citizens.
Many people found out about this combined access point and tech shop through the Burning Man community. Relief workers posted stories, and Burners supplied cash and resources. Maybe there's a lesson here about how super-effective volunteers can be when there's already an existing community to support them.
An interesting aside: thanks to donated equipment, they were (one of?) the only relief crew with demolition capability.
Brian's demo
Brian demonstrated a Web app built on GMaps and GWT (and Java on the server) with multiple agencies adding fire/traffic/water/etc. incidents to a map. Emergencies are circled in red.
On the service provider side, marks up a map with icons for command centers, fire departments, private companies with response capability, and so on. onffline for updates
Brian wants to have an offline version on CD in case there's no network (which can update itself live if the network later becomes available, without consuming as much bandwidth as GMaps).
Ian's tangentially related app
The cell phone infrastructure conversation reminded me (Ian) of the software I work on by day, which allows technicians to attach cellular measurement data to maps on a handheld device. This is not an appropriate place to talk about the name of the company or app, but the general notion of combining field measurement, mapping, and infrastructure repair has echoes in Brian's Web app demos above.
Humaninet
Couldn't make it to camp today, but if you are interested in humanitarian relief and disaster response, you should learn about Humaninet. This organization is a spinoff of Northwest Medical Teams, and focuses on providing emergency communications for disaster relief organizations, mostly through satellite phones but also with satellite internet and ad hoc local area networks set up in the stricken areas. Executive director Gregg Swanson lives in West Linn, OR. They need donations, of course, and they can also use skilled volunteers who can be productive and adaptable under highly nonoptimal conditions.
