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URGENT: with colossal storm hitting West, share my tips!
By WDavidStephenson | January 4, 2008
The storm that’s headed inland right now is of biblical proportions: the Weather Channel predicts “potentially historic snowfall, flooding rains, and wind gusts to well over 100 mph are possible.”
Considering the hits places such as Denver have already taken this winter, that’s incredibly scary — and time to remind people about how my “21st-century disaster tips you Won’t hear from officials” can help you and your neighbors cobble together ad hoc communication networks when conventional ones fail.
IF YOU KNOW ANYONE IN THE AFFECTED REGIONS, PLEASE USE THE FORWARDING FORM AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST TO RELAY THIS INFORMATION TO THEM ASAP.
In part, they stem from my own experience while trapped in what eventually evolved into a 36-hour impasse on I-78 on Valentines Day — when conventional communications were so wretched that Gov. Rendell didn’t learn about the mess (and then, only indirectly) until 9 hrs. after it began — at which point he went ballistic.
Among the tips that are particularly appropriate to this situation:
- Quick like a bunny, go to CUWin’s site, download their free mesh networking software and burn it to a CD. In a disaster, boot from the disk, and you can organize a neighborhood wireless network to share information.
The same approach could work for an involuntary, virtual, linear “neighborhood,” such as the ones created when thousands of truckers and motorists are stuck in miles-long jams during blizzards. - Cameraphones let individuals provide valuable âsituational awarenessâ to authorities — this works much more effectively in the handful of communities that now have formal processes to handle citizen pictures and videos submitted along with 911 calls (to my knowledge, NYC still hasn’t implemented its promised system of this sort).
- use Twitter text messages to let all your family and friends — and the world, for that matter — know what’s happening, instead of making voice calls on your cell phone, which is the instinctive, but absolutely worst thing you can do (because you’ll probably just get a busy signal and not get through to anyone, while the volume of calls will also crash the network). This works so well that the Red Cross has set up two Twitter channels specifically to receive and distribute emergency information, and people and media used Twitter to share information instantly during the bridge collapse and wildfires last year.
- When all infrastructure is interrupted, and there’s no power, neighbors can follow the District of Columbia Emergency Radio Network’s (DCERN) lead and still relay vital information via a simple network of $20, battery-operated walkie-talkies.
As the father of Web 2.0, Tim O’Reilly, said about my tips after the I-78 debacle,
The point of the article is a really good one. User self service and collective intelligence shouldn’t just be limited to consumer applications! This stuff has real utility for government disaster response. Unfortunately, governments tend to be late adopters of new technologies.
BTW, while the details haven’t been worked out, so I’m not at liberty to say any more at this time, I’m pleased to let you know that I’ll be creating a nationwide program this year on smart use of emergency communication devices in emergencies!
Technorati tags: FEMA crowd-sourcing wisdom of crowds smart mobs swarm intelligence emergent behavior networked homeland security collaboration mesh network location-based services geo-spatial web web 2.0 homeland security 2.0 disaster management 2.0 disaster management Rocky Mountains Cascades snow blizzard natural disasters Colorado Rockies Denver San Francisco Sacramento Californiadisaster planning disaster planning 2.0 mesh Sierra Nevada Oregon Washington State
Topics: technology, empowering public, collaboration, networked security | |
