Haiti

In many ways, the Haiti earthquake was a landmark event. It was the first time that many new technologies were used in a disaster relief such as twitter and SMS. Although twitter was used in the past in disasters like hurricane Katrina, it was not used by government agencies until Haiti. SMS or simple messaging service was not used in past disasters because cell phones could not be used because of the flooding of networks. There was one issue with the use of twitter in the immediate relief of the earthquake because in order for the United States to use the information that was being sent over twitter, it had to be translated from Creole to English. Since Creole is not a popular language in America, translators were in very high demand and hard to come by. This put a tremendous strain on the translators that were being used. They had to work long hours and some didn’t get sleep for days. In order for this information that was being put on twitter to be used effectively and efficiently, it had to be translated and analyzed very quickly so that emergency responders could get to the scene as soon as possible before its too late.

            SMS was a huge stepping-stone for disaster relief. Like I said earlier it was the first time that is could be used. This is because if other disasters such as the World Trade Center attack on September eleventh and hurricane Katrina, too many people were on their cell phones, which almost instantaneously flooded the networks and caused the systems to crash. Haiti was different. Since Haiti is not a very wealthy country, not as many people have cell phones as America. So, the people that did have them were able to sent SMS’s to responders. This was huge because responders were able to get the direct GPS coordinates of were the SMS was sent and immediately send responders to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4oUWxm330

In this attached youtube video, it covers a story of volunteers sending relief materials such as food and medical supplies to Haiti. I believe that is very important for all Americans and other countries around the world to do. When people are in a time of need, we need to respond and help each other out. Along with food and medical supplies, Americans also sent our military to help. They did things such as keep order, help with the sick and rebuild roads and houses. This is a great thing for our military to do because it really gives them a sense of helping others in a non-violent standpoint. We have been in war for many years and it is good for our military men and woman to help people rather then kill them. Granted, sometimes killing is helping like getting the Taliban out of civilian villages, but physically helping in disaster relief efforts in always better. 

Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was the largest scale disaster since September eleventh. With that being said, it was the first time since then that we could try and test our improvements that we have made in communication, technology, and associations such as FEMA. It was the first time that we would be able to see how our improvements would work; in some ways it worked great, in others it failed. For example the new system known as NIMS (National Incident Management System) was basically the protocol that the emergency responders had to follow failed. It failed because all the different government agency did not want to share information and data with one another, so basically they all wanted to be the “heroes” instead of working together and getting the job done correctly. At other points, such as organization and the public response was a success. Two being PeopleFinder and ShelterFinder.

            One of the reasons why I think the emergency response failed was because people did not think that another attack of this magnitude would happen. In other words, I believe that the American people were very stubborn in the fact that it wouldn’t happen. I believe that if the American people were open to the fact that another attack could happen, then we would have been more prepared for this event. The government became logistically overwhelmed by hurricane Katrina. We exhausted all of our resources and personnel.

            We also had some successes though. For one, a private citizen came up with the idea of a website that would be the centerfold for other websites. The idea sprouted because there were dozens of different websites that would have posting from people looking for their relatives and vice versa. The problem with that was that people would have to look at all the different websites to find the one person they were looking for. The idea eventually launched into what is called PeopleFinder. This was a huge success because it gathered all the different information from the websites and put them all into one place. This made it easier for people to find what they were looking for.

            Furthermore, FEMA launched a statistic that 500,000 people were left homeless and another 500,000 people were left jobless. This raised a huge concern because how are 500,000 people who are located in a relatively close grouped area going to be able to find a home to temporarily live in? This is were the idea of ShelterFinder came about. The idea, much like Peoplefinder, would help people find homes from all over the country. People from all over the nation were posting up adds for Katrina victims to come stay with them, but they didn’t have a central place to post them, that is what ShelterFinder fixed. The best part about it was that it was not a government organization that designed it. It was a civilian that came up with the idea, and ran with it so to speak.

            There are many things that we have taken out of the disaster relief of hurricane Katrina, some good some bad. But we are making progress and things are looking up for the future. 

9/11 Ten Years Later

            In this post I will be discussing whether or not we has Americans have evolved in our technologies and our logic since the World Trade Center attack of September 11^th, 2001. The question has been raised if the American public would react differently if another attack were to happen, and if we have made and technological changes or improvements in the last ten years that would help us in our disaster clean up and response.

            First I will talk about the technological advances or lack there of. I believe that we have not made any real technological advances that would help us in a state of emergence. Of course, we have made technological advances in the past ten years, but not necessarily in disaster relief. For example, one of the major issues with the incident on September 11^th was the lack of communication with the victims and the responders. I do not think that this will change if another attack were to happen. This is because people would immediately go to use their cell phones and call for help, almost instantaneously the cell towers would become overloaded rendering them useless. Like we discussed in class, after we had a minor earthquake in State College, our systems failed. If it were to actually be a disaster, it would only make matters worse. Nothing has been installed in buildings that would help this issue such as CB radios on every floor. So all in all, our communication tools would still fail and no contact with the victims would be possible.

            Next, I do believe that our techniques and actions would be different if an attack were to happen again. Solely because it is human nature to learn from our mistakes and improve them so we do not make the same mistakes again. For example, while working with the Office of Emergency Management over the summer, I took a look at our evacuation plans and how they evolved over the years. I noticed a huge difference in the plans prior to 9/11 to the post 9/11 plans. They consisted of a lot more detail and a lot were scenarios were discussed.  Furthermore, I believe that the country is a lot more prepared for a terrorist attack or even a natural disaster. This is only because we as a nation learned for past events. Our emergency responders are now being trained on how to handle a similar situation and things would go a lot different then they did ten years ago. For example, I do not think that security guards would be telling people to go back to their offices after a plane flew into the building. This is because, buildings are now practicing evacuation routes and will be more prepared next time. This raises the concern that people do not and will not act the same for a practice evacuation as they would if it was the real deal. People naturally tend to panic in a state of emergency and there is no possible way to change or correct that.