Articles
Articles from the Emergencity Case Study
During a disaster, become part of the solution - Ventura County Star - January 7, 2008
No matter what the disaster, people first need actionable disaster intelligence to respond. In a major disaster, we need more than human- interest stories and impressive disaster images from the media. We need help in finding community-specific information to help people make decisions. "Going tactical" is not just a military or police/fire thing; it's a citizen thing.
This can be done. During the recent Day fire, Tyler Suchman's Web site, OjaiPost.com, provided a simple and useful site for people in the Ojai Valley to quickly locate the fire's progress, the evacuation centers and roads that were closed. While most of us were forced to watch repeated fire footage and interviews with victims, Tyler was manually checking and assimilating information from about 40 sites to keep citizens informed. His blog proved a real-time public forum to give and receive information.
With roughly 10,000 homes in the area, Tyler's Web site was getting 8,000 unique hits a day. Ojai Valley citizens had a place to go to for the best collected information available, and they obviously used it.
In the absence of information, citizens are left with rumors and inaction. By using available technology to aggregate and automate the dissemination of highly time-sensitive information to cell phones, Web sites and the media, coordinated community action is possible. We must support our county agencies in providing such tools for our communities.
Citizen journalist - VC Reporter - October 12, 2006
Ojai resident Tyler Suchman served as an exhaustive resource to the Ojai community during the peak of the Day Fire. Ojaipost.com became the primary source of information for many residents worried about the approaching fire.
Ojaipost.com became hub for Day fire updates - Ventura County Star - October 1, 2006
Should I stay or should I go now? That was the burning question for Upper Ojai residents as the big and nasty Day fire burned in the backcountry near their homes for days on end. Public safety officials had recommended they evacuate as Santa Ana winds drove the flames closer to residential areas. But what sane person would choose to go through the trouble of packing up and then living for days out of suitcases unnecessarily? Information on how to make the stay-or-go decision became critical. And those rugged individualists who live on the edge of the Sespe Wilderness found their choices limited.
Additional Articles of Interest on Emergency Management and Response
How a small Public TV/Radio Station served its public- Part 1 - The technology - February 5, 2008
Bad weather events seem to be hitting communities regularly now. If it's not a drought, it's a flood. If it's not an ice storm, it's a bridge collapse. Bad social events are more common as well. It's not just in Baghdad where people are randomly killed. Universities and schools can be battle grounds. The issue that is emerging is how does a community keep everyone informed in a timely way when bad things happen? As a University President how can you warn all your students and staff in minutes of a risk? How also can those who are responsible for emergency services find out from the "front line" what is going on?
How a small Public TV/Radio Station served its public - Part 2 - The Culture - February 5, 2008
Why is the power of Social Media not more widely used? After all most of the software is either free or very inexpensive. After all, it is very easy to use - if you can send an email, you can use most of the applications in Social Software. In a time when emergencies seem to be commonplace, why are not most Stations, Governments, Universities and School systems using these tools to enable them to cope well when bad things happen?
Building Better Government: Emergency Management - GovTech.com, November 8, 2007
Two years of preparation since Rita paid off as the region was more than ready for the effects of [Hurricane] Dean. A result of the effort is increased communication between the private sector and state and local governments. "The best thing that occurred from the Texas plan is the communication and collaboration we've had between industry and government," Padilla said. "That has been paramount. During Rita, we were doing our own thing, the state was doing their own thing, and we didn't communicate. Now we know what's happening, and we're able to provide feedback to the state and local government."
Community-based 911 web site proposed - Ars Technica - February 19, 2007
Under the proposed project, the web sites will be run by "trained volunteers with a few professionals, much as volunteer fire departments now operate," according to the proposition in Science magazine. The sites would accept text, video, and photos from the community to help emergency crews react more quickly to disasters as well as inform others of the status of the situation via the web.
Reinventing 911: How a Swarm of Networked Citizens is Building a Better Emergency Broadcast System - Wired Magazine, December 2005
In the world of disaster management, here is some of the stuff that happens: Levees burst, power grids go dark, oil tankers run aground, railcars full of toxic chemicals tumble off their tracks, tornadoes sweep houses into the sky. In dealing with such catastrophes, emergency managers have experience in the cascade of consequences: Phone service vanishes, hospitals are jammed, highways slow to a crawl, shelters overflow. No matter how much advance planning may have been done, disaster response becomes an improvisation, and society eventually rights itself through the cumulative effect of many separate acts of intelligence. Obviously, if you want citizens to improvise intelligently, it is wise to let them know as soon as possible when something goes wrong.
Panic, Warning, and National Security - Art Botterell Interview - aether, November 21, 2005
We need to solve the problems of identity management and further engage the problem of reputation and credibility of the source. But now credibility is simply attributed to authority - and then doubted! The warning system of the future should be one half EAS and one half blog. Now, to what extent will communities use this type of system to mitigate risk? I suspect this will be highly variable. In the end, the warning system mirrors the society. This is a good thing, in the sense that warning should be understood as a general part of the social fabric, not as a function of specialized roles.
