On PEI, we are just recovering from an Ice storm that had over 1/3 of all the province without power for days. 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? On PEI, finding out where the key breaks in the lines were took days. At Washington State, it took hours to find out that the shooter was still at large and where he was.
I think that the story of how KPBS covered the fire last year in California can help us all find answers to these questions. The story is only partly to do with technology.
The station stripped everything off their front page to provide a clear focus on the ONE Story that affected everyone. Key points being a Google Map and Twitter.
The Google Map became the core of the hosted space by KPBS where the community contributed to creating an accurate assessment of what was happening by sending pictures & reports into the Station staff who then posted the updates to the map. Because all could contribute, because you could add not only symbols, but pictures and text, a rich and deep picture could emerge.
Imagine of we had had such a map on PEI last week. People could have searched around their area and found the breaks. If some had been isolated, they could have been found and pin pointed. If the Community Centres that had generators had access to the web - the information could have been played back to all. If your school had a shooter, a picture of the campus could also be assembled. In England last year during the flood, Google Maps became essential for all concerned.
Here is the BBC map for Berkshire at one point - showing how contributors can add vital detail.
The other tool that was found to be especially helpful was Twitter.
Twitter is deceptively simple - it allows a person/station to send out 140 character bulletins that "readers" can subscribe too and receive the item either on their computer or on their cell phone. It enables all in this group to share their own items as well. So In the case of the fire, you could Twitter into the group that your street was going up in flames, or the centre could say that your community was about to be evacuated, or that water and supplies were on their way.
Cell phones in this emergency environment become the most important tool - the most important aspect of cell phones is their ability to use text. It seems that even in extremis text can get through.
Update - In this kind of emergency - Mobile Phones are now the main link - here is a great post by Debi Jones on how this is playing out:
The disastrous fires burning in San Diego have initiated a service used by the city and county government to inform and update residents. Mandatory evacuation orders have been communicated via reverse 911 on both landline phones and mobile phones. The messages are prerecorded and as I’ve said, three messages have been received on my phone. The first was an evacuation order. The next message was a notice that San Diego schools are closed until further notice along with the instruction to keep children inside and restrict their activity levels (smoke and ash is so thick in the air that keeping it out of your house is impossible during large fires). The third message was information on evacuation centers that were still open as several are already full.
Regulation in the US for Enhanced 911 or emergency service which incorporates location data has resulted in a number of emergency related services that are unique to the US market when compared to other geographical regions like Western Europe or Asia. The reverse 911 system isn’t specifically a mobile service, but that it does include mobile phones is impressive and to see this system work in the case of a disaster saving time and lives is an important development. To this point, 262,000 households have received reverse 911 calls.
It is likely in a very bad situation that cell phone networks will get jammed - what we are learning though is that SMS tends to get through - so Twitter as a feed may be the core of a good plan
Advisories have been announced on CNN and local San Diego TV stations asking people to limit their mobile phone use as the networks are saturated. This is a common problem during emergencies as we’ve seen over and over. The one component that continued to provide communication during the London bombings, post Katrina flooding in New Orleans and now in San Diego is text messaging. Twice today my mobile calls have been rejected with the network reporting, “all circuits are busy”. And yet, I’ve continued to be able to send out SMS.
Here I see a use for Facebook. A University could ask all its students to join a group called Emergency. In the event of an emergency, the President's office can use Facebook to send text messages to all that subscribe. In minutes most of the students would have the news.
Julie the UFIT instructor in Summerside used this aspect of Facebook to keep in touch with her class during the power outage on PEI - here is a message that was received with glee by her customers
Julie Arsenault sent a message to the members of UFIT Summerside.
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(no subject)
Ufit has THE POWER!!!!
Hey Ufiters, YES there is class tonight... so come and warm up with us at ufit.
No worries... we have showers... haha
See you all tonight
Julayyy
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None of these tools cost money. They have been proven to work. So why aren't we all piling in to get ready to use them? I think the answer is "Culture". The barrier to having an outstanding Communications support for emergencies is not technical. It is culture. Most organizations seem to be blocked.
So I called Deanna MacKey at KPBS to find out from her how KPBS overcame these cultural barriers and became the exemplar for how to really serve the public in an emergency.
Update - GG has left an excellent comment here that draws on his 25 years of experience as a Telephone engineer and adds a lot more practical advice about what to do to keep in touch in an emergency - Thanks GG
