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I Downloaded an App. Suddenly, I was a Rescue Dispatcher. (houstonchronicle.com)
Holly Hartman, a journalism teacher for 22 years, writes an incredible story: After watching nonstop coverage of the hurricane and the incredible rescues that were taking place, I got in bed at 10:30 on Tuesday night. I had been glued to the TV for days. I read an article about the Cajun Navy and the thousands of selfless volunteers who have shown up to this city en masse. The article explained they were using a walkie-talkie-type app called Zello to communicate with each other, locate victims, get directions, etc. I downloaded the app, found the Cajun Navy channel and started listening. I was completely enthralled. Voice after voice after voice coming though my phone in the dark, some asking for help, some saying they were on their way. Most of the transmissions I was hearing when I first tuned in were from Houston, but within 30 minutes or so, calls started coming in from Port Arthur and Orange. Harvey had moved east from Houston and was pummeling East Texas. Call after call from citizens saying they were trapped in their houses and needed boat rescue. None of the volunteer rescuers had made it to that area from Houston, but as soon as the calls started coming in, they were moving out, driving as fast as they could into the middle of Harvey.
Bad idea. Let the cops handle things. You won't be able to absorb the legal liability.
During a large scale disaster, you may as well say "Let the people die". Police and other government agencies are completely overwhelmed in such situations. San Francisco and other cities in earthquake regions realize that and train local citizens in CERT/NERT classes to take part in a neighborhood emergency response team knowing that it can be days before rescuers outside the area can make it in.
Well for one, those in Houston were explicitly told 'don't evacuate', basically telling people by trying, they put themselves at risk of being stuck in their car on the road which is more dangerous than their house. In fact that is precisely what did happen in Texas before, more people died trying to evacuate than probably would have died by sitting in place.
Now one could easily say the answer would have been to do proper evacuation planning rather than giving up on evacuation altogether, but that's the government's failing and there's a lot of folks who were doing precisely what they were being told and for somewhat valid reasons.
Rescues *during* the storm are one thing in terms of risk, but by and large we are talking about post-storm rescues in the wake of the flooding. These activities were certainly challenging, contending with hazards and strong currents, but not particularly life threatening given the proper precautions all boaters should know.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Wow. This article describes what I tried to do in 1995 for the Kobe earthquake, 20 years ago. But it suggests ways things go wrong as well. In the linked article the journalist put massive effort in and helped some people. But she also told everyone repeatedly that help was coming, even when she knew there were no boats in the water. I do not want to judge, since it sounds like she was doing a superhuman feat that nobody else was there to do and that was the best that was humanly possible. In the end compassion directed her to make some decisions and compassion later haunted her enough to write the article, and explain everything so that others can help in the future.
At that time I was at a new Internet provider that opened for business just before the quake, and I hoped to get Tokyo University to act as a call center to pick up calls for help. There was no news coming out of the area and no phones, but Internet lines were working. We would put it together on a web page and coordinate grassroots disaster relief, sharing people's needs and who could bring help there. In the end we couldn't do it for two main reasons. News organizations refused to cooperate by sharing what they saw from a helicopter, and Tokyo U. said there were too many bureaucratic problems with cooperating. In the end while I was able to provide some support on my own, mostly by relaying information and helping people who were in the area to upload pictures, there was a limit to what was possible. And then the most amazing site was created by a Stanford student if I remember correctly. Nowadays there are lots more systems. I believe the phone company or was it Yahoo made one that lets you say if you are safe.
Since data connections are usually more resilient than voice service (and even voice over data apps degrade) there will likely continue to be a need for data-based systems in emergency situations. I don't know why the emergency support dropped to such a horrifying extent that nobody else could help. I hope the article stimulates more people to recognize the need for better support of communities in disaster areas. If 911 gets overloaded or ignores a key communications channel like this app, then perhaps there should be a way to bring more people on board from different walks of life in an emergency and coordinate online. In fact anyone online even far away from the disaster area could have done so. This journalist took up the challenge but it shouldn't have to happen that way ever again.
To a great extent this is why ham radio is still around. I applaud folks good intentions to jump in and help, but counting on cell towers to stay up is courting a bigger disaster. There will be storms/earthquakes, etc that will take down the cell towers, the fiber that connects it, the electricity the supports it,and the diesel supply chain that keeps back-up generators running. Ham radio frequencies can reach hundreds and even thousands of miles to areas outside of an impacted area and are often the only line of communication in a disaster. We also need to enable the FM receivers that are built into modern cell to support broadcast of "critical, need to know information."
That is why groups like the: III%, Cajun Navy, American Freedom Keepers, Highwaymen, Riders of the Confederacy -- go out in groups, set up a base of operations with a logistical support network, and generally have some training. Many of them are also ex military, ex police, ex medics, worked in logistics, and many of them are techs as well. They also usually have human intelligence on the ground before they get there, tend to make contact with law enforcement when they arrive so they know who they are so they don't freak out with a mess of guys in gear show up. You don't want people to mistake you for an armed group of looters! They try to connect with businesses and church people ahead of going. They tend to take multiple forms of communications gear, extra fuel, and whatever other resource they can with them that might not be available that they can carry.
That does not mean its always perfectly organized, pretty, free from chaos, nor that it is free from danger. If your area of operations is bacteria infested water, that alone is a danger. It does not mean you cannot end up a part of the problem even after successfully being a part of the solution. Especially if there is no logistical support available to you easily beyond what you can carry. Situations can change rapidly. A levee breaks or a river crests or a road is completely washed out after you get in. Stuff happens. I've seen some of these groups do some pretty amazing things with what they have to work with. Sometimes that is the only support that will exist.
An example of that danger from Hurricane Harvey is where several people took the only good option available when effecting a rescue or bringing in supplies would otherwise have to be brought in by air -- the monster truck or 5 tons with very high intakes and exhausts. These could get into areas that boats could not, and other vehicles definitely could not. They were even in areas that helicopters would be useless in. However, wheels have wheel bearings. They don't perfectly seal. At best they can be packed with grease to keep some of the mud and cruddy water out. After a few days of operating these in that water while sometimes carrying in heavy loads of supplies and ferrying people out, they literally drove them until the wheels came off. The issue of logistical support being unavailable put at least one of them in a bad situation. They did way more good than bad, but not having that support when the rest of society is washing away down the river is never a good thing, especially when the waters are rising all around you and you cannot effect a roadside repair.
All of that being said: A lot of rescue, national guard and support organizations simply bypassed the smaller towns leaving them to fend on their own. The militias and other groups saved a lot of people, coordinated their own usually completely free of your tax dollars support of communities, ran and helped organize the only distribution points available, coordinated with other charities, trucking companies (which is what I did on this end) to get supplies in and help stabilize things. They also did it faster than government response and resources could allow in a great many cases. Many of them are sticking around for as long as they are financially able to to continue providing support during the clean up phase. Or at least sticking around until that mission can be handed off to someone else.
People having downloaded zello provided a way to communicate where people had little else. It also led to a fair amount of duplicate calls for assistance because not everyone is on the same networks. Its still a great resource to have. The more options you give yourself ahead of a crisis the better.
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