Re: [gaia] disaster relief communication

[Rex Buddenberg <[e-mail]>]

Well, not quite that narrative, but close.

In 2007, the City of Minneapolis had just rolled out a city-contracted
public internet (WiFi access, pretty new tech at the time).  The system
was originally to be city-administrative but the contract allowed the
ISP to sell excess capacity to public.  The original coverage intent
was city limits to city limits but at initial rollout, the actual
coverage was quite a bit less.  But it did cover what would be the
critical area.
    Shortly after this infrastructure was in place, the I-35 bridge
over the Mississippi River collapsed.  Right at the beginning of
afternoon rush hour.  The immediate tragedy was the dozens of cars and
occupants that were on the bridge when it collapsed.
    But the problem that didn't happen is worth considering.  Now you
have hundreds of people trapped on the freeway or on on-ramps and such
... with loved ones on the other side of the river.  And a laptop in
the back sea.  The ISP, once apprised of the emergency, turned off all
the access restrictions and made the brand new system free.  Left it
that way for 24 hours, which was long enough.  This allowed folks with
laptops in their cars to 'phone home'.  From an EMS responder point of
view, this is really good news as it trims up the missing persons list.
 In fact, the missing persons list exactly matched the bodies at the
bottom of the river by the time they got to them days later.  Saves a
whole lot of wasted effort that would otherwise have been spent on
family reunifications.

I've looked at the family reunification problem -- it seems to occur in
about half of the disasters (Katrina Yes, Rita No) and while my inquiry
wasn't terribly systematic, it doesn't seem to be very predictable. The
survivability of the comms system is certainly a factor but some
earthquakes (Kobe) take out the comms, others (Northridge) don't.  In
the case of Minneapolis, the comms system was essentially untouched.

Whether the internet/WiFi rollout would have continued or whether the
bridge collapse convinced the doubters is a debatable point, but every
US city has pretty dense WiFi coverage these days.



On Fri, 2017-10-06 at 20:26 +0000, Jane Coffin wrote:
> Hi Dan –
>  
> Adding Lee McKnight from Syracuse.
>  
> Lee – what do you think?
>  
> Jane
>  
>  
> Internet Society | www.internetsociety.org
> Skype:  janercoffin
> Mobile/WhatsApp:  [phone]
>  
> From: gaia <[e-mail]> on behalf of Dan Bateyko <dbateyko
> @gmail.com>
> Date: Friday, October 6, 2017 at 4:58 PM
> To: Arzak Khan <[e-mail]>
> Cc: Rex Buddenberg <[e-mail]>, gaia <[e-mail]>,
> Steve Song <[e-mail]>, Kurtis Heimerl <[e-mail]
> on.edu>, Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: [gaia] disaster relief communication
>  
> Hi all, 
>  
> Question inspired by this thread:  Could anyone point me to an
> example of ICT for disaster relief becoming the de facto
> infrastructure in a region post-crisis? Wondering if there's a "Shock
> Doctrine" for telecommunication. 
>  
> As ever,
> Dan
>  
> On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Arzak Khan <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
> Dear All, 
>  
> We at Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan are running an initiative
> called TOPS (Tactical Operations) activated during disasters across
> Pakistan. Basically our tactical operations provide the following:
>  
> 1) Tactical Operations team uses portable satellite communications
> equipment to provide voice and data communications for aid workers
> who rely on these tools to coordinate logistics and deliver
> lifesaving supplies.
> 2) Provide vital ICT Support (Internet, Telephone, Sat-phone and E-
> mail) to first responders and relief organizations.
> 3) Establish multiple communications center equipped with internet,
> phone and radio capabilities. In addition, iPOP tactical operations
> team also provides free phone calls to people living in temporary
> camps and shelters.
> 4) Establish dedicated communication center for women enabling them
> to communication and reconnect them with displaced family
> members.                   
> We have been working jointly with Provincial Disaster Management
> Authorities on various missions during floods, earthquake and other
> man made disasters. You can learn more about it http://ipop.org.pk/in
> itiatives/tops/
> 
> Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan | iPOP Tactical ...
> ipop.org.pk
> Internet Policy Observatory Pakistan tactical operations team can
> establish satellite based communications system so government
> agencies, humanitarian organizations ...
>  
>  
> I would be happy to share further insight in to out planning and
> deployment if needed. 
>  
> Best,
>  
> Arzak Khan 
>  
>  
> 
> From: gaia <[e-mail]> on behalf of Kurtis Heimerl <kheim
> [e-mail]>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 3, 2017 6:14 PM
> To: Rex Buddenberg
> Cc: gaia; Steve Song; Arjuna Sathiaseelan
> Subject: Re: [gaia] disaster relief communication
>  
> I want to support Steve's request here; as someone who has dabbled in
> Disaster Relief it feels like there's an opportunity to do impactful
> work in the space but I don't know of any good places to get grounded
> in the current state of the art. Can we have any part of the upcoming
> GAIA meeting be focused on exploring this topic? Any domain experts
> in Singapore we can invite?
>  
> On Tue, Oct 3, 2017 at 11:04 AM, Rex Buddenberg <[e-mail]
> m> wrote:
> Suggest that there are two (at least) genres that need to be merged
> --
> treated together.  Emergency services (reach to fire/ ambulance/
> police/ ...) is the other genre.  In a disaster, expect a push to
> build
> out both.
> 
> Emergency services communications is one of the bastions of non-IP
> technologies.  P25 is an example of a protocol heavily pushed by
> various emergency services agencies. But it's non-routable.  Much of
> the development has been colored by the perceived need to jam
> whatever
> comms link is concocted into the narrowband Land Mobile Radio
> channels
> (25kHz and less).  
> 
> The economics is that the two genres end up costing twice for the
> infrastructure.  This is true both for permanent infrastructure and
> quick-build into disaster areas.  
> 
> Warning: this is an area of acrimonious debate, often sadly lacking
> in
> facts.  But it is a debate that needs to be joined.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2017-10-03 at 17:40 +0100, Arjuna Sathiaseelan wrote:
> > Hello Steve,
> >
> > the IEEE global humanitarian technology conference is a good venue
> to
> > look at for the latest research/deployment experience papers:
> >
> > last year: http://sites.ieee.org/ghtc/event-2016/call-for-papers-20
> 16
> > /
> >
> >
> > this looks like a good journal to keep an eye on when the papers
> get
> > published: http://ieeeaccess.ieee.org/special-sections-closed/missi
> on
> > -critical-public-safety-communications-architectures-enabling-
> > technologies-future-applications/
> > regards
> >
> > a decent survey paper:
> > http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87438/5/Survey_of_wireless_communica
> ti
> > on_technologies_for_public_safety.pdf
> >
> > regards
> >
> > On 3 October 2017 at 17:25, Steve Song <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > Are there any particularly good web resources and/or academic
> > > papers that
> > > profile the range of disaster relief technologies / solutions
> both
> > > planned
> > > and currently in use?
> > >
> > > Many thanks... Steve
> > >
> > > --
> > > [phone]
> > > [e-mail]
> > > http://nsrc.org
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > gaia mailing list
> > > [e-mail]
> > > https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
> > >
> >
> >
> 
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>  
> --
> Dan Bateyko
> http://dbateyko.me/