Monday 11 September 2017

Taking pictures after a disaster strikes can help your community

What's in a picture? During a disaster, plenty. Mapping is a powerful tool that can help governments and their respective disaster management agencies respond to your community with the right recovery tools and teams. By taking pictures with your location feature turned on (GPS coordinates), your pictures can precisely pinpoint on a map where that image was taken. You can then add important confirmation details such as street name, which direction you are facing when taking the picture and any other relevant information such. An example would be a telephone - electricity power pole that is down. Face the direction of the pole, note its location and if power in your neighborhood is actually affected. Do you know if the power line is sparking, indicating a live wire. All of this information is fed into a central data center for analysis, which in turn helps in two ways.

Your neighbors can then see the same images and help them avoid any dangers that you have seen and helps the government plan recovery operations. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has implemented this capability into their FEMA Smartphone App. By taking pictures, you can then help everyone with these images that you have taken. When doing so, think about how you would use these images to navigate your way to and from your location. By taking your time (there is no need to rush and take just hundreds of pictures in 5 seconds), thinking about how you would use these images to get assistance, your contribution becomes important to your community and agencies trying to help you and your family. A good example is the picture of the telephone pole. Once you have taken that image, if it needed repair, are the main roads clear of debris? Which route would you recommend repair crews to take? Which one has the least amount of debris or obstructions? Are the roads flooded? Do you have an idea of how deep the water is? By taking this little bit of extra time to make notes, input these into the comments section of the FEMA App, you help first responders make choices in how to get to your family and community.

FEMA crowdsourced map - you can also see this map directly from the FEMA App on your phone.

If you have the time, coordinate with your neighbors and take important pictures that help make decisions such as several pictures of roads, intersections, important infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, highway on-ramps, bridges, etc. Take your time when doing so. They do not need to be super high resolution, but they do need sufficient detail to determine what conditions exist. While it is true that satellite imagery is often used during a disaster response, remember, if the weather is cloudy, rainy and strong winds exist, satellite images will not be available and nor will aircraft with reconnaissance  abilities be able to fly. Another important aspect is you. You are an expert in your community. You know your way around your neighborhood and understand where important safety issues could be barriers to response. Are there any ditches, recent road repairs that are not complete or where important infrastructure locations are. Your participation acts as an expert guide to others that will be responding that often have no direct experience with your neighborhood. The more helpful information you can supply, the safer and faster a response will be to your community.

Be proactive in your community by talking to your neighbors and plotting out where damage has occurred that is important that first responders know about. A picture of your backyard swimming pool is not that important. But where water pipes have broken, power poles, schools acting as shelters and hospitals have suffered major damage are vital.

Be active and think how you would help out when in need. That's the key to success when using modern smart phone technology. Make sure your location feature is turned on and take smart pictures and upload them if mobile service or Wi-Fi is available. Even if you have to wait to upload them at a local WiFi hotspot, it is worth the wait. Response agencies know the sacrifice and difficulties you may have to undergo to upload these pictures.

We have observed many of those affected by Hurricane Irma are uploading photos their communities that are damaged to Facebook Community groups. There are hundreds of these groups in addition to individual Facebook pages. FEMA and United Nations agencies do not have time to be members of all these community groups and must centralize their analysts that can help determine best courses of action to take in response to the disaster. By using a single application or web portal, the task becomes much simpler and faster to visual what has occurred and what response options should be considered. By taking pictures of important roads, arteries and other infrastructure, you help determine how best they can direct teams in the field and other agencies such as the UN, Coast Guard, Naval and Air assets. Do you live near the main airport? It isn't just the runway that is important, but the roads leading to and from its terminal. Do you know where normal everyday bottle necks exists? Pictures of these locations are vital to know in advance.

For those nations in the Caribbean that are not able to use FEMA, app, there is another way to plot your images onto a map for decision makers to leverage by using the Crowdsource ARCGIS map linked here - https://napsg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StoryMapCrowdsource/index.html?appid=65f0dde429504c3cb07f0cae0f2c4be6

This link will remain active for as long as Hurricane Irma disaster recovery operations continue.

FEMA APP Link

ARCGIS map photos taken by locals. The dots indicate how many picture have been taken. On the right shows a description. But often they are not clearly identified or useful to first responders and recovery agencies. We need to help you take better pictures and assist  in any way possible for you to understand why it is important.

By participating, you help solve critical problems that occur during a disaster response. That's how we all can help heal and recovery faster.

How to turn on location service on an iPhone - https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207092

How to turn on location service on an Android device - https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3467281?hl=en

How to turn on location service on a Samsung S5 phone - http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/skp/faq/1044567

How to turn on location service on a Galaxy device - http://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00062037/


Sunday 10 September 2017

Surviving and recovering Hurricane IRMA in regions of the Caribbean

Hurricane Katie (left), IRMA (center), Jose (right)
September 8, 2017


For those on all the island nations in the Caribbean basin, here are some tips and recommendations you might want to consider, given the challenges you are all presently facing. As a disaster recovery specialist having observed what is currently happening all across the Caribbean, there are some common themes on how best to cope and move forward that I'd like to share with you. These tips are in no specific order of priority.
1) Check in with your neighbors and family through any means possible by telephone, email, skype, etc.or walking to their known shelter or home.
2) Use the FEMA smartphone App for trusted updates on Government support services that will ramping up over the next week. The smart phone App works for Android and iPhone.
3) Double check your information with more than one source if it isn't from a government institution. Best news sources online are NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC and local affiliates to any of these organizations.
4) Limit your comments on posts in this community. It creates a very long scroll list for members to find information, which drains battery power on your smartphone - if that's your only information resource device.
5) Do not be alarmed by the news now focused on Florida. All Caribbean islands are being paid attention to by those that have the responsibility to respond - the Government. Media exposure maybe reduced, but not Government response.
6) Logistics takes time given the nature of this Hurricane. Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and the east coast are the staging points for ships. They will have to deal with rough seas at slower speeds. European nations are flying in supplies and moving naval ships as fast as they can.
7) Airports are being repaired and will be active with relief flights of supplies as fast as humanly possible. But it still takes time and coordination. Hurricane Irma's aftermath of post storm activity will make things difficult as flights must depart farther away than normal given the fact that Florida is now not available as a staging point for flights. Do not expect commercial flights to return to regular service anytime soon given the damage that will likely happen in Florida.
8) The International Military community is responding. It may not appear that they are, but US Southern Command, US Coast Guard, Royal Navy, Royal Netherlands Navy assets are being deployed to the Caribbean. It takes time and there's nothing that can help speed it up than what is already being done. The Military is moving as fast as possible. The United Nations has deployed several organizations throughout the Caribbean to help support recovery efforts.
9) Take stock of your position and make a list of things you need. Ensure that you prioritize and be prepared to share those resources as best you can. It might be best to share in the cost of some important items if necessary as you make requests for resupply including fuel, generators, lights, batteries, water and hygiene products.
10) Work together and remain focused on the immediate tasks. While surveying where you live, make notes on paper or take pictures of your community and make sure you share with important information included to community leaders. This will help in determining how best recovery efforts can be managed and prioritized for everyone's safety.
11) Remain safe by being observant and aware of your family's whereabouts and what everyone is doing. Observe by thinking what the impact of the damage will be on recovery efforts. Examples include power lines, water pipes, types of debris, level of destruction, and access to your neighborhood and weaknesses that you see. Ask yourself, how would you go about recovery? That helps you determine what you need to do to remain safe and keep alive over the next several weeks and months ahead.
12) Without a doubt, remaining calm and reducing your stress level will be almost impossible keep in check. The best way to cope is to talk to your local friends and neighbors and help each other in person. Being online all the time will not help solve those issues. Work together and see what expertise and help you can contribute to each other. Doing so keeps you busy, productive and gives everyone a sense of how you can move forward in a positive light.
13) Resupply cannot solve everything. Tackling all the issues you are now faced with all at once, will not help either. Past disaster recovery experience shows that working towards recovery and rebuilding one step at a time is the best approach. Fully complete one task before moving onto the next one. It will solve a lot of complexity in how to move forward.
14) By engaging locally and in person, the better your sense of what will be required for your recovery will be. Engaging does not mean complaining about it to local public safety officials. It means asking questions, but that does not mean it should be a vector to vent your anger. Mother nature is a powerful destructive force when these storms occur. There's no agency in the world that can fix these problems overnight. Everyone wishes it could be done, but it can't. By asking questions and getting answers - as much as they may not be the answers you don't want to hear, understand what is being given as an answer. When a response given is "we don't know" or "I have no answer to that question", it simply means that they are being honest in that support options are limited by other factors out of their control. It does not mean they are not willing to help as mentioned in several points listed above.
15) The best thing you can do is remain positive and make goals on how best to recover. It will be hard and it will not be easy for all you. But it can be done and is an important part of your healing and recovery process. Every community in the Caribbean is going through this. It will be a international recovery effort and know, teams are preparing to help everyone as best they can.
If you have questions, try to ask them locally in your community. Those are the best places to get real answers that apply specifically to you and your family. If you still have challenges and concerns that you believe are not getting answers too, leave a detailed comment here and I will attempt to answer it.
You will all come out this hurricane stronger. That's the best way to think of this event despite the obvious rhetorical thoughts that suggest otherwise. Visit our Disaster Management portal to learn more about dealing with disasters.

Red Cross Check in and Registery
https://safeandwell.communityos.org/cms/index.php

FEMA App download 

https://www.fema.gov/mobile-app