Assigned Post #4 Earthquake in Haiti Technology Advances

Tonight’s class was specifically focused on the Earthquake in Haiti and the emergency response tactics after the earthquake hit. There were a lot of topics thrown around during the entirety of the class, but there was one fact to point out that was more important than all the rest. This select piece of information stated that with crisis mapping many people that were trapped in the disaster areas were tweeting, which were being read by thousands of translators and responders. At a more in depth look responses came in Haitian Creole; the responders had to translate this into English so that they could translate the tweets, categorize them and plot the areas that needed to be responded to. Following this, the most important information could be sent to the responders who would then use the information to go and save lives in the places they believed needed the most help. Another important thing to remember was that a lot of pressure was put on the translators, not as much on the responders because they had to pick out what the important information was compared to the information that wasn’t so pressing. This is not how it was in the past and makes this a very important first and unique occurrence.

Going into deeper and more exact levels of the technology is the next thing I would like to focus on now that the main point of my blog has been put out there. One example of important technology that was used for the post Haiti response was SMS text messaging. SMS text messaging was the main form of communication after the earthquake in Haiti. Unlike the 9/11 attacks the infrastructure did not fail due to the fact that there were not enough people in Haiti to bring down and flood the network with their cell phones. This was an excellent opportunity for emergency responders because it gave them exact GPS locations on the victims and they were able to help them and send them back information on where they could go and get help. Another important piece of information that happened for the first time after the Haiti earthquake was the collaboration between different agencies and organizations worked very well during this disaster unlike in the past such as 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. This is because they developed a new way to share information that worked very well. This was also the first time the government used social networking sites to help in the disaster relief. Surprisingly this worked very well with the concept of silos working together.

After class tonight, I was in the mood to look up other new technologies specifically designed to help with the Haiti relief efforts. After looking briefly in YouTube I found a very interesting video called New Solar Water Purifier Saves Lives in Haiti. This video can be found at the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHw7WXPG0g

This video was pretty interesting and was a little bit different from what we covered in class. I advise watching the video if you are interested in different types of physical relief in Haiti. Overall, I would have to say that tonight’s class was very interesting and everyone that spoke did a very good job. I especially enjoyed the puppies on the screen.

Assigned Post #3 Hurricane Katrina Relief Tactics

In yesterday’s class the major topic at hand was disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina. In order to begin my blog I wanted to bring up a quote that really inspired me during a presentation during class. It stated, “The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina showed that we are still a very analog government in a digital age”. To me, this quote meant that our government has the potential for so much more, and yet we were not well enough prepared when this terrible disaster hit New Orleans. The government needs to create better crisis mitigation plans for a lot of different possibilities, which can be very difficult at times.

I also feel that one of the most important things to take away from the Hurricane Katrina incident was the system NIMS. The National Incident Management System is a system used in the United States to coordinate emergency preparedness and incident management among various federal, state, and local agencies. Basically, NIMS wanted to get all the government agencies to come together and work as one unit, which failed terribly during Hurricane Katrina. All of the separate government agencies are too stubborn to coordinate with one another because they do not wish to share information with one another, due to the fact that they would all like to keep their own secret information. Because of this, disaster relief can never be maximized and just creates a sloppy mess during any type of disaster because information is not shared between the agencies.

It is for this reason that the government was overwhelmed when the Hurricane Katrina hit, which left the emergency response in the hands of the individuals and nonprofit agencies. One of the ways civilians attempted to help was to put up many different websites to either get or supply help for the hurricane victims. One very bright person decided to invent a program called PeopleFinder, which is still up and running till this very day many years later. PeopleFinder linked all these sites people were building to help one another during Hurricane Katrina, but had the problem later that they couldn’t remove their information once it was created. This program was very useful during and right after Hurricane Katrina, but years later it created havoc because it left peoples information up when they didn’t want it to be for everyone to see. This led to bad occurrences such as identity theft and so on.

I also wanted to discuss a little bit about one of the articles that was do for last class called “How high-tech is coming to the rescue”. The link can be found below and is on Angel:

https://cms.psu.edu/section/default.asp?id=201112FAUP___RSRA__397A001

In this article, I found a few new technologies that could be very useful at a disaster relief site. Some of these new technology prototypes included three foot long robot planes and helicopters that could survey and send wireless footage back to rescue teams. Two others included night vision sensor systems and triage sensors. All of these technologies worked well and I believe should be implemented into permanent use for disaster relief situations. I also believe we can learn from the mistakes we as a nation made at Katrina, and develop better layers of protection and mitigation in the future.

Assigned Post #2 Technology Advancements After 9/11 Attacks and Better Preparedness

I felt that yesterday in class we had a very productive evening. In this week’s blog post I would like to discuss two of the most interesting topics I heard in class which included viewing how the people react and get through natural disasters opposed to the government doing everything and technology changed after the 9/11 attacks. After leaving the classroom last night I feel that an interest was sparked in me that made me want to read parts of the 9/11 Commission Report.

One of the views of the public is seen as a powerful, self-organizing, and collectively intelligent force and they have a better understanding of how citizens respond to a disaster. I agree with this argument over the argument that people are not intelligent and scare easily during a terrorist attack or natural disaster. I think that it is a false statement for the most part that people just freeze up when in the face of imminent danger. On the contrary human beings frolic to danger; for example, if a plane crashed outside of the IST building I am sure at least half of the class if not more would go out and either get a closer look or attempt to help the crash victims. This goes to show that it is in human nature to want to help each other in times of danger and crisis.

The next topic that I wish to talk about is whether or not I think that we would be more prepared for another terrorist attack in New York City drastically similar to the 9/11 attacks. First and foremost, there would be no stopping the main sources of communications due to the fact that everyone would be on their cell phones, therefore overloading the system. This would render cellphones as useless pieces of junk and another source of communication would be necessary. As we all know, all of the telecommunications infrastructure were down from the crashes that day, but there were a few ways we could have been better prepared for the blackout. One example would have been to implement fiber optic cables instead of copper wire bundles because they have a single point fail point, which would make it easier to lose power. This proves that we as the United States could have been more prepared and had better mitigation planning to deal with these terrible events.

The following link was used in my presentation during this week in class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzjWvn9oEBg&feature=related

This video was presented by FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In this video, they tell the importance of a disaster mitigation plan, what steps need to be completed before the disaster occurs, and how the disaster can be mitigated after it occurs and finding the best possible ways to save as many people as possible. I thought the video was very interesting because FEMA was the main source of disaster relief during the 9/11 attacks, and this video had a good representation of what FEMA does and how they function. After watching this video I learned just how vital it was to having a good mitigation plan for disasters.   

Extra Credit Blog #1 National Geographic Commemorates 9/11 Attacks

For this extra credit blog I followed the link in the e-mail that the professor sent us for information on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. When I went to this site I found many interesting videos that gave a good tribute to this time period where instead of invoking terror on the United States Americans pulled together and became stronger as individuals by aiding each other.

The First video was entitled Finding Bin Laden and was found at the link:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-finding-bin-laden.html
I thought this video was really cool and showed a lot of detail that I have been craving to see since the night it had happened. I can still remember the night President Obama was set to make an important announcement to the nation. After finding out Osama Bin Laden was killed that night my roommates and I went downtown for the biggest random celebration Penn State has ever seen on East Beaver Ave. I will never forget that night and the sense of nationalism that was flowing through our campus and most likely the rest of the nation as well. Not until today did I get to witness the actual video of seal team six actually going in and killing Osama. However, I thought the minuscule amount of defense Osama had set up was surprising considering the seals got right in and took him out with little to know trouble at all.  

The next video I watched was titled President Bush looks back and was found at the link:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-the-president-looks-back.html
This video was very interesting and I was surprised the President kept his cool after hearing that a second plane hit the second tower. When the President was told that we were now going to be at war the look on his face was priceless. Yet he kept his cool and finished out the meeting he had with the students at the school in order to keep his good image. That day will live in infamy in the hearts of all Americans.

The last video that I watched was entitled True Heroes and the link was found at:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-true-heroes.html
This was the most touching video of the three that I viewed, I also remember when this happened all those years ago because this plane crashed very close to my house. It was very sad listening to these paramedics talking about wanting to help these people, but there was nothing left of their bodies to help. The people on the flight who killed the terrorists and flew the plane knowing it was to their deaths into an open field truly know self sacrifice and will forever be remembered forever.

After watching all of these videos I realized that National Geographic brought with them a strong message and sense of nationalism for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Hopefully these videos inspire others as they inspired me into getting into a good field and helping our nation out any way they can with some type of counter-terrorism.