EmergencyTech.org

After 9/11 workers were exposed to all manner of toxins. During the recovery even those well away from Ground Zero, those who were working on mortuary details for example, were exposed to unsafe levels of Asbestos.

In March of last year, New York City paramedic Deborah Reeve died of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related form of cancer. There is little doubt she was first exposed to asbestos on Sept. 11, 2001, when she responded to the scene at Ground Zero.

There is equally little doubt that she continued to be assaulted by the substance sometime during the next eight months when she was assigned to the morgue, where she helped medical examiners do body-part identification.

Dr. Emily Craig, Kentucky’s forensic anthropologist, had already given a lot of thought to the problem of contaminated corpses before the World Trade Center was attacked. But she stood endless days in the same morgue as Deborah Reeve. She breathed the same air while combing bags of rubble for slivers of bones so that DNA could name what remained.

“Ziplock-like” body bag technology developed by Dr. Craig attempts to address the issue of cross contamination from handling remains.

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Further proving the value of low-cost (read: “free”), publicly available, accurate geospatial and geographic information systems data for both emergency responders and the general public, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has honored the team that provided near-constant updates as the events related to Hurricane Katrina unfolded. Before Google Earth most GIS resources were poorly-updated and/or prohibitively expensive.

From the Official Google Blog:

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast almost a year ago, people across the country and around the world wondered how to help. Many donated money; others lent their homes to dislocated survivors. A group of Googlers lent their expertise by leveraging the power of Google technology.

Over several long nights, the teams from Google Earth and Google Maps created satellite imagery overlays of the devastation in the affected region, which showed more accurately the scope of the disaster. Soon after, we were told that rescue workers and the U.S. Air Force were using Google Earth to find people who were stranded.

And last week, we received formal recognition from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Members of the NGA presented the “Hurricane Katrina Recognition Award” to the Google Earth team, as well as the Google Enterprise and Global Support groups, for their direct support during the Katrina disaster. Individual recipients included Brian McClendon, Andria McCool, Wayne Thai, Charlie Chapin, Michael Ashbridge, Chikai Ohazama, Lenette Howard, and Rob Painter, along with two folks from Carnegie Mellon University who assisted us: Randy Sargent and Anne Wright. We’re pleased to be recognized in this way — but even more pleased that we could help.

Via Ogle Earth.

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Bobby Block and Christopher Cooper from the Wall Street Journal have published a new book that discusses the failures of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Two of the most interesting aspects of their analysis are the abject failure of the National Response Plan and the bottleneck of information that formed at the Homeland Security Operations Center:

At the Department of Homeland Security, federal efforts following disasters were dictated by the newly minted National Response Plan. Though billed as a plan for all disasters, it made a sharp distinction between garden-variety calamities such as Gulf hurricanes and more severe catastrophes — generally terrorist attacks. By the department’s reckoning, standard disaster response fell to local governments, backstopped by FEMA, while a catastrophic event assumed the states would be immediately overwhelmed and required a massive response from the federal government.

In the run-up to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, there were calls within Homeland Security and the White House to pre-emptively declare the tempest a catastrophe and put the federal government on heightened alert — “leaning forward,” as department officials liked to say. But senior Homeland Security officials resisted, arguing that FEMA was perfectly capable of handling a hurricane. “I did not feel it was imperative,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said later.

Likewise, Matthew Broderick, the director of the Homeland Security Operations Center, or HSOC, saw no reason for extraordinary action without definitive proof that there was a catastrophe in New Orleans. And his view of what constituted a catastrophe was pivotal: As HSOC commander, he was responsible for giving Mr. Chertoff and the White House virtually all of the ground intelligence they would receive during the disaster.

I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet but I am anxiously awaiting my copy especially with endorsements like this one from HLSW:

Block is one of the top DHS beat reporters, and Cooper came to the WSJ from the Times-Picayune, so I’m expecting the whole book to be a worthwhile read, in terms of synthesizing the narrative of the response to Katrina.

Read a longer excerpt here.

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This is an interesting use of existing infrastructure in a new way that promotes public safety. Cell phone towers often become useless for telecommunications as soon as disaster strikes but, in the wake of tsunami deaths that could have been prevented with better early-warning for residents, the Indonesian government has found a new use for these hulking eyesores.

“Indonesia will place sirens on mobile phone towers in a bid to warn coastal residents of a tsunami, a minister said yesterday, more than a week after huge waves killed hundreds of people on the south coast of Java.Officials in Indonesia have come under fire for the lack of any warning ahead of the July 17 tsunami, despite regional efforts to set up an early alert system after the massive 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami”.Further,”we will accelerate information to the people to below 20 minutes when there is a potential tsunami by using sirens in the coastal areas,” Research and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman told reporters after a cabinet meeting.”We will equip mobile phone towers in the coastal areas with sirens. They will work when the meteorological office hits the button to warn of a possible tsunami,” Kadiman said”.

You can read the entire article from the Sydney Morning Herald for more details.

Via SmartMobs

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Ever found yourself in, say, a huge mass casualty incident that required tons of communications after a disaster that knocks out the telecommunications infrastructure? Yeah, I know, me too. Thankfully, San Diego’s All Road Communications have developed a system that they claim can deliver working satellite phones to anywhere at anytime.

We have been working hard on establishing multiple air and land delivery services which operate around the clock for both pick up and delivery. The effect of this is that our customers can now order a phone on Sunday night and get it Monday morning, or order Monday morning and get it Monday night, anywhere in the USA.”

All Road Communications is open for sales, rentals and customer service 24 hours a day, and can now also ship 24 hours a day.

At a paltry $19.95 a week for the more cost effective phones from the Iridium and Globalstar networks and the capacity for internet connectivity over the Inmarsat system it sounds like a home run considering the first thing to go in a disaster is telecommunications. The trick would be to incorporate this into a larger response plan for smaller systems that may not have the resources or the persistent threat to justify stockpiling satelite phones and replacing them as the technology changes.

Sounds like a good idea for staying on the cutting edge if they can deliver to areas that are have restricted access.

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