BrandToBeDetermined

Hurricane Gustav Comes to the Gulf, Invited or Not

1978 shipwreck
Originally uploaded by eschipul

As I type this, Hurricane Gustav is approaching the coast of Louisiana, New Orleans has been evacuated, and Texas to Alabama are on watch. It has not made land fall yet, but social media mavens are supporting solutions ahead of time. Social context charges forward, Obama made history and McCain inexplicably chose Palin as a running mate. And Palin rumors are spreading.

But what started this blog? It was being incensed by the crappy response to Hurricane Katrina. And a simple blog post saying, in 2005, that we don't have an "RSS for emergencies that is widely accepted." From my Emergency RSS post:

To that end I want to state that we need a simplified RSS type system to track data in an emergency.  No one site can handle all emergency response.  Even if it could it would create a single point of failure. We need something as simple as RSS, call it emergency RSS or ERSS, to handle the needs that arise in an emergency.

It's pretty clear I was a newbie blogger. No outbound links, but the thoughts still hold, and the need still has not been met. The post on Emergency RSS continues:

With Katrina, which hit in 2005, what I observed were numerous sites heroically put up, only to go down once they were picked up by the blogosphere and the media.  Go here for help … everyone does globally including the curious from other countries …. Server dies.  Nobody gets help.  Next site is suggested.  Repeat the process.
.....
I am not inventing anything here.  I am just screaming that we should have this in place for times of crisis already.

Since 2005 many many things in my life have gotten progressively better. But my original call to action for blogging is still unmet. And CAPS (Common Alerting Protocol) is just too complex. If only Dave Winer lived in New Orleans, THEN we would have a simple solution. Perhaps I am unfit for the task on this one given it is now three years later.

In closing, thoughts, prayers and good wishes for the folks in the path of Gustav. Stay safe!

Note: That photo? It is a shipwreck blown ashore by a hurricane in 1978 in Dominica. The ship is still there. Not only have the lessons not been learned, but the ship remains on shore. Sad really.

Emergency Simulation - learning from exercises

  VIEW-MASTER: EMERGENCY 
  Originally uploaded by HoldThatTiger

Currently as I type this we are in the last few hours of our emergency simulation exercise for the second quarter. I do know that I have already learned a HUGE amount. Good and bad.

What is interesting about running exercises is how your adrenaline actually rises. And how obstacles you ignore for years become OBVIOUS. Which is the point of running an exercise I guess.

So will they complete by 5? Not sure yet.

I'll post a write up in a few days. It will  have great commentary on emergency simulations like

"telemarketers who call on unknown numbers keep beeping in and you can't tell if they are part of the simulation or not. So you have to answer. And it is very hard to keep your cool. This is compounded by the fact that they were calling on an IP phone from India and had no idea what I meant when I said "I am in an emergency simulation and can't talk right now!" (they called back three (3) times)

Tornado Scare at the Pub

  Tornado Scare at the Pub 
  Originally uploaded by eschipul

Fort Smith Arkansas. Killing a bit of time before going back to the hotel. Walking around taking pictures on Garrison Avenue in Fort Smith (see previous in series). It starts to rain a bit so I dash into the one open pub - Roosters.

The rain picks up a bit, but being from Houston I respectfully submit that I am more familiar with rain than the folks in Arkansas. We live in a swamp that got paved over for heaven's sake! So there I am at the bar drinking a bud light. Listening to the locals and ... well doing nothing.

A guy comes running back into the bar and hollers "Man, look at that!" referring to the rapidly picking up wind. The door to the bar being pulled open and the rain went horizontal in less than a minute. The speed was scary.

Next man says "funnel cloud" and "GET IN THE BASEMENT Y'ALL" - and (the rest of the story is on flickr here)

This Blog is Dead. Long Live This Blog.

  Houston Transtar 2 
  Originally uploaded by eschipul

In September of 2005 I started blogging. It was a reaction, a response, to the events of Katrina hitting New Orleans. And the Houston response. We now know a city of 400k was reduced to 200k with many of those who left living in Houston. But I digress.

My first blog post on Emergency RSS is pasted below in its entirety. Two years later I must say that we haven't made much progress towards this particular goal. More after the jump.

September 13, 2005

Emergency RSS Proposal

This blog, written by an amateur, will hopefully evolve to be interesting to
others as well as affect change on a global basis.  And the best way to
affect change globally is to start locally.  To pick up the cigarette
butt on the corner.  Cliché?  Sure, but damnit it works.

The biggest screamingly loud demand, need, I see in the world of social software is a distributed method of responding to a crisis.  We just had Katrina hit and she was a bitch by any measure.  Lives were lost.  Pause on that sentence, lives were lost.  The most sacred thing we are capable of creating or destroying, lives, were lost as a result of poor human organizational skills.  I don’t want to know who accepts responsibility, I want to know that disaster is prevented before it occurs.

To that end I want to state that we need a simplified RSS type system to track data in an emergency.  No one site can handle all emergency response.  Even if it could it would create a single point of failure.  We need something as simple as RSS, call it emergency RSS or ERSS, to handle the needs that arise in an emergency.

Let me step back and repeat the basis for the need.  With Katrina, which hit in 2005, what I observed were numerous sites heroically put up, only to go down once they were picked up by the blogosphere and the media.  Go here for help … everyone does globally including the curious from other countries …. Server dies.  Nobody gets help.  Next site is suggested.  Repeat the process. 

Yet when it comes to blogs and news we can easily replicate with RSS our posts.  Even if one server went down, the outline of the content would still be cached at feedburner or similar.  So if in time of crisis 10 sites had relevant content of who is looking for what, who needs what, who needs to be dispatched where, then if one goes down you still have 9 sites up and replication of 100% of the content on each node.  This is just like DNS.  I am not inventing anything here.  I am just screaming that we should have this in place for times of crisis already.

This blog, written by an amateur, will hopefully evolve to be interesting to
others as well as affect change on a global basis.  And the best way to
affect change globally is to start locally.  To pick up the cigarette
butt on the corner.  Cliché?  Sure, but damnit it works.

The biggest screamingly loud demand, need, I see in the world of social software is a distributed method of responding to a crisis.  We just had Katrina hit and she was a bitch by any measure.  Lives were lost.  Pause on that sentence, lives were lost.  The most sacred thing we are capable of creating or destroying, lives, were lost as a result of poor human organizational skills.  I don’t want to know who accepts responsibility, I want to know that disaster is prevented before it occurs.

To that end I want to state that we need a simplified RSS type system to track data in an emergency.  No one site can handle all emergency response.  Even if it could it would create a single point of failure.  We need something as simple as RSS, call it emergency RSS or ERSS, to handle the needs that arise in an emergency.

Let me step back and repeat the basis for the need.  With Katrina, which hit in 2005, what I observed were numerous sites heroically put up, only to go down once they were picked up by the blogosphere and the media.  Go here for help … everyone does globally including the curious from other countries …. Server dies.  Nobody gets help.  Next site is suggested.  Repeat the process. 

Yet when it comes to blogs and news we can easily replicate with RSS our posts.  Even if one server went down, the outline of the content would still be cached at feedburner or similar.  So if in time of crisis 10 sites had relevant content of who is looking for what, who needs what, who needs to be dispatched where, then if one goes down you still have 9 sites up and replication of 100% of the content on each node.  This is just like DNS.  I am not inventing anything here.  I am just screaming that we should have this in place for times of crisis already.

New Article on Schipul.com - Emergency Response Tools for Every Day Systems

Just posted a new article on Schipul.com here. It has been a few months since I wrote a full article although the team has been charging forward. The beginning of the article is below followed by a link out to the full article. I'd love to hear your feedback here or through comments on the site below the original article.

Pop-Up Emergency Response Tool versus Enabling Every Day Systems

NOTE: For disclosure purposes, it’s important to point out that our company has a software product called Tendenci^® that includes a first responder module and emergency response capabilities. Whether an organization uses Tendenci or not, I believe the key to effective emergency response is to use familiar tools that are widely deployed and accessible.
 

It will be through extensive training, experimentation, practice and repetition, with lessons learned properly applied, that assumptions will be validated or found faulty, concepts proven or rejected, and the theoretical molded into the practical – that process alone will yield the best practices, policies, and procedures required for the effective employment of new technology (for emergency response).

Lt.Col. Mark Stanovich, USMCR, Emergency Readiness and Response Research  Center
“Network-Centric” Emergency Response

As a resident and a corporate citizen of Houston, I have kept a close eye on the progression of hurricane season. Despite dire predictions, we’ve had only three named storms so far. At this time last year, we were already up to our 12^th named storm. So we are cautiously optimistic.

Unfortunately, I am less optimistic about the ability of communities throughout the Gulf Coast to leverage technology investments in their response to the storms that will inevitably come. Too many are relying on technology tools that sit dormant until an emergency is imminent rather than deploying multi-functional technologies that integrate emergency response into familiar tools.

I believe there is a significant danger with emergency response tools that sit on the shelf until they are needed. Primarily the danger lies in three areas: training, reach and access.

Full Emergency Response Tools Article here.