Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Smarter Disaster Relief May Begin Online
Homeland Security Experts Say Web Tools Can Help Government Respond More Nimbly To Crises
When a wildfire engulfed 800 acres in Los Angeles' Griffith Park in 2007, firefighters not only suited up, they also plugged in. By monitoring the news that people nearby were posting to Twitter and the pictures they were uploading to Flickr, firefighters were able to "crowdsource our assessment of public needs" and react accordingly, a fire department spokesman said -- and all they had to do was listen.
For millions of people, communicating online is a natural part of their everyday lives -- even when crisis strikes. The utility of the Web during a natural disaster or terrorist attack is still a little-researched topic, but experts inside and outside of government say it has unimagined possibilities.
Art Botterell, an emergency communications expert who worked in the Federal Emergency Management Agency under James Lee Witt in the late 1990s, said government should help facilitate communication among communities and individuals at the heart of the crisis. What it should not do, Botterell said, is attempt to be those people's go-to place immediately after a disaster occurs. The federal government should primarily listen; let local communities and individuals talk and trade information; and then assess the situation.
Botterell, who currently works at the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office in California, cited President-elect Barack Obama's experience in community organizing as a reason to expect forward-thinking ideas from the incoming administration. The focus will hopefully be more on gathering input and relying on communities to engage in online crisis communication, he said. "The Obama administration, because of their world view, is likely to look at this," Botterell said. "Obama got his start as a community organizer, and I would hope that that spirit will be brought to bear on this."
Better listening skills might have helped FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Almost a week after the storm's landfall, with evacuees running out of food and water at New Orleans' convention center, director Michael Brown infamously told CNN anchor Paula Zahn that "the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today." Brown later recanted, but FEMA's apparent confusion during that disaster became a major motivator for Brian Humphrey, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman and veteran firefighter who now specializes in online crisis communication.
"We saw people become 'Superdomed,'" Humphrey said, referring to the thousands who took last-minute refuge in the Louisiana Superdome. "They were isolated, placed there, as the world watched. These people weren't receiving or sending out nearly enough information about the crisis.... We want to make sure that our populace does not become Superdomed."
One misconception that organizations often have about the Internet is that it can help make their voices louder and give them a bigger audience than radio or TV, Humphrey said. "The benefit is not for us to broadcast to a greater audience or more efficiently," he said. "The prime benefit is for us to listen more accurately, to be able to gather information more clearly." Although the LAFD serves more than 4 million people, its Twitter feed has fewer than 2,000 followers.
John Shea, a spokesman for FEMA who has worked on the agency's new media strategies, said "joining the conversation and staying credible in our lane is very important," noting the agency launched a Twitter account and YouTube page in October. FEMA is "getting its feet wet," he said.
Although the federal government is making strides -- which may grow longer in a Web-savvy Obama administration -- the real innovation is coming from local organizations, individuals and open-source online networks.
Aside from Twitter, which Los Angeles' fire department first used in March 2007, Humphrey uses Yahoo Pipes (a data-aggregation application) integrated satellite and street maps and mobile alerts to keep tabs on crises. Experience using the new tools also helps him understand each platform's downside. Reports from micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, for example, quickly become outdated. And, as Humphrey pointed out, there is the danger of mistaking old information for new.
Alabama's Department of Homeland Security has capitalized on Google Earth, an information system providing virtual maps, to respond more quickly to disasters, especially tornadoes. "What used to take days if not weeks -- to prepare a disaster declaration -- we can look at irrefutable damage and determine the amount of damage relatively quickly," said Jim Walker, director of the state's DHS, in a YouTube video discussing the project, called Virtual Alabama. Google Earth offers a common operating system for all counties in the state, which is crucial for a quick response, said Norven Goddard, assistant director of science and technology at the agency.
Botterell offered some less conventional ways Internet connectivity could help in a crisis. For example, if someone's house catches fire, a smoke detector could alert not only the police, but also the neighbors. Or if a mugging victim can reach a cell phone, he or she could push a button that sends an S.O.S. to all cell phones within 50 feet. These examples are the online equivalent of a car alarm or a scream for help, and they suggest a recurring theme: People physically close to a disaster are best equipped to respond and help. It was, after all, the passengers of United 93 who stopped the terrorists from hitting their D.C. target on Sept. 11, Botterell said. Former New York Times futurist and new media consultant Michael Rogers thinks along similar lines. "Community watch groups at the local level organizing online would be very valuable," Rogers said. "People at a local level could begin to use the Web as a way to make emergency plans that then moved over to mobile devices."
Government alerts haven't attained such sophistication. Even the Emergency Alert System, which ensures that the president can speak to Americans within 10 minutes of a national crisis, still relies on TV and radio channels only. That's where the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) comes in. It uses a database to send messages so "officials don't waste precious time generating one version of the warning for TV and then another for e-mail and so on," said Botterell, who spearheaded the new system's creation. The federal Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have both indicated they want to transition to this system, and the Federal Communications Commission issued a statement [PDF] in 2007 specifying that the EAS would migrate to CAP. In the meantime, FEMA has been developing the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), which is its version of CAP. But Botterell said the agency must get "unstuck" in its implementation.
An alert system with an online component would let government take advantage of the Internet's durability compared to cell phones -- the real reason Rogers calls potential for online crisis communication "tremendous." He cited the Minneapolis bridge collapse as an example: That city happened to be one of a few to have set up a municipal wi-fi network, so when cell phone channels became jammed immediately following the collapse, rescue crews were able to tap into the wireless Internet to communicate.
The Internet's stability doesn't come with a 100 percent guarantee, nor does it reach every person in the U.S., Rogers pointed out. He estimates that the number of Americans who have access to wireless broadband Internet hovers at only 60 percent. Rogers said that any organization engaged in online crisis communication must have a backup plan.
To be sure, no matter how technologically adept the Obama administration is, online crisis communication cannot be set up overnight. But given the tools that governments are already using, the leap may be smaller than one may think. "At this point, I would say that it's a big job, but you've got to start somewhere," Botterell said. "I'm optimistic that to the extent that the new administration focuses on these issues, they'll bring some very helpful ideas and attitudes to it."
But will there be room for an emergency communications overhaul on Obama's already overstuffed agenda, while an ailing economy, two wars and conflict in the Middle East command the headlines?
"Sooner or later it will become an issue," Botterell said, "because it always does immediately after a disaster."