How can we create a disaster resilient society and planet?

Thanks to Evigilo for blogging with us. Innovative ideas are on the agenda at the Global Platform as over 70 presentations are scheduled to take place on the IGNITE stage over the 3 days of the main event. More information to come soon here!

Most important criteria preparing disaster resilient society and planet is first of all through smart utilization of existing communication and means of information. The possibilities are there, the big question how effectively and smartly utilize those?

I would like to try to answer this question based on our experience gathered in the national Israel and Chilean project,  where we have deployed the national public warning systems and collaboration systems.

The 2010 forest fires occurred in Israel exposed the lack of real-time information sharing between the Home Front Command (Israel’s civil protection), the fire department, the police as well as the respective municipalities. A fact that has led to a national state of emergency worse than during most of the wars Israel has fought.

This event has led to a rethinking of the national HLS strategy and changed the focus from war-time emergency preparedness only to a multi-threat preparedness including also natural disasters.

These changes could be seen during the recent civil defense drill (October 2012), that for the first time was not emulating a war incident rather than a devastating earthquake and Tsunami. During this national civil defense drill, same as in the years before, the eVigilo system was one of the core components that have been used to test proper communication and information exchange with the population and special groups, both on national as well as on regional level.

See: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/10/prweb10039059.htm

Those national drills are in fact crucial to train not only Special Forces but also the population. They are valuable to detect the existing bottle necks and provide precious information where changes are needed. They also help to prepare the population to the “real thing”. The event emulation is being triggered through integrated systems such as the “sensor service bus” that emulates events and scenarios and operates the respective alert and information systems even without triggering of the actual sensor systems (see below section 5.)

Here an official video in English, Spanish and Russian language that has been issued by the state of Israel for the collaboration and alert dissemination system supported by eVigilo:

English:                 http://youtu.be/sC4BXy8_RFw 

Spanish:               http://youtu.be/g2o7oYQ_f9I 

Russian:               http://youtu.be/iS0XlbQNIGw 

Chile has gone into the same direction and has introduced the first resilient mass communication system for initiating early warnings and manage crisis situations, with capabilities also to warn geo-targeted millions of people as well as special groups within seconds.

Here the official video as well as recent special group alert PR: http://www.evigilo.net/?p=1524

Per our understanding based on practical experience gathered, these are the core components for successful DRR, community resilience and effective alert and information management in times of crisis:

Round Table

Utilization of a real-time collaboration and information sharing system used by national authorities as well as respective municipalities in the disaster area and in the surrounding regions (for effective preparedness once the event expands into neighboring areas).

National level alert and notification systems

Utilization of secure and resilient infrastructure as well as resilient dissemination channels such as

Cell Broadcast for mobile networks

SMS does not work, who believes that SMS will do, makes a cardinal mistake

Use WIFI as alternate bearer to decrease the load from the mobile networks

Sirens

TV

Radio

Billboards

Delegation of dissemination rights

Transition of dissemination rights to the municipalities across aforementioned resilient means of information for local event management until the event is over, thus release pressure from the national authorities in times of crisis – See attached graphics

Utilization of local dissemination media in addition to aforementioned methods

Smartphones push notifications

Interactive panic alert applications, thus using the citizen as a sensor to receive input in case of emergency

PC Alerts

Social media

Central system approach for national and regional needs

Processing of hundreds of events per second generated by sensors and/or entities

Both for alert dissemination as well as collaboration and information sharing

Sensor service bus

Alert prioritization

Single event creation through combination of input from different sensor systems

Incident emulation to train forces and population

Creation of respective information and alert messages targeting specific departments, groups or the population

Utilization of single interface to all existing alerting systems

You can find more information under www.evigilo.net

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