Mapping as Disaster Response

Jeremy is leading the session. He works for Multnomah Co, CNRG, and Portland Peak Oil.

Everyone is introducing themselves. Wow they are coming at this from every angle. Techies and folks thinking about terrorists and natural disasters and man-enhanced natural disasters.

TOP OFF was the dirty bomb simulation in Portland run by DHS and deemed by the organizers a brilliant success and by everyone else a disaster. FEMA was the culprit everyone agreed exacerbated the situation.

Governments do have a mandate for the well being of citizens but they now care about businesses and of course you need food delivery trucks.

There is no good legal framework for the public sector to protect private sector.  Everyone agrees: best thing you can do is have on hand a whole lot of great barter items.

Bureaucracies simply don’t function in emergencies. You need to operate at the lowest level of organization because folks on the ground are the only ones who know what is going on. [duh!]   Example:  When the 911 systems were out in Hood River, everybody knew about it but the federal alert announcement came six hours later.

Interesting discussion of locators and level now. There are so many levels that simulators can’t pick up the risk possibilities.

Again it comes back to individuals aware that they have to be prepared and need to work with their neighbors to take care of themselves.

Assume failure and expect it. Let’s look at failures and find successes among them.  

Wow. 

Several folks are insisting we need to make a list right now here at WhereCampPDX with details on the three days of supplies everybody should stock.

Red Cross lady is saying a main reason systems fail is because people do nothing – following a disaster people get 50% dumber. No higher thought capabilities. You need drills. You need to have done it beforehand.  Then she confesses that after five years of preaching to people about this she finally is putting together her own disaster kit and escape plan.

What needs to be done is changing the attitude toward disaster. The government will not protect you. There’s an emergency resource on Twitter and fire departments are starting to use it.  We want to build the best plan we can and find out how the resources work and then expand whatever resources work so they reach more people.  One cell phone per street is something, not nothing.