Calamity response & prevention (even more important)
#Sandy #Phailin #Yolanda #Haiyan
#Gorkha /Nepal earthquake
*click on labels(s) representing your current disaster type or location to get all info re that incident*
Please share the following links for us to gather info of our bothers and sisters during this time. Let's remember to pray and stay safe Bahamas 🇧🇸https://t.co/OUBxxj7Dkwhttps://t.co/lXtfd3lGv4
BP BREAKING| Please circulate this number - Send a text to 3595142. It's a rescue number for people in Grand Bahama who are trapped.... pic.twitter.com/8FJ0hek0UC
at the moment the relief efforts for all areas affected by both hurricanes are still ongoing. The devastation by Irma is known while many areas hit by Maria still can't be reached !
As usual EZR offers live (24/7) monitoring of events as Twitter lists:
One for the entire Caribbean region, which is also embedded (via Twitter, but displayed on the website) here on the homepage of EZRdisaster, while two others are available only as Twitter links:
emergency-tx-la-fl-ca
(Irma impact on Florida, but also reports from Texas & Louisiana )
sxm-official-twtr
(Irma impact on Sint Maarten/Saint Martin and neighboring islands,ENG,DUT,FRE)
emergency-caribbean
(Maria impact on Puerto Rico, St. Croix (US Virgin islands),
Dominica & Guadeloupe (includes Sint Maarten list)
ENG,FRE,ESP,DUT)
just as hurricanes Harvey and Irma left Texas & some parts of the Caribbean in ruins, another hurricane - Maria - wreaked havoc in some parts of the Caribbean which haven't been punished that much a few days.
Regarding communications and electricity supply at least two islands - St. Croix and Puerto Rico - have been hit by Maria. Although the hurricane went through an eyewall replacement circle just before hitting Puerto Rico with "just" category 4, St. Croix was hit when it still was a category 5 storm. The effects on the islands' infrastructure was quite similar - In Puerto Rico according to initial reports from various sources 100% loss of the power grid & a 95% loss of cell towers for mobile phone voice and data connections.
Ricardo Rossello, and officials still had not had communication with nine of 78 municipalities.
"This is a major disaster," he said. "We've had extensive damage. This is going to take some time."
Emergency communications vehicles left for Puerto Rico today to support comms for search & rescue, medical, & other federal teams. #Mariapic.twitter.com/roil5xKqJ7
Besides the loss of electricity the subsidiary of the US National Weather Service lost its radar, which was also blown off its mast. The island which has about 3.5 million inhabitants is plunged almost completely into darkness and the fresh water supply is also affected. Many hospitals have been rendered useless, because of destruction or because vital supplies needed for running a hospital can't get delivered. Officials from Puerto Rico indicated that the electricity situation could last the next 4-6 months.
Roads access to many places has been restored, but gasoline & diesel (¹) is rationed and this affects also the generator operations resulting in frequent loss of local communications which could be restored. From US Virgin Islands reports are being picked up, which seem to suggest that cell towers running on generators are forced off the air because the generators are getting stolen.
People from outside Puerto Rico e.g. from the US mainland are desperately trying to get in touch with their relatives and because the Internet is also heavily affected the usual helpful tools like people finders by e.g. the Red Cross or by Google can't be used.
The most catastrophic scenario regarding communications and electricity has happened including "back to the basics" which is in this case to rely on ham radio operators and their shortwave transceivers. Initial reports however suggest that some operators also have problems with their generators, since gas stations are far away and are only supplying private citizens with a few liters of gasoline or diesel fuel.
Contrary to the earthquake event which occurred in Mexico and which claimed so far 300+ lives, the loss of life - at least as of known today- is fortunately low. Since the measures to restore communication and electricity have been described here just a few days ago (regarding hurricane Irma) this blog post will show some damage inflicted on transmission towers, cell towers, antennas, dishes, electricity poles, sub-station, transformers, etc. There will be also some tweets on the fuel scarcity currently in Puerto Rico, which impacts also the use of generators.
Some photos will be added in the upcoming hours as well as some indications of some backup communications already implemented. (by the military and radio amateurs)
Stay tuned ...
Impact on communication & electricity infrastructure
(various islands, various sources,tweets currently unsorted)
Satellite images taken at night show Puerto Rico in July vs. yesterday; Hurricane #Maria knocked out much of the power and it remains down. pic.twitter.com/9PDBYMdvdY
Muchas carreteras intransitables; mucho ciudadano privado ayudando en tránsito y otros esfuerzos👏 Pero no es seguro estar en la calle 🙏 pic.twitter.com/QDPDY6glK2
#PUERTORICO: The whole of Puerto Rico has lost electrical power, which authorities say may last a month, as a result of Hurricane Maria. pic.twitter.com/dcXCcrx3DN
Los daños en la distribución de energía son significativos al igual que en las vías públicas así como Infraestructura privada. pic.twitter.com/k5YpoY1GxN
Los daños en la distribución de energía son significativos al igual que en las vías públicas así como Infraestructura privada. pic.twitter.com/k5YpoY1GxN
Zicht op ZEELAND vanaf Dominica. Verkenningsteam rapporteert veel schade aan infrastructuur. Dodental 30. Noodhulp start, meer nodig #Mariapic.twitter.com/AdP2caswXn
So it's fair to conclude that all structures carrying cables or antennas have failed on those islands subjected to cat4/5 hurricane winds. Estimates during hurricane Irma's period of being a category 5 storm: approximately as devastating as a F3-F4 tornado ! All masts and poles, not just the (local) wooden ones, have been either totally destroyed (complete structural failure/collapse) or did at least bent enough to allow cables to break. It's also fair to assume that no tests were conducted on all those types of masts and utility poles and the ones used were just "normal" ones which can used in 'dead calm areas'. From own experience with antenna masts and attached UHF/VHF aerials it can be concluded that the torque what impacts the bending moment of the mast is often underestimated. Attached items like antennas or cables and insulators produce additional stress (wind load) to certain points of the structure and forcing the material to either bend or break.
Since antennas for either cell services or TV and radio broadcasts have to be installed on a elevated position those masts have to be considerably stronger than ones currently in use (or destroyed on those affected islands). Wooden structures have been blown to pieces (also roofs and trees) so this material can be deemed not strong enough to withstand 250-300 km/h winds. Masts made of steel or concrete must get reinforced, perhaps by adding additional materials or by simply enhancing the thickness/density of the materials used. The manufacture's guidelines for additional attachments to this structure must also be followed by those telecom firms which use them. If it turns after testing that those structures can't be made strong enough to withstand such winds, at least oblige those firms to have sufficient spare parts in place to restore services withing hours or days, not weeks or months !
Electricity cables however are installed above the ground because it's cheaper, not because it's technically impossible to implement other solutions. Serious questions have to be asked why many countries in Europe, which don't even suffer from such kind of destructive winds, are used to lay cables in the ground. It's not only possible for rather low voltage lines which are directly connected to people's homes, but also highest voltage cables for underground or seabed installation are available. Of course it's more work and more expensive to have them installed beneath the earth's surface, but in such hurricane prone areas the damage to public and private property and even the risk of costing lives is too high. Utilities have to be forced to overhaul their entire network within a reasonable time frame, not only including underground cables, but also 'circuit breakers' like large capacity battery systems at least nearby buildings with extreme importance for upholding public safety.
as described in 2015 in the aftermath of the Nepal Earthquake disaster, where the disaster affected mainly (not exclusively, because India & Tibet in a much lesser degree have also been affected) just one country - Nepal - had to cope with massive, widespread destruction of whole communities, infrastructure and a resulting massive loss of life.
In 2015 it was described what other dangers are our there waiting to happen any day in the future, since natural disaster will always happen, whether humans like it or not, whether we tend to forget previous disasters affecting mankind or not. It's as sure as every morning the sun comes up in any corner of our home planet, only the timing, the scale and the areas affected are not known today. Concerning the latter we can say that certain areas are much more prone to disasters than others since we know about the tectonics responsible for the big earthquakes and we also know the location of volcanoes and we do know that tropical cyclones happen - well in the tropical zone near the equator.
The biggest problem are not those repeating patterns of disasters,
but a nasty human habit of memory loss (it seems) and ignorance. Maybe evolution intended our human brains to better forget things in order not to get crazy or making wise decisions not to settle down on the slopes of a volcano. As maybe a wise strategy of past ages it was to simply not to worry about anything since humans couldn't do much about it anyway, we now live in the 21st century providing us for a range of tools to address the dangers we will certainly face again and again.
In 2015 it was described that the scale of a disaster could range from 1 to 5, measured in the loss of human life and the impact on affected communities. Concerning loss of life the hurricane Irma was perhaps "just" level 1, but concerning communities affected more like 2-3. Natural disasters don't care about states' borders and not about jurisdiction. They only happen and all people who happen to be in that area are affected in exactly the same way. Whether they are locals and perhaps live in more primitive buildings or tourists being accommodated in a local luxury hotel. As the tourists perhaps enjoy the better structural integrity of a modern hotel, they are also affected by non existent electricity, water, food supplies and communication in order to call for help from "the outside world" in the aftermath of a disaster event. Regarding loss of communication and experiencing a sudden,unwanted time warp into the dark ages a blogpost was recently released.
When a disaster strikes it's not the time to discuss the effects of global warming or how better prevention strategies might have prevented this or that effect of such a disastrous event. It's rather the time to plan, no ideally to execute, a 'war plan' worked out much earlier, an appropriate response to the disaster on the ground. Often assets available to civilian authorities aren't insufficient for such events or another big problem is cacophony rather than central command and authority which comes along with military leadership. One example of a sudden to the better comes to mind regarding hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana:
The military in general and NATO alliance in particular does that kind of planning (and also rehearsing by regular maneuvers) for a living - it's their profession, and this expertise could be used also for the logistical challenge of extracting tourists from disaster areas.
Not only when there are many wounded a fast response within a few hours can make the difference between living or dying of those patients, but as we could just see in the small island communities of Sint Martin/Sint Maarten or also hundreds of years ago during the catastrophe that struck Lisboa/Lisbon(Portugal), a breakdown of civil society can rapidly bring the 'rule of thug' where only a few hours earlier the rule of law was upheld.
Hurricane Irma demonstrated what a 'trekking disaster' could do to many areas we humans call states. It started to wreak havoc in the most South-Western small Island nations and it ended in the South-Eastern part of the USA. Although the state of Florida managed to escape a massive loss of life the effects of Irma still make an unprecedented impact on the whole region:
Irma is now the worst weather-related power outage in US history, beating Sandy (8.1 million in 17 states). https://t.co/9kp17JEQkW
It happened before and it will happen again. Strong earthquakes will affect a wide area around the epicenter. Near oceans they can produce a tsunami which can affect areas thousands of kilometers away. Hurricanes/Cyclones can maintain significant strength and every landmass in their path can be reduced to rubble. So planning for such an 'wide area event' would make sense and it also would make sense to scrap the idea that NGOs can cope with the aftermath of the most violent mass casualty events which affect hundreds, if not thousands of square kilometers, maybe divided by vast oceans. Not even the Army of one states could handle the appropriated response to such an event, only the combination of resources can respond in a matter of hours.
Every time such a disaster happens there are people who get angry with 'mother nature', some loons in the USA have even used their guns to shoot Hurricane Irma. First step must be to recognize that such disasters can't be prevent, many can't even be predicted (earthquake) and also not stopped like some non experts repeatedly propose to use hydrogen bombs to destroy deadly hurricanes like Irma. Listen to hurricane experts like Ryan Maue who know how much energy those weather phenomena absorb and learn to accept those forces of nature and concentrate on limiting their impact on human society. Human complacency, ignorance and weak memory kill not the natural disaster itself. Imagine an earthquake M 8.6 happening without any housing or mountains, just people standing in an open field. They will just fall down, maybe get some bruises, but there will be almost certainly no fatalities. Simple measures could reduce the impact of a catastrophic event significantly. Could mean the difference between life and death, between an inconvenience and mass casualties.
It starts with simple things like the knowledge we all have that there vacation destinations available for mass tourism from Europe, North America, Japan and now also China which are located in danger zones prone to earthquakes and/or tropical storms. It's not important what nationality they have, how rich their home countries are because during a catastrophic event they all are in the same boat or better distributed on several boats called hotels / holiday camps or however their housing in a foreign country is called. There are sometimes hundreds of such potential death traps in such areas with each housing a few to several hundred or thousand tourists (often families with children) and there are also many locals who work for their guests. All trapped and given what happened in the recent past - many times when the local/national power grid fails communication also goes down. Either communication equipment fails "just" because of the ab absence of regular AC power, or even worse: when cell towers suffer structural damage as well and landlines, often mounted on simple wooden poles in such areas, also get permanently disrupted. If this only happens on a small scale a repair would be possible within hours, but not when whole countries or provinces are affected, since the resources in material and man power are limited. So effectively even when those hotel buildings manage to survive an earthquake or heavy wind or even inundation they are cut-off from the outside world which means their home countries, families and friends at home. Without the possibility of using communications to ask for medical care, food and water supplies, evacuation the impact on the hotel and its inhabitants at the time the disaster struck will be much more severe than with a backup emergency system which can be used within minutes the regular means of communications are rendered useless.
Both, countries that host tourists (and often depend to a high degree on tourism) and countries where the tourists come from could do a lot more to prevent such situations get out of control again. The country that hosts all those hotels/ accommodations could force them by law to have backup systems for power at least with the capacity to uphold simple communications for X number of days. The EU could for instance force tour operators to just add hotels to their holiday catalogues which have such
'emergency kits' in place. One handheld satellite phone with a certain amount (1000$ ?) of prepaid fees would be the minimum in order to be instantly able to dial the outside world and request assistance. Regular drills should be done in order to let hotel staff get a certain routine in using such equipment as well as to test the gear and the satellite connection.
Depending on the size of such housing complexes for tourists some additional requirements such as the ability to set up a high speed VSAT link or using a BGAN device for Internet based communication which could also send photos/videos to the rescue centers in order to get a better picture of the damage scale.
Tourist accommodations which will not cooperate must be banned from future bookings, or at least consumers should be able to make that informed decision themselves when a mandatory label also for security (besides the X star '*****' rating system for comfort) is required.
Something like: "This place is has certified disaster resilience" or
One star '*' for the ability to communicate after a catastrophic impact on local infrastructure
Two stars '**' for certified structural resilience against earthquakes up to magnitude XX.X, wind speeds of X00 km/h and flooding up to X meters
Three stars '***' for previous two categories & own backup power supply which can handle all the usual needs of the hotel when grid power is available (for X days)
All those relatively simple measures which even don't costs tons of money could prevent the 'usual chaos' taking place after such events. It could keep the people affected by the disaster calm as well as those family members, friends and also members of embassies and foreign ministries which frantically trying to get a clear picture of what happened and try to organize a medevac or just a regular evacuation of many people at once. Often when all the usual extraction points - ports and airports - are damaged, nor usable for many days or even be completely destroyed (during earthquakes even the runways can get severely damaged so that no flights are possible even when there's a backup flight control system in place.
Ports can get blocked by sunken vessels or cranes for unloading goods can be destroyed by high winds or piers several damaged by earthquakes and tsunamis. It's not exactly rocket science to figure out the possible structural damage to buildings and infrastructure, since there's lots of previous examples of such impacts. It would be recommended to have such worst case scenarios in mind when planning for emergency aid as well as for evacuations without relying on the usually available infrastructure. The planning should be for a wider area without airports, ports available and should consider alternative locations for maritime or airborne operations. Who prepares for such scenarios ? The military, which also have the right assets for landing operations in war zones!
Strat transport idd belangrijk maar kunnen (en doen) meer: Forward operating base, commandopost, herbevoorrading. Ondersteuning brede zin! https://t.co/6b37BBB2zx
When a damage is spread over a wide area and/or mass casualties have to be treated , fed and evacuated who else than a large military alliance than e.g. NATO can put all the necessary assets in place
(requires also strategic airlift capabilities and sometimes also aircraft carriers providing a helicopter shuttle to/from coast)
Philippines 2013
A V-22 Osprey taking part in typhoon relief efforts lands aboard the USS Ashland off the coast of the Philippines pic.twitter.com/klW8nLyuTF
in a relatively short time. It requires a close coordination between national foreign ministries with NATO as one of the few, if not the only one, entities on the planet which can handle a giant logistic challenge when one or more entry points to one country or whole region are destroyed. The alliance has a wide range of special aircrafts, Navy vessels, but also vehicles which are designed to transport troops and material to any place where it's needed. (details: see Wiki links at the bottom of this page) EZR covered many major disasters since 2011 and concludes: it's still basically left to chance(!) what exactly will happen immediately after such an event occurs. It's about jurisdictions, national responsibilities for their own citizens and a myriad of officials involved in rescue & relief, in search & rescue operations and in damage assessment. Some bureaucratic hurdles often apply that need to be lowered first before aid can enter a country. It's perhaps unbelievable, but sometimes aid deliveries get stuck on borders, because national customs insist on collecting import duties, while further inland people are dying or at least starving or are forced to live under horrible conditions (Nepal 2015). Or some developed countries offer special airlift capacities and for domestic political reasons the government of that heavily damaged country refuse helicopters from country A while offers of country B are welcomed and there's still a dramatic shortage of airlift capacity (roads and bridges destroyed, many population centers on hill where landslides blocked road access (Nepal 2015)
Irma 2017:
France and the Netherlands are continuing to evacuate people from Saint-Martin island, including EU citizens, but the process is long. Several Member States (CZ, BE, RO, DE, MT, PG, ES, SE, HU, DK) reported having citizens (five to ten) still facing a very difficult situation on Saint-Martin island and British Virgin Islands.
Germany requested support through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to send a consular assistance team to Florida for the benefit of German and EU citizens. In addition, Portugal confirmed that it will charter a plane to Guadeloupe on 13 September to repatriate its citizens (seats are available for other EU nationals).
Unnecessary delays happen, multiple states increase their foreign office activities and try to charter aircraft or arrange other means of transport for their citizens. So as it happened many times in such disaster areas when some lucky ones with the 'right' passport of country A, people who have been refused to board that same airplane will remain in miserable conditions and get angry why they couldn't be flown out as well (plus their relatives and friends back home). A myriad of phone calls, e-mails, social media messages between various parties (in a time where communication networks are down or capacity is very limited)
Our thoughts are with those affected by #HurricaneIrma. For U.S. citizens overseas needing assistance: email IrmaEmergencyUSC@state.gov.
is exchanged and many medical supplies used also for stranded tourists could have been saved or used for the local population if evacuation would have been more organized and quicker.
Some impressions of current disaster St.Martin/Maarten:
Water distributie op St Maarten. Zr Ms ZEELAND maakt uit zeewater door filtering zoet water, mariniers delen uit aan bevolking. #Irmapic.twitter.com/9mXp1QMGPF
More than 2000 US citizens have been evacuated from Saint Martin after #Irma. Grateful to our DOD colleagues for their nonstop support. https://t.co/AtsOXeJAKc
In general it would be possible to plan ahead of catastrophes, to negotiate procedures for aid deliveries and extraction of tourists in such an event, so when disaster strikes a plan for e.g. Nepal, Caribbean+USA, Philippines, India, Indian Ocean region (2004 tsunami) can be activated and at least the most ineffective bureaucratic hurdles are gone from the beginning and all alternative access routes into and out of a region can be opened immediately. NATO could have worked out a procedure with every country which want to participate in such an 'extraction program' well before the next catastrophe happens somewhere at some time in the future.
"Wb samenwerking zijn er op militair niveau intensieve contacten met Frankrijk, Duitsland, het VK en de VS over de inzet op #SXM"
Hubs with mass shelters could be planned in advance and installation of temporary housing as well as e.g. consular offices for every country involved in the program could begin immediately. The gathering point doesn't have to be on an open field, but tents or other shelters could set up in the vicinity of airports after all regular places like hotels are fully booked. Shuttle service from disaster area to airlift hub back to Northern American, European or Asian destinations after the rescued people saw the embassy staff. So this doesn't have to happen in a disaster zone and strain their scarce resources for the local population which of course also suffers and can't be flown out. An evacuation 'without questions asked' to a hub outside the disaster zone would speed up things significantly and the bidirectional traffic (evacuees:out and aid:in) will stop and would also benefit the delivery of aid to the needy.
When ya saving life ya break the rules @TSA in Katrina wanted ID's people had no ID I broke the rule flew them without ID @TomBossert45
It's either that, or there will be a certain amount of chaos every single time another calamity happens. Not all of them will be limited to less than hundred dead and a few wounded. Now is the time to think about this reoccurring pattern again and perhaps procedures will be fully worked out and ready to be activated before the next 'big one' strikes. When it strikes it's likely to hit one of the countries without an own large military force to cope with such an event, like it happened recently with one small island of Sint Martin/SintMaarten. French and Dutch troops helped to organize evacuation of tourists and bringing in the needed supplies for the local population.(see tweets with attached pictures)
Politicians have to consider that they also 'look good' when everything in the wake of such a catastrophe is well organized and voters will get the impression of governmental competence. Our armed forces' image will also profit from smoothly running evacuation operations, so everyone involved in such an operation, but most of all the victims do profit from a well organized NATO response to 'threats of nature'. If other countries besides those with NATO membership wish to join this 'global extraction and support scheme' it will also help to reduce tensions in the world in the spirit of a unified global response to threats far bigger than petty human rivalries. In the wake of epic disaster we all face in the future we are all in the same boat and the well-being of their citizens should be priority of all governments regardless of political/ideological differences.
P.S.
Regarding the aftermath of hurricane Irma and given the level of destruction as far as monitoring events from abroad allows, it can be said that evacuations are rather well organized by various governments. They're doing what they can, and fortunately there are not that many wounded like e.g. in the Nepal earthquake event where many people were buried under the rubble of buildings or have been affected by landslides. Although this time people in the affected areas have been relatively lucky a much quicker extraction (as suggest: by the superb capabilities of NATO) from the extended disaster zone is preferred.
Several neighbouring countries sent soldiers to assist in searching for bodies and rescuing people. The U.S. Army sent helicopters from Germany to rescue people from rooftops
For those still anxiously awaiting rescue, help finally arrived on Monday 2nd February. Large scale relief came with the help and support of neighbouring countries (some of which had also been affected by the flood) including Belgium, France and England who sent military personnel to assist in search and rescue operations. Canada and the US also provided much needed urgent assistance, including helicopters to aid the enormous evacuation operation that was underway.
NTC appeals to public to limit their communication in critical areas to text messages, as calls may congest communication lines. #YolandaPH
— Solar News (@solartvnews) November 13, 2013
Since many 'common people' aren't that familiar with using the internet, setting up & using e-mail (possibly never did that before in their life) and the usefulness of using twitter to communicate in order to limit precious network bandwidth, I suggest that you think about the following:
How about ONE (simple) webpage where new users who wants to use Twitter, Google+ primarily for improving their situation during this current emergency, which registers and verifies the user immediately without the need of first creating an e-mail account and then applying for Twitter membership afterwards. A webpage with just a few questions asked and a check if their chosen Twitter handle, Google+ name is already in use. It always possible to contact your new users after things have calmed a bit and ask them for addition info/verification or suspend their account when they don't react.
Imagine those people who have just limited internet access (possibly need to share it with a bunch of other people) in those areas affected by Typhoon Yolanda. Possibly left with only a few minutes of battery power for using their internet access device (tablet,notebook, smartphone).
I think it's possible to limit this new 'emergency feature' to those calamity affected areas by filtering their IP ranges in order to reduce risk of abuse
[update]
In case of emergency: Twitter Alerts send you important Tweets from select public agencies and safety organizations. https://t.co/Qjum1yuqdT
— Support (@Support) November 12, 2013
Maybe add a feature (option) to this new 'simplified registration' webpage, which allows to 'auto-follow' a list of important Twitter handles (government officials, aid agencies, newspapers) and to get updates by 'Twitter alerts'.
This would eliminate the need for a 'search and follow mission', which could take the new user hours to find all those extremely important accounts. (It's easy to unfollow those who are not needed anymore, later)
[/update]
#YolandaPH - For British nationals who require urgent help due to the typhoon, please call us at +63 2 858 2200. Take care! #RescuePH
— UKinthePhilippines (@ukinphilippines) November 10, 2013
twitterfeed=on a must follow: (can't post all updates here!)
If you are in Iloilo and want to volunteer to pack relief goods for #YolandaPH, you can call 337-6221, 508-6775, 508-6867.
— PIA News (@PIANewsDesk) November 10, 2013
Twitter list to follow: https://twitter.com/EZR_news/lists/emergency-event-asia
Tweets from media,reporters, Indian military, Indian officials, common people providing reliable info, telecom firms,meteorogists
(constant updates, but content can change once disaster is over)
