NBN Emergeny Management

Greetings from the University of Sydney's business campus in the CBD, where Cameron Scott, NBN Network Emergency Lead, is speaking on  "NBN: Operation, Impact and Response".  This is at a meeting of the Interoperability for Extreme Events Research Group (IEERG). NBN use a similar approach to emergency management as other telecommunication companies and liaises with emergency services. They have to be prepared for loss of part of their infrastructure and also be ready aid with response and recovery.

Mr. Scott pointed out that the NBN is used for telephony as well as Internet. Unlike the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) the NBN telephony service requires mains power at the consumer's premises. Some NBN equipment has provision of limited battery backup.

NBN is building some transportable equipment to use where there is a loss of infrastructure:

• NoW: Network on Wheels for remediation of a fibre access node,
• WoW:Wireless on Wheels: Replacement fxed wireless tower.
• PoW: Point of Internet Connect on Wheels

NBN will also have transportable satellite ground stations, for ad-hoc use.

After a disaster, NBN will prioritize restoration of essential services, community infrastructure and essential businesses services.

Customers need to register as a "Public Interest Premises" to receive priority recovery service.

An interesting aspect of this, which I suggest needs research, is how the customers reliance on the Internet has changed how they will respond in an emergency. In particular, if the public is used to using the Internet for information, replacing radio, TV and the telephone, how will they cope when the Internet is not available? One option might be to provide car USB chargers or battery radios to the public. Otherwise communications will be reduced to loudspeaker vans in the street.

Transformation of US Emergency Management

Greetings from a meeting organized by the University of Sydney's "Interoperability for Extreme Events Research Group" (IEERG) where Bob Jensen from Strat3 LLC is speaking on how the transformation of US emergency management after Hurricane Katrina. He pointed out there was little comment after Hurricane Sandy because of the lessons learned from Katrina. The main thrust of this appears to be that the US Government took a more proactive role in preparing for disasters and coordinating state and local resources, rather than just responding afterwards. Bob pointed out this was not just a matter for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

One non-government response to Hurricane Katrina was the establishment of the Sahana Software Foundation in California. Sahana is free open source disaster management software developed in Sri Lanka for the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. This was then offered world wide for free use in other disasters. Hurricane Katrina showed that software which could be run on the computers in local shelters (typically local schools) would be useful. In response the Foundation was set up to better work with US agencies (I am a member of the foundation).

Bob mentioned the importance of disaster management personnel having current training. This is an issue in Australia,  as the Australian Government announced in 2014 that its Mount Macedon emergency management training campus would close by mid-2015, to save money and be replaced by a Canberra based virtual "Australian Emergency Management Institute". On 12 August 2015, Michael Keenan, Federal Minister for Justice, announced that a "New partnership to deliver emergency management professional development", indicating that the new virtual institute was not in operation and not delivering training. The institute says "accredited training opportunities will be available in late 2015". Given that Australia is on a heightened state of terrorist alert and has recently suffered fatalities from brushfires it is of concern that the Australian government does not have in place emergency management training. The financial cost, let along the human cost of this cost cutting could be considerable.

Australia is fortunate in having formal national qualification standards in emergency management, including:

1. PUA60112: Advanced Diploma of Public Safety (Emergency Management)
2. PUA52312: Diploma of Public Safety (Emergency Management)
3. PUA42712: Certificate IV in Public Safety (Emergency Communications Centre Operations)
4. PUA33012: Certificate III in Public Safety (Emergency Communications Centre Operations)

The highest of these qualifications, the Advanced Diploma of Public Safety (Emergency Management), is offered by ten Registered Training Organizations. One of these is the Attorney-Generals Department Trading as: Australian Emergency Management Institute, AEMI. However, from discussions at the IEERG meeting it appears that the Attorney-Generals Department will no longer be delivering courses and will be instead working with RTOs.

Open Source Software for Disaster Management in Sydney

Michael Howden, CEO of the Sahana Software Foundation will speak on "Open Source Software for Disaster Management" at the University of Sydney, 2pm, 24th February 2015.

The Interoperability for Extreme Events Research Group [IEERG] is hosting a presentation by Michael Howden, CEO, Sahana Software Foundation, who is visiting Sydney.

Date: Tuesday 24th February
Time:  2.00pm
Venue: University of Sydney CBD Campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.

Coffee and tea will be served from 1:30pm and again after the presentation.

If you would like to attend (and if you know of someone else who would like to attend) please RSVP to Christian Ehnis by Friday 20th Feb, 2015.

The Sahana Software Foundation has developed the Sahana Open Source Disaster Management Platform and deployed it around the world to assist organisations and emergency services to record, coordinate and share their disaster management information.

It was first developed during the 2004 tsunami and since then has been deployed as a Resource Management System by the International Red Cross, for tracking relief goods in the Philippines, a Community Resilience Mapping Tool in Los Angeles and a Maritime Common Operating Platform in Puget Sound.

Michael will be discussing these deployments and how Sahana has become a leading internationally recognised platform for disaster management and extreme events. He will also talk about the Sahana Software Foundation, which relies mostly on corporate sponsorships and volunteers internationally and how interested people can become engaged.

This presentation will be of interest to those involved in disaster research, software development, open source solutions, geo-science, social media, or the management of disasters and extreme events.

Michael Howden (Sahana Director, President & CEO): Michael has worked on delivering Sahana solutions to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in the Asia Pacific Region (the Resource Management System), the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (DRR Projects Portal), the City of Los Angeles (Give2LA), the Helios Foundation (HelioShare) and other organizations.  He trained as a software engineer from New Zealand and has worked  with humanitarian organizations throughout the world since 2005.  He has served as a member of the Sahana Eden Project Management Committee and the Sahana Community Development Committee for several years, and leads our facilitation team for our SahanaCamp program. Prior to becoming CEO of the Sahana Software Foundation, Michael was the Managing Director of AidIQ, a social enterprise that provides intelligent business solutions to the humanitarian and development community with the Sahana platform.  Michael has also served as the Sahana Eden coordinator for the Sahana Google Summer of Code Progam (2010-11) and as SSF Coordinator of the Sahana Google Code-In Program (2010/11 & 2011/12).

Interoperability for Extreme Events

Greetings from the University of Sydney, where I am taking part in a Symposium on "Resilient Disaster Systems: Improving Service Delivery to Disaster Areas". This is being hosted by USyd's  Interoperability for Extreme Events Research Group (IEERG). My talk is late in the day on "Sahana: a practical information solution path for international disaster management". Michael Howden, CEO of the Sahana Software Foundation provided materials for my presentation, and he will be visiting Sydney in late November 2014. Professor Deborah Bunker heads the IEERG is also running a symposium in the UK in October.

The first presentation for the day is discussing some of the systems used for a recent explosion in the Sydney suburb of Roselle. The second presentation mentioned that there is an Inquiry into the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA), which allocates recovery for recovery between federal and states. One problem mentioned which has come up recently was asbestos risk after a fire.

One interesting comment in one presentation was about  making communities more resilient. Helping people meet their neighbours, so in a disaster they will know who can help, would be useful.

Statistics on where people got their information in recent bushfire showed that the official website is used mostly, followed by local radio. Social media was used by only a few percent of people. This raises a resourcing issue for emergency organisations: they may be better off spending more money on their website and connections to the media, even though this is not a seen as glamorous as use of social media.

One issue which came up was how to make official online communications look credible.  In 2004 I had a student prepare criteria for making an emergency web page look credible. See: "Evaluating Emergency Management Websites".

Late in the day the topic of terminology came up. Someone from the Red Cross commented they got invited to speak at IT events on "Emergency Management", but that has a whole different meaning in the IT field. I looked up the SFIA Skills and found that the closest term in the IT area was "Availability management".

Much of the discussion today assumes that Internet access, mostly via mobile networks, is available in an emergency. A parliamentary Inquiry looked at  a “Priority over-ride service", so emergency service workers could use the mobile service in an emergency. As far as I can see no action was taken on this. Rather than have some sort of manually prepared master list of key personnel's phone numbers, it would seem to me simpler to have all mobile phones issued to government employees and those from service companies (energy, telecommunications, medical services and supply companies).