LAFD’s One-Man Geek Squad Brings Web 2.0 to Firefighting, says Wired Magazine.
From a decommissioned bomb shelter four stories beneath Los Angeles City Hall, Brian Humphrey, a 23-year veteran is single-handedly hauling the city’s fire department into the Web 2.0 era. He has about 80 projects in the works—involving everything from Twitter to BlogTalkRadio—that will not only help broadcast urgent information to the public but also gather crucial intel to assist first responders on the ground.
“This technology is the best thing that’s happened to our department in 122 years,” Humphrey says. “It holds more potential to save lives than any other civic tool.”
Here’s some of what Humphrey uses:
- Twitter: Humphrey monitors for keywords like “LA” and “fire.” During 2007′s 800-acre burn in Griffith Park, he got real-time reports on flare-ups and wind directions from Twitterers on the ground, then relayed the information to commanders battling the flames.
- Yahoo Pipes: This data-aggregation app lets Humphrey keep tabs on crises elsewhere. (In September, he knew about a poison gas scare in the Toronto subway as it happened.) Implication: If terrorists launch a multicity attack, he’ll know in seconds. A head start could save countless lives.
- Mobile Alerts: One of Humphrey’s projects-in-progress is a Web site where users can plug in addresses—like home and the kids’ school. Whenever an incident is reported at any of those sites, the system will beam a notification to the subscriber’s cell phone or PDA.
- Map Mashups: The LAFD already charts major fires with Google Maps. Humphrey wants more: images that blend street and satellite views with USGS topo data to supply firefighters with critical info, like the location of steep terrain or other hazards (dynamite factory, two blocks north!).
At the recent WhereCampPDX in Portland (roundup), a Yahoo Pipe for WhereCamp PDX was built by Amber Case. It grabs FlickrPhotos, the Google Map Location, drop.io session notes, and Twitter Feeds, explains Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist.
Dailywireless co-founder Don Park showed his new location-aware Android app, IceCondor. It can find your location, nearby friends and find places that interest you.
Robin Parker of the Portland Red Cross Chapter, formed a group to encourage local Web 2.0 development around safety, mobility and preparedness. A collaborative website, NowWhatPDX, was produced out of that meeting.
Oregon State University has launched an Emergency Alert System using text messaging, writes Jason Harris. The emergency alert system is based on Blackboard Connect-ED software and will be used to reach the 26,000 faculty, staff, and students in case of emergency.
You input your phone number at alert.oregonstate.edu if you wish to receive alerts. The service is said to cost less than $2.00 per user to implement.
Mobile platforms like Android and open software solutions like Life 360 can be life savers.
Life360 automatically notifies families about emergency events and can send messages to selected family members, even if most infrastructure has failed. Alerts can convey the location of the nearest shelter via turn-by-turn locations and allows users to track their family members’ locations in real-time. If a user pushes the panic button, all other users nearby are notified of the event and receive streaming audio and video from the victim’s camera.
NPR’s Andy Carvin set up the Hurricane Gustav Information Center that works like Katrina Aftermath, where content generated by the public, news orgs and govt agencies is aggregated. Social networking tools allow coordinatation of volunteer activities. Twitter feeds include GustavAlerts which sends official government notifications, GustavNews with the latest news and GustavBlogs highlight blog discussions. Volunteers to go through each page of the GustavWiki.com making sure all the info is accurate and relevant to Gustav.
Andy Carvin used Yahoo Pipes to create a Craig’s List feed of Houston and Galveston Hurricane posts. He used Ning to create it.
Ning isn’t a social network, it allows individuals to create their own social network. It provides an online platform for creating social networks on topics of a user’s choosing. Last month they launched 30 applications built on the emerging “OpenSocial” standards championed by Google. Those applications should run on other social networking sites supporting OpenSocial, including MySpace, Hi5 and others.
OpenSocial applications could help small social networking sites compete with the likes of industry powerhouse Facebook. It’s based on HTML and JavaScript, as well as the Google Gadgets framework.
Sensoria has a WiFi mesh router for first responders (below) that has been deployed by front-line US infantry in Afghanistan.
It supports a variety of wireless radios, and uses a proprietary mesh networking stack that supports voice, video, and other high-bandwidth signals, forming self-configuring, self-healing ad hoc wireless mesh WiFi network using 802.11g, 802.15.4, 802.16, and 4.9GHz-band radios.
Another interesting technology that might be applied is the Automatic Identification System which allows anyone to track ships. Commercial vessels over 300 tons and all passenger vessels are required to have AIS which transmits ship name, MMSI number, position, speed, course and heading every few seconds.
An open ‘community-based’ project can provide live vessel information free to the public. If your region doesn’t have a public vessel map, you can make one. It works by hooking your PC to an AIS receiver. You can then continuously send your local vessel info to a global mash-up site at marinetraffic.com.
Related public service articles on Dailywireless include; WhereCampPDX Unconference, Emergency Communications Applications, Wildfire, NETGuard Mobilizes, Public Safety Radio Conference, Portable VSAT Does WiMAX, M/A-COM to NY: We’re Good, Public Safety Gets New 800 MHz Frequencies, D-Block: Down to the Wire, Tracking al-Qaeda, Life 360 Android App, Wireless Providers Survive Gustav, Inmarsat F3 Successfully Launched, Bloggers Get HQ at Political Conventions, Public Service Users Talk Interop, Broadband
