Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

houstonchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 147 posts

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#81

Post by wnissen »

doodlebugging wrote: post #43

We used Zello when we were down there with a boat. We are just regular people, not part of anyone's navy, just a few guys with a boat that were part of a much larger civilian response to this disaster. About the Cajun Navy - There were so many people responding to this disaster wanting to help with their time and boats that many times we found ourselves staging to launch but ultimately unable to get in the water beca…

Thanks for pitching in. Can you talk about the "active map"? Who hosted it, who was able to add or remove a report, etc.?

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#82

Post by thaumaturgy »

forkandwait wrote: post #64

I wish there were a disaster militia, with something like quarterly weekend trainings, with some FEMA sponsorship but still independent. It would be fun to practice ham communications and boat rescue anyway, and a little bit of practice could have a huge impact when the shit is truly hitting the fan.

Aside from the resources other people mentioned, many counties across the country (and almost all of them in California and the west) have local search and rescue teams. Team member skills range from "ground pounder" to swiftwater rescue, urban search and rescue, ICS (command).

Within California, there are mutual aid requests flying between counties almost all the time, along with support from CalOES, who coordinate heavy equipment, helicopters, communications, and other resources as needed.

Good search and rescue teams train regularly. In my current county, volunteers must at a minimum complete one of two wilderness first aid courses every year, CPR for professional rescuers every other year, show up to a minimum number of searches throughout the year, and a smattering of other training. (edit: overall training in my county is available almost once a week, with major mock searches a few times a year, plus an average of about 30 call-outs per year, usually including one major multi-agency incident. The folks that show up to most of this stuff get really good really fast.)

There are a lot of folks that just show up and dabble and provide the necessary manpower for basic tasks during an incident, and some folks that take it really seriously and try to complete as much training as they can and respond to as many incidents as their day job allows for.

Unfortunately, the county-level search and rescue teams rarely venture out of state.

I have some ICS training and could have managed a dispatch role, talked some folks through CPR, juggled multiple concurrent requests, and so on -- and I have software available that would have helped a lot. But this is the first I've heard of Zello.

FEMA is making some changes to SAR resource management and I'm hopeful that there will be improved cooperation between the states in the future.

And by the way: if you're interested in this kind of stuff, and want to do something hands-on helpful in your community, I really recommend checking out your county's SAR organization. If you're not sure where to start or what to expect, feel free to send me an email and I'll reply. If you're in California, I might even know some folks from your county's team. (SAR organizations could really benefit from more tech-oriented people, too.)

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#83

Post by jtnegrotto »

wnissen wrote: post #81
doodlebugging wrote: post #43

We used Zello when we were down there with a boat. We are just regular people, not part of anyone's navy, just a few guys with a boat that were part of a much larger civilian response to this disaster. About the Cajun Navy - There were so many people responding to this disaster wanting to help with their time and boats that many times we found ourselves staging to launch but ultimately unable to get in the water beca…

Thanks for pitching in. Can you talk about the "active map"? Who hosted it, who was able to add or remove a report, etc.?

I know of a few people who worked on maps in Houston (and helped some out in minor ways), but AFAIK there wasn't one single map that "won out".

I was the one who created the Cajun Navy's crowd-sourced rescue mapping strategy, though, while helping out with the 2016 Louisiana floods, so I can give a little insight.

At first, I just saw that people were posting requests for rescue in various Facebook groups and becoming quickly buried under requests by others. So I spent a lot of time combing through the posts and adding the details to a spreadsheet, which I then posted on Batchgeo for rescuers to use.

After that, I started working with the people from one of the Facebook groups who had set up a Google Form for submitting rescue requests, and ended up periodically copying requests over from there.

We also had another form for updates regarding a specific request, and were fielding phone calls from people about it as well.

The original map is actually still up here if interested: https://batchgeo.com/map/984218ef8a04f3587f6e723561501e89

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#84

Post by cat199 »

forkandwait wrote: post #73
froindt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's sort of what the national guard is for. They train a couple weeks per year and respond to situations like this.

Well, the national guard aren't civilians or local, plus they get sent to fight in wars and shit. I am thinking more like a level below volunteer firepeople, with some regional and national coordination.

state guard. many states have it.

Or form your own. visit your local shooting range for details.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#85

Post by rfreytag »

forkandwait wrote: post #64

I wish there were a disaster militia, with something like quarterly weekend trainings, with some FEMA sponsorship but still independent. It would be fun to practice ham communications and boat rescue anyway, and a little bit of practice could have a huge impact when the shit is truly hitting the fan.

Take a look at the Humanitarian Toolbox: http://www.htbox.org/

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#86

Post by cat199 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #52
doodlebugging wrote: post #43

We used Zello when we were down there with a boat. We are just regular people, not part of anyone's navy, just a few guys with a boat that were part of a much larger civilian response to this disaster. About the Cajun Navy - There were so many people responding to this disaster wanting to help with their time and boats that many times we found ourselves staging to launch but ultimately unable to get in the water beca…

Massive resources were wasted with boats lined up in one spot that could've been actively searching somewhere else. I'm on a search & rescue team, and this is usually the chief challenge with "the public" getting involved, there is no established organizational structure. People all mean well, but it is incredibly difficult to utilize a horde of untrained people effectively at the drop of a hat, and it can also make…

> I wonder if a future extension to ICS/NIMS could be, how to plug in these unconventional resources where professional manpower is insufficient. Develop a 2-minute briefing, a point of contact for unconventional resources to report to, a simplified structure & communication network. The most important concepts are pretty simple, and the first responder doesn't need to know that much about it.

Great idea, but unfortunately when it gets officialized, the lawyers and the bureaucrats get involved and start talking about liability and ways to insert themselves into the situation to profit from it and things quickly gain the complexity of joining the original organization, so it ultimately fails. Maybe I'm too cynical here.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#87

Post by krallja »

justin66 wrote: post #25
okreallywtf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you got downvoted, perhaps downvoters would chime in? I get that local organizations deal with some situations better than some large, clumsy bureaucracy but I tend to agree with wnissen, if this continues as trend relying on a patchwork of individuals (heroic as they may be). I wish there was a non-military or less-military domestic version of this, I've considered joining the national guard for thi…

> I wish there was a non-military or less-military domestic version of this, I've considered joining the national guard for this reason but I'm don't trust that I wouldn't end up fighting and dying in a pointless war. If there was another volunteer force that was devoted to humanitarian issues and search and rescue I would be all for it. You're basically describing the Coast Guard. I believe they do hire reservists.

The Coast Guard is not the pacifist organization you seem to imagine it to be. They also combat smuggling, illegal migration, and terrorism. Also, they can be called to provide defense of the maritime borders of the United States. It is every bit of a military organization as the Army or Navy, even if not as well respected.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#88

Post by cat199 »

SigmundA wrote: post #56

Lot of misconception on this app that it works without cell service, like a regular walkie talkie. Does seem like a good idea if Apple or Samsung might build in some point to point radio hardware similar to a Gotenna that's works without cell infrastructure.

Yes, so the public can spontaneously make their own fully autonomous infrastructure free of financial and political interests. Oh wait. yeah that will never happen.

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#89

Post by cat199 »

jofer wrote: post #40
aaroninsf wrote: post #7

The part of this story I don't understand myself, is how so many people had bandwidth to download and use an app, in an environment in which I would have assumed both power and the cell network–especially data–were limping or just down. The implicit question is, what percentage of people in the disaster zone did, and did not, have a channel out through this app? Does this story represent the 10% case or the 50% case…

Keep in mind that power outages in Houston were pretty rare and localized. Cell phone towers had power and the vast majority of homes had power (even a lot of the ones that were flooded, before it was explicitly cut off to flooded areas). There were just a _lot_ of stranded people and not enough boats.

yep.

not in a badly effected area, but definitely there was flooding nearby. most of my friends/family/etc (irrespective of area) had power/phone/etc throughout, even those with flood damage. Which is not to say the flood damage was exaggerated however.

I personally only had a power outage for 4h only after the electric company blew some equipment trying to restore service for others.. (again not in a bad area)

we are pretty sprawly and most power lines, etc are above ground except in the very center of town. not sure if that helped or not, but perhaps worth mentioning - but as for trees falling etc, this storm had very low wind, etc for those in the HTX area (same def not true for those who experienced the actual hurricane)

Re: I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy

#90

Post by jpindar »

uabstraction wrote: post #63
sverige wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amateur radio is still alive, but there are not nearly as many active hams as there were 30 years ago when I first got my license. A much smaller percentage of hams know how to pass traffic in a systematic way these days, and not as many are proficient with Morse code, which is arguably the most efficient use of spectrum in disaster scenarios. Hams did help during Harvey and are helping during Irma, but it doesn't ge…

> My challenge to a community that includes "hacker" in its name is to consider picking up the radio hobby. You hit the nail on the head here. I've been fooling around with computer programming for over a decade now (since I was in Jr. High), and Arduinos and Raspberry Pis as long as they have been available, but I never put much thought into ham radio. Most of the makers I know go straight to pre-made WiFi or Blueto…

Some of the fundamentals have changed, or at least been added to - nowadays some radios are actually software defined radios, but their owners might not even know it because the SDR and an embedded computer are built into one chassis, with physical front panel controls.
Post reply on HN