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Author: mtthwhgn

GIS: Where are we?

GIS: Where are we?

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Last Friday I presented to the London trainee and Student GIS Community who were discussing ‘Geographical Information Systems for Natural Hazards Preparedness and Response’.

I was second on the agenda following an interesting presentation from Dr Richard Teewu at Portsmouth University, who talked about his approach and the role of GIS in considering landslide hazards in Dominica (Caribbean). One of the main aspects that Richard highlighted was the issue of data poverty in the developing world. In the questions that followed his talk, it became clear that this is a particular issue where infrastructure or political regime prevents continual monitoring or the use of remotely sensed data.

My presentation, which is included below, explored how GIS is currently used in London for resilience work, and provided my personal views on where I thought it could head over the next ten years.

What struck me about the two presentations is that whilst the UK can’t be considered data poor, there are other factors which limit the use of GIS in a resilience context. One of the aspects that my presentation touched on was the increasing role of volunteer and informal initiatives (such as Crisismappers and Ushahidi) and I’m convinced that this is an untapped resource that has lots to offer.

Twitter Alerts: London

Twitter Alerts: London

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, I’ve been a keen advocate of the use of twitter in emergencies, leading me to join in the spring of 2009. As social networks become increasingly popular it’s inevitable that their functionality evolves to make them more directly useful beyond being a communication platform.

twitteralertsblank

About a month ago I met with @PocketSteve from Twitter to talk about Twitter Alerts. This is a new service provided by Twitter which has its roots in the Japanese earthquake and subsequent incidents in Fukushima, and allows time-critical and verified information to be cascaded directly to individuals from responding organisations.

Following a succesful launch in Japan and the United States, Twitter Alerts are now available in the UK. As an opt-in service, you need to activate Twitter alerts for each of the accounts that you want to receive information from, whilst messages sent using the system will (hopefully) be infrequent, here’s what I think you can expect from them…

  • Metropolitan Police – large road traffic accidents, public order incidents and terrorism – I’d say that if you’re only going to sign up for one of these accounts this should be it (although I’d encourage you to go for all of them!) as the police usually play a significant role in the response to an emergency
  • City of London Police – as above but limited to the square mile – important for those who work or travel into the city, not just those who live there
  • British Transport Police – incidents affecting the railways or London Underground (note that this will be national alert messages)
  • London Fire Brigade – updates and alerts of major fires and explosions, incidents involving chemicals, radioactive or biological substances.
  • London Ambulance Service – updates on major incidents and emergencies incidents affecting people – for the most reliable information on casualty numbers this has got to be your best source
  • Environment Agency – flooding from rain, rivers or the sea and pollution incidents
  • Mayor of London – general comment and reassurance about emergency response and recovery, this will be your place for key messages on actions you can take if you’re not directly involved

So there you have it, follow the accounts and sign up to their Twitter Alerts…and share this post so others can do the same!

Oh, and if you’re not London based, or are interested in updates from other emergency services in the UK then here’s a link to all participating accounts.

Disaster Myth 4: Disasters bring out the worst in people

Disaster Myth 4: Disasters bring out the worst in people

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One of the recurring themes of the media reports from Typhoon Haiyan (devastating scenes and stories of personal tragedy and survival aside) is the continued references to ‘looting’. As I was sat in Dublin airport yesterday I saw the following story breaking on Sky news…

The Independent 14.11.13

The sensationalism in many of these articles flies in the face of a body of DRR (that’s Disaster Risk Reduction) research and evidence which strongly suggests looting behaviour is atypical in most disasters. So atypical in fact, that de Goyet went as far as including it in the eight disaster myths he put forward to the World Health Organisation in 1991.

My inclination, based on experience of comparatively small-scale emergencies in the UK, is to agree with de Goyet, however perhaps not so staunchly. I think there is some value in recognising that there will be those who are forced to take action to survive, but there are also likely to be a minority of opportunists who recognise that they can take advantage of a situation.

In 2011 London experienced a short period of disorder where opportunist criminals struck out and truly looted premises. This was never about survival…not even for this man…

London Disorder Rice Theft

Clearly there is a world of difference between the two situations, comparisons are impossible, but I thought it worth throwing into the current mix of conversations on this aspect that there is still room for improvement in our understanding of public behaviour in emergencies – what was it about the situation in 2011 that resulted in looting behaviour? Perhaps with a more well developed understanding of when looting does happen, we’ll be better able to challenge inappropriate use of that term in describing survivalism associated with catastrophic disasters.

Responding to Terrorism

Responding to Terrorism

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Earlier this week I posted a blog about Jacobean ‘terrorism’ (to coincide with the 408th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot). This was one of the issues that I mentioned today during my lecture on Responding to Terrorism delivered to students from the Department of War Studies at Kings College London.

I’ve provided my slides below, and ask you to forgive the formatting errors which have occurred in uploading to SlideShare! I’ve sat through lectures where the presenter reads text from a slide…that is not my style. However, without the description to accompany the slides some of the points may not make complete sense. In hindsight, I should have recorded my presentation…I’ll try and arrange that the next time I present on something.

Anyway, enough from me, take a look at the slides and let me know what you think.

If you want to know more on my thoughts on responding to terrorism, or would like to invite me to present, please get in touch!

You’ll also notice in the slides that I relate back to a number of historical London disasters – remember you can find out more about them on one of my Disaster Tours!

Gunpowder Plot: something more than terror?

Gunpowder Plot: something more than terror?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Britain has a long history of religious conflict, mostly forgotten by largely secular modern society. However, every year on the 5 November one such event is commemorated across the country.

Later this week I’m lecturing at Kings College London on a module entitled Responding to Terrorism. In preparation, I’ve been looking at how on the surface the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 reads like modern-day terrorism and how Russell Brand might have something to learn from history.

rememberremember

First, let’s look at the Gunpowder Plot: a fringe group of religiously motivated fanatics planning to detonate explosives in an underground area beneath a well-known location in an attempt to change the government to one favouring their religion. It certainly brandishes all the hallmarks of terrorist incidents that we’re familiar with in 2013.

Even today, over 400 years after the plot was foiled, the Houses of Parliament in London are surrounded by metal and concrete barriers; it remains a target for terrorism.

However, going one step further than the ‘modern’ terrorist, the 13 conspirators (I’ll take off my broad-brimmed hat and cloak if anyone can name, without Googling, more than one of them?!) had developed a plan which went considerably further than striking ‘terror’ into the hearts and minds of the public.

Following their planned explosion designed to kill the King and the Government, they next planned to kidnap the daughter of the King, Princess Elizabeth, and create a Catholic government around the puppet crown. It is worth recognising that the plan was more sophisticated than just destroy the current system and see what happens. Interestingly, this latter approach seems to be the style of ‘revolution’ that comedian Russell Brand has recently called for. Additionally, it is interesting to see that protest groups are now using the imagery and metaphor associated with the Fifth of November to stage their own protests about perceived injustice.

The semantics of whether or not the 1605 plot was ‘terrorism’ isn’t really the issue for my lecture. What I’m interested in is how have responses changed. Our understanding of modern terrorism shapes our opinions of past events. But at the same time, are there things that we can learn from history to deal with modern risks?

Not wanting to give away my secrets before Thursday, check back later in the week for my thoughts!

Oh, and I should also mention that it’s not just because of the foiled plot that the Houses of Parliament feature on my Disaster Tour!

 

Image Credit: Anon Online/Twitter

Video: The Emergency Manager

Video: The Emergency Manager

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People often introduce me to others and say that I have a really interesting job. I’m not going to lie, I really do, and I’m passionate about it, but I’m not sure that people really know what a career in emergency management entails. Sometimes, I wonder myself!

Today I found this gem of a video via Eric at Emergency Management – in less than 5 minutes it does a really good job of summarising one part of my role – to respond to emergencies.

It’s great to see such a simple and engaging overview, although there are some differences, but I expect these are a product of different US concepts and terminology rather. Although, I’m not sure that the information on Improvised Nuclear Devices is absolutely correct.

But what the video doesn’t comment on, and indeed makes a less exciting cartoon, is the hours of work that go in to assessing and then managing the risk of emergencies, with activities that might include:

  • the procurement of specialist equipment
  • development of agreed response procedures between all organisations
  • design, organisation and facilitation of training and validation
  • providing communities and businesses with information or
  • ensuring that following any incident, we emerge from it better prepared for the next one.

It’s certainly not just about sitting around and waiting until emergencies happen!

Any budding animators fancy building on this cartoon to show the true life in the day of an emergency manager/yours truly? Get in touch!

 

Avid readers may recognise this as a repost…technical problems meant that the original was unavoidably deleted!

 

International Day for Disaster Reduction (Cross Post)

International Day for Disaster Reduction (Cross Post)

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Some areas of the world are more at risk of disasters, but there is nowhere that escapes them completely. Similarly, whilst everyone can be affected by disasters, they can have a more pronounced impact on people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

disability_naturaldisaster

This year the UNISDR International Day for Disaster Reduction draws attention to the specific challenges of Living with Disability and Disasters.

To mark IDDR2013, I wrote a blog post for LondonPrepared which you can read over here…

 

Image Credit: homelandsecuritynewswire.com (and before anyone says, I know being in a wheelchair isn’t the only disability!)

Pop Up Emergency Planning

Pop Up Emergency Planning

Reading Time: 3 minutes

From one off exhibitions and sample sales to short term high-concept bars and restaurants, the trend for temporary, ephemeral retail and leisure has gripped London, and many other places, in recent years.

wave

The cynic in me knows not to be drawn in by the marketing and hype, but then I get a serious case of FOMO and hop aboard the ‘for a limited time only’ train. From eating deep fried crab in petrol stations, to sipping rum from watermelons in a faux 1950’s holiday resort; it’d be fair to say I’ve participated in the trend.

However, it wasn’t until this week that I thought about transitioning this from a retail context to resilience.

Emergent behaviour in response to disasters is nothing new. There are countless stories of unplanned, improvised and spontaneous responses which should give us all a warm feeling: despite not knowing our neighbours, community spirit really is alive and kicking.

Perhaps though, there is room to develop, enable and facilitate these pop-up responses in the event of an incident? Are there any lessons to be learned from retail for our own pop-up planning, both within the responder community but also at the individual and community level?

In a study conducted in 1983, Quarantelli identified a typology of emergence, shown below.

Structures

Tasks

Old

New
Old

Quasi-Emergence

Task Emergence
New

Structural Emergence

Group Emergence

Remember the London Riots Broom Army? The task was new, the clean-up of the mess and debris left by several days of consecutive looting and vandalism. The structures used were also new and so this would be classified as Group Emergence.

With the Volcanic Ash Cloud of 2010, people near airports offered spare rooms to stranded passengers – a new task (the provision of shelter), but using existing structures (people’s homes rather than camp beds in a village hall), giving rise in this case to Task Emergence.

Whilst this is a useful model for understanding different motivating factors behind emergent behaviour, as with most things, I expect there is a degree of overlap between the different groups, and it’s hard to classify all examples of emergence as just one of these types.

However, in thinking about this typology, where can we help enable emergence in the future? It’s easy to identify the ‘old’ structures and tasks, this is  what we do every day and in the way that we currently do it. Even identifying ‘new’ tasks isn’t that complex, as whilst they may not be everyday tasks, they’re likely to be foreseeable. I think it’s the identification of ‘new structures’ which presents the challenge. (I have a feeling that VOST could be one of these new structures, and I’ll get round to blogging more about the use of volunteers to support operations soon!) It’s easy to say ‘communities’ but who? What are the factors which make someone a community leader, how do they get people onboard with their vision? How do they coordinate spontaneous activity?

There is a tendency for emergency planners to seek to ‘control’, when actually that’s both extremely complicated and largely not desired by affected communities. We need to dispel two myths, that the public is incapable and that we can solve everything alone. There is going to be emergence in disasters, so we should include emergence in preparedness activities.

 

 

Image Source: kimchiandchips.com

Right Royal Resilience

Right Royal Resilience

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve been thinking lately, motivated by on-going projects at work, about what influences our resilience. My ponderings tend to wind up at etymology, what did the word or term originally mean and what does that tell us, if anything, about how we should or could understand it.

ToL

Whilst many people believe ‘resilience’ has roots in 1970s environmentalism, in his paper (Resilience and disaster risk reduction: an etymological journey) David Alexander suggests resilience traces back considerably further to classical cultures, I therefore got to thinking about the broader history of resilience.

Fittingly, I visited Rome earlier this year and recognised the symbolic nature of the Colosseum – both as a reminder of the destructive power of the 1349 earthquake, but also that such destruction doesn’t always equate with decline. Similarly London has also exhibited significant ‘ability to endure’ and to prosper in the face of catastrophic events. Flooding, Fire and Plagues have befallen the city, but it remains standing as a leading world power.

My first post on this blog nearly a year ago concerned Doomsday Preppers, who have taken preparing to the next level compared to the general public. Staring across the River Thames at the Tower of London today, I realised that the notion of a ‘Prepper’ isn’t new.

The Tower of London is typical of medieval castles, and employs some similar strategies those of modern doomsday preppers.

  • Multiple layers of defences (see image above), including ditches and moats, fences, stone walls and towers – even the ancient wall of Roman London also served a defensive purpose – and the origins of The Barbican are in a fortified outpost or gateway to the city
  • Self sufficiency – in order to withstand a prolong siege, the area inside the castle was used for farming, water, and small industries.

As important as the Kentish ragstone walls, pots of boiling tar or portcullises no doubt served to be, they alone do not define resilience. As I reflected on the link between royalty I realised that the parallels weren’t just in the hard measures either.

The British Monarchy has demonstrated resilience as an institution (having had it’s fair share of low points from which it has ‘bounced back’) but I wonder whether monarchical rule itself exerts any influence on wider resilience? Does it represent continuity between the past and the present, or provide hope of stability and order during times of uncertainty and change.

 

Image Source: Wikipeadia

What If…Blackout?

What If…Blackout?

Reading Time: 6 minutes

In February I was approached by a researcher from RawTV about a programme they were making…on Monday the programme they were making, Blackout, aired on Channel 4.

Blackout

The premise: A cyber attack brings down the National Grid, plunging the country into darkness. How would we cope in a nation-wide power cut lasting 5 days?

There are parallels between this and my Anytown project, so I was interested to see how this scenario would be presented, and what messages it might provide about resilience. The few reviews that I have read have criticised the ‘lack of realism’ (mostly the apparent infinite battery life of smartphones and cameras). But I’m willing to forgive a dose of editorial license required to get this into in a prime-time slot.

The first thing which interested me is that Blackout was not presented as fiction. Although this is not the first time that’s been done – the 1938 CBS broadcast of War of the Worlds inspired by the 1926 BBC broadcast of Broadcasting from the Barricades – it adds to the sense of realism. Some clever editing to interweave footage from real events with the drama highlighted that there are typical consequences from all emergencies, and therefore the value of flexible consequence based planning.

Whilst the shaky-cam and histrionics (frankly, terrible acting by Girl in Hospital) did detract slightly I think there were a few take home messages.

Establishing the scale of the disruption

Is this a problem with your fuse box? Is it confined to a couple of houses or your street? Or is it wider than that? The programme showed people reaching for their phones; “My friend on Facebook in London say’s there’s problems there too”, #smem for the masses.

Initial reactions

Viewers were presented with the televisual equivilent of a bullet-point list of immediate consequences and the subsequent public response.

  • No lights – saw people grab for their torches and candles. What I’d have liked to have seen is more explicit reference to wind up torches and some statement on the dangers associated with candle use
  • No airport activity resulting in stranded passengers – the programme didn’t go back to Heathrow after the initial loss of power, it would have been interesting to see the point at which a ‘normal disruption’ to flights starts to have significant consequences
  • No street lights or traffic signals leading to a rise in road traffic collisions, with no ability to control traffic flows, gridlock would build very quickly
  • Problems at crowded places and planned events with resultant public order and safety considerations
  • Inability to heat food and requirement to empty food from freezers – I thought the freezer issue was considered a little bit too early, but the challenges associated with not being able to cook are significant
  • People trapped in lifts (and on the London Eye) – again, not altogether uncommon, for mechanical or localised electrical issues, but becoming a more complex problem to solve in a widespread blackout
  • Mobile phone congestion (and later, disruption) – I didn’t think the factors behind this were particularly well explained in the programme. However, reduced fixed-line telecoms and an inability to dynamically manage mobile networks, this is a definite possibility in a relatively short period of time. Increasingly important as we’ve become much more dependant on mobile phones.
  • No heating – whilst this wouldn’t be a problem in the summer months, during winter it would be unpleasant and would likely result in excess deaths in vulnerable group
  • Commercial and economic impact – as well as the macro-economic impact of this type of event, the impacts at an individual level would also be significant. An inability to pay for goods (not ATMs), combined with an inability to process payments could lead to ‘looting’ (with no fear of recompense as CCTV cameras offline)
  • Drying up fuel stocks – as people jump in their cars and head to Sheffield, they forget that refuelling without power will be problematic, and likley to result in people resorting to questionable methods. I once (legitimately) syphoned petrol from a fuel tank, it didn’t go quite to plan and I got a mouthful of unleaded. The best advice would have been to follow the government advice to “stay in”…or perhaps to travel by bicycle.

The Emergency Planners Paradox

It’s not something that I’ve seen articulated on TV before, but is something that I experience from time to time. Having planned in detail for these events, to have the opportunity to implement those arrangements does bring a degree of satisfaction. Having drained his radiators, assembled his grab-bag and purchased a generator, the middle-class prepper found himself in this situation for some time. By the fourth day however his reserves begin to wane “I thought if a situation like this came about I’d be alright, but I’m finding it quite hard”, from there quickly descending to the lowest common denominator – survival at all costs.

Confidence, Optimism, Teamwork and Fear

Whilst there was little confidence expressed in the government plan, there was an undercurrent of confidence from most characters, trusty old Dunkirk Spirit (which may or may not have exitsted). A clear sense that ‘it’ll be back on tomorrow’ would probably be highly motivating in those circumstances, even if it didn’t turn out to be the case.

There were both positive and negative examples of people working together and emergent behaviour. Naturally the positive examples (such as the family who took in their vulnerable elderly neighbour) are great, but I’m glad the producers didn’t gloss over those who exploit a situation for their own good.

Whilst innovation and improvisation was seen as a key success factor, this was tempered with some characters being highly suspicious of others.  The Telegraph identified the tagged man as a paedophile; I didn’t reach that conclusion, but it was clear that the single mother was suspicious and uncomfortable travelling with him.

In fairness, the programme only hinted at pockets of panic-behaviours, which was reassuring as evidence and expeience shows this is a relatively uncommon response.

Emergency Powers

Whilst the use of temporary emergency legislation is included as an option in the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) there has been no situation since them requiring enactment. It’s quite possible that in a national emergency these powers would be utilised to provide continuity to essential services (where possible), but it’s also likley that their use would face much opposition.

Aftermath

As with the documentaries and movies that go before it, Blackout ended when the lights came back on. Whilst I understand the dramtic need for this, consequences will be more pervasive and long lasting, and from my persepctive, it would have been interesting to compare the rate at which Britan descended into anarchy to the recovery and restoration of normality.

So, that was what I gleaned from Blackout, but how did social media feel? I took to twitter to find out, here’s a snapshot illustrating the range of opinion from cynical to downright confused, but first…a graph, showing that around 26,000 tweets were sent with the hashtag #blackout peaking at 700 tweets per minute around 21:30.

blackouttweets