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by Michael Donahe
Cyclone Sidr, a Category-4
storm that devastated the
country of Bangladesh in
November, claimed more
than 3,300 lives, caused
approximately $2 billion
in damage and destroyed
more than 800,000 tons
of the nation’s rice crop
valued at $290 million.
Groups responding to the disaster say
many lessons have been learned. There
are also important lessons for US federal
and state emergency management
agencies.
During the recovery from the storm,
an open source disaster management
system called “Sahana” was used to
address common decision, support and
coordination problems countries face
during disasters. This was the biggest
lesson learned: The need for worldwide
implementation of disaster management
technologies – before disaster strikes
– versus in the midst of a time-critical
crisis situation such as a cyclone, an
earthquake or a tsunami.
Sahana is currently being utilized in
major metropolitan areas within the
U.S. and is being reviewed by top
emergency management directors across
the country. In addition, Sahana’s open
source platform has allowed many U.S.
programmers and developers to contribute
to its overall functionality.
On U.S. soil, Sahana could provide
many benefits to virtually any area hit by
a natural or man-made disaster, including
hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes,
wildfires – even terrorist attacks.
Technology plays a vital role in helping
countries, states or cities prepare
for, respond to, and recover from disasters
by connecting relief groups so they can coordinate effectively during
a disaster. This includes developing a
victim/missing person registry, connecting
support and relief requests with
the donors who fulfill those requests,
and identifying and locating victims in
shelters and other safe havens. There is
also a need to coordinate volunteers and
manage food, water and emergency supply
distribution.
There are many issues at hand today
when it comes to the implementation
of technological programs in crisis management
situations; first and foremost
the awareness that these programs exist
at all and next, the implementation and
training required to get the appropriate
personnel acclimated to their functionalities.
When it comes to worldwide crisis
events, technological acceptance isn’t
the biggest issue. The challenge lies in
building awareness around the technologies
that are available and then the
implementation of those technologies
– most often times in the midst of a
crisis event.
In early morning hours following
Cyclone Sidr, responders scheduled
meetings with representatives from
various organizations within the region,
including the Bangladesh Disaster
Management Bureau, the Bangladesh
University of Engineering, US AID and
the U.S. Embassy. By 10:00 AM, two
days later, Sahana was up and running,
with full support from the Bangladesh
government.
The personnel within the region who
were responsible for the operation and
customization of the Sahana program
lacked Linux skills. Efforts then began
to find knowledgeable and willing volunteers
to support the program. They
were found at a nearby university, whose
group members were not only familiar
with Sahana but were also contributors
to its development.
Within two days of the Sahana implementation
by the Disaster Management
Bureau (DMB), the Bangladesh Armed
Forces Division (AFD) had requested
and implemented Sahana on a second
server. This second server was relocated
to the forward command post in the
hardest hit area. Information was shared
between the DMB and AFD agencies
with one server being utilized as a full
back-up for the other.
Pooling resources within a region
is a vital part of what disaster relief
initiatives are designed to do, but it’s
not easy. It takes a tremendous amount
of coordination to get all of the agencies
involved on-board and up-to-speed
with a unified platform upon which
recovery efforts are built. Not only is
the pooling of human resources a vital on-site process in a disaster situation,
but before a crisis event strikes there is a
need to work together so that the means
for a coordinated relief effort are in place
before the event. The creation of Sahana
is an example of this…when teams of
developers spanning a dozen countries
collectively pooled their resources to
write, customize, refine, and enhance the
program for the past three years, making
it available to be downloaded for free,
with support for local customization.
For many years, governments, UN
agencies, NGO’s and private sector
responders have faced the challenges of
not having a consistent set of disaster
management software applications that
could be easily implemented in any
disaster scenario. The software would
need to facilitate the sharing of information
while addressing the specific
needs of multiple organizations. It had
to be easy to implement and easy to use.
The benefits had to be clear and it had
to be free. Unfortunately, until Sahana,
no such system existed.
Deployed by the Sri Lanka government’s
Center of National Operations
and the Center of Humanitarian Agencies
(CHA), the Sahana project was
originally initiated by volunteers in the
Sri Lankan FOSS development community
to help their fellow citizens
impacted by the Asian Tsunami in
December 2004. Based on its initial
success in handling broad scale disasters,
the Swedish International Development
Agency (SIDA) funded phase two
through the Lanka Software Foundation.
Since its inception, it’s been deployed in
many other disasters, such as the 2005
Asian quake in Pakistan, the 2006
mudslide disaster in the Philippines
and the 2006 Indonesian earthquake.
After the Tsunami, Sahana was rebuilt
from scratch on the Free and Open
Source technology stack, AMP (Apache,
MySQL and PHP/Perl).
Sahana’s six primary modules consist
of a Missing Person Registry, an Organization
Registry, a Shelter Registry,
a Request/Aid Management System, a
Volunteer Coordination System and a
Situation Awareness System.
The Missing Person Registry is an
online bulletin board of missing and
found people that not only features
information about the missing, but
also about the people who are seeking
the missing. The Organization Registry
keeps track of each relief organization
and civil society group working in the
disaster region, including where they are
active and the services they’re providing.
The Shelter Registry keeps track of all
shelter locations in the region, as well as
basic data about the shelters, the number
of people in them and a geospatial
view of shelter camp locations within an
affected area. The Request/Aid Management
System is a centralized online hub
where all organizations involved in relief efforts can effectively match requests of
aid supplies to pledges of support, with
full request to fulfillment features.
The Volunteer Coordination System
keeps track of all volunteers, contact
information, project allocation and
availability. The Situation Awareness
System provides a snapshot overview
of the crisis at hand, including what
is happening on the ground and the
ability to post notes and photos so
everyone, collectively and collaboratively,
can know what’s going on at any
given time.
In addition to its pluggable modules,
Sahana’s architectural framework was
designed specifically for humanitarian
efforts. In addition to its plug-in
architecture that allows for simplified
independent involvement and integration
by 3rd party groups, it can also run standalone without the dependency of
the Internet, it can be cloned for mobile
field use, and it doesn’t require installation
from a USB drive. Sahana can be
translated into any language, its user
interface can be adapted to the device
that views it, and it is horizontally
scalable, offering accommodation for a
greater load by adding more servers in a
parallel cluster.
With countries such as the Philippines,
Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia,
Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland,
United Kingdom, South Africa, Peru,
Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Sudan and
the United States now officially testing
or using Sahana, it is becoming one of
the fastest growing and most successful
disaster management applications in
the world. Its benefits, including ease
of use, the ability for customization
and its proven track record, have contributed
to its success. In 2006, Sahana
received the highest award available in
the open source industry from the Free
Software Foundation. Sahana received
the ‘Award for Social Benefit’ in a
field of contenders that included OLPC,
Project Gutenburg and Wikipedia.
In Bangladesh, the Sahana platform
is now supported by members of the
Bangladesh open source community,
along with students from the University
of Engineering and Technology,
who quickly stepped in to attend training
sessions, take over local support
responsibilities and build a linkage
with Sahana experts from the Lanka
Foundation.
Those within the crisis management
industry understand how technology
enables humanitarian efforts to take
place on an immediate and mass scale.
With applications such as Sahana, both
public and private sector organizations
can manage many facets of recovery
quickly and efficiently, from communications
programs to decision support
software for government officials. Today,
communication technology has significantly
advanced, for example. Internet
connectivity using Wi-Max units for
wide area coverage can be quickly set up
to accommodate voice, data, and video
transmission. And now Sahana leads
the way in a variety of global disaster
management initiatives.
The implementation of Sahana as
part of a national disaster management
strategy promises outstanding
results in terms of lives saved, property
protected, response coordination, loss
reduction and rapid recovery, according
to groups responding to the Cyclone
Sidr disaster.
There is no doubt a hard-working,
hands-on approach to crisis management
is by far the most important ingredient
of a successful disaster recovery process.
But technology can help people work
smarter, in addition to working harder.
Perhaps this two-pronged approach is
vital in facilitating the collaboration
between disaster response organizations
and governments like Bangladesh to
assist in the recovery from all types of
natural and man-made disasters.
About the Author
Michael Donahe has worked closely with the
developers of Sahana, and has assisted in the
implementation of Sahana in several large
disasters. He is Chief Operating Officer of I.T.
Crisis Services, Inc. (ITC) and he can be reached
at Donahe@itcrisis.com.
For those interested in learning more about
Sahana, a free and open source disaster management
system, visit www.sahana.lk. |
