Friday, November 2, 2012

Hurricane Sandy - Emergency communication setup using Twitter

Dear reader,

as it was announced by a US grid operator that is unfortunately impossible to provide more info on Twitter about power outages or schedule for the restore of power to certain precincts here are some hints about Twitter:

Intro
1.) In a catastrophic event such as now effecting the entire Eastern Seaboard of the US, vital companies   must rewrite their 'textbooks' in order to cope with the suddenly and completely changed situation. As those brave men of Apollo 13 and their ground crew in Houston had to adapt rapidly to a situation unforeseen before the mission the moon started. Everything had to be rearranged in order to bring back those three astronauts back to Earth.

2.) When vital telecom & electricity grid infrastructure is damaged or completely down, everyone should take this new situation into account. It is not enough to rely on 'old' and 'proven' ways of communication, but one should be willing to adapt to every technology available at the time. Phone lines are 'old' bidirectional communication tools , while website are a bit 'newer', offer both uni- and bidirectional ways of communication.

3.) When there is no power available to citizens, trying to get in touch with their grid operators in order to restore service, it's rather necessary to understand that those who try to make contact have only a few Watt (hours) of power to their disposal to keep in touch with the outside world. If the mobile network is available at all, that is. So battery power of communication equipment is super precious, since it cannot be recharged while there is a wide-spread power outage.

Calls 
When forced to make a call and perhaps even wait in line before any human being responds to the caller, some minutes may have passed draining the mobile phone's battery considerably. Even more so when some masts of the mobile network aren't working either, and so the phone increases output power in order to reach a cell station further away than usual. Most likely the phone will use it's maximum power in order to establish a cell connection. When it manages to hold that connection it uses some 3000-9000 Bits per second --for minutes-- in order to transmit the human voice back and forth (2-way communication) and when too many people try to call at once the network of limited bandwidth could get into difficulties. However the number of callers is limited, and by using Twitter which uses just roughly some 1400 Bit for 1 or 2 seconds, the bandwidth can be saved e.g. for urgent 911 or 311 calls.

Internet websites
Although very useful, and even more so when phone network is down or congested, it's sometimes is tricky to load many of those modern websites filled with graphics and cross-links while using rather slow mobile networks. So again it's a bandwidth problem when loading some internet websites could involve some Megabytes of data being transmitted through the network. In 'normal times' less of a problem than in times of already reduced capacity and increased demand. So when a natural disaster wipes out some 20% of capacity of mobile networks, such websites would even take longer to fully show up on the user's screen.

[update]
Since this author also uses an Android based smart phone there is also a 'power consumption issue' with  browser based internet access: A Twitter client like Twicca app uses far less power than any browser app necessary to access websites.  Twitter client apps like Twicca only send/receive data when user confirms such an 'net update' by pressing a button. So the smart phone battery last at least twice as long on my smart phone when no browser is used to access the internet.
[/update]


Solution:
Organisations, corporations can create X additional Twitter handles e.g. for every borough or service area they want to cover.  They can send regional messages to all users of the designated area, and receive direct information from users living in that region and who are following that handle. By sending out very specific regional information it can also contribute to reducing number of help request, often only expressing a need for information. Thus perhaps this will even reduce number of callers currently congesting the phone lines of customer centers !


Those 'regional handles' can be announced from time to time by the 'known official account' and this main Twitter handle could also create a public list perhaps called 'Sandy emergency assistance'


Even if sensitive customer information is to be exchanged like exact address, phone number, customer ID number etc. the service center of a corporation can easily 'follow back' the customer in need and then afterwards use 'private mail' or 'direct mail' for exchange of non public information. 



example:
known official Twitter handle:
@PowerCompany

emergency 'offsprings':
1. @PCStatenIsland
2. @PCConeyIsland
3. @PCHoboken

@PowerCompany can create list: 'Emergency assistance' consisting of: 1+2+3
and reminding their followers from to time that this new list is created.


if your Internet connection fails you send twitter messages via SMS:
Getting Started with Twitter via SMS (Twitter)
How to use Twitter when you lose Internet access (Washington Post)


please note: Data traffic rates are just 'rough estimates' by this author without having checked every detail. Just to make a point that reducing data traffic in fragile mobile networks is supporting availability and might prevent congestion or even collapse of such vital communication networks. 
Legal notice: You may copy all text or parts of it as you like. Would be nice if you mention source.

Technical references:
GSM 200 kHZ bandwidth

related articles:
Citizens of Munich kept informed mainly via Twitter (Nov 15th 2012,Hamburger Abendblatt)(German)
First lesson of Superstorm Sandy: Improve communication (Nov 13th 2012,The Hill)
Why Twitter helps during catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy (Nov 4th 2012, India Times)
Behind @ConEdison: The 27 Year-Old Preventing Panic, One Tweet At A Time (Nov 4th 2012)
Prevention strategies to limit impact of catastrophic events  (Nov 2nd 2012, EZRdevelop)

Last updated: Nov 4th 2012 20.30 CET or 2.30pm EST






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