Zello: The ‘Cajun Navy’s’ secret weapon for saving lives(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
Zello: The ‘Cajun Navy’s’ secret weapon for saving lives
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/31/the-cajun-navys-secret-weapon-for-saving-lives-the-human-voice/
33 comments
Here's a long detailed comment from an HN user "embedded" with the rescue effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15153567
That was a super interesting read that raised so many important points. Regarding the mentioned lack of maps of flooded areas, I wonder if volunteers were aware of the Copernicus EMS service activation [1]. This is a mapping team that, upon activation, constantly produces free maps of the emergency (fires, floodings, etc.) from satellite imaginery and radar data.
The maps are constantly updates as soon as new satellite data is available. The most recent map [2], in fact, was uploaded just 15 minutes prior to this comment. More importantly, along each map a light vector package of the relevant GIS data [3] is published, so certainly this GIS data would be useful to add to an emergency app...
As far as I know, the Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS) of the USGS [4] also provides satellite imaginery, but I'm not sure if they also process this imaginery into freely-distributed, printable maps and vector GIS data.
---
[1] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EM...
[2] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/system/files/componen...
[3] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/download/146034/EMSR2...
[4] https://hdds.usgs.gov/
The maps are constantly updates as soon as new satellite data is available. The most recent map [2], in fact, was uploaded just 15 minutes prior to this comment. More importantly, along each map a light vector package of the relevant GIS data [3] is published, so certainly this GIS data would be useful to add to an emergency app...
As far as I know, the Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS) of the USGS [4] also provides satellite imaginery, but I'm not sure if they also process this imaginery into freely-distributed, printable maps and vector GIS data.
---
[1] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/list-of-components/EM...
[2] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/system/files/componen...
[3] http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/download/146034/EMSR2...
[4] https://hdds.usgs.gov/
NOAA gathered some post event aerial imagery:
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/harvey/index.html
It looks like USGS has most of their activity here: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/hurricane-harvey
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/harvey/index.html
It looks like USGS has most of their activity here: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/hurricane-harvey
Yep, I saw the really neat aerial imagery, and I know that in addition the USGS ingests enormous quantities of raw satellite imagery (https://twitter.com/USGS_HDDS), however most of that data is not freely available to the public, only to certain organizations.
However, the main problem that I see (although I may be totally wrong!) is that all those raw data doesn't get condensed into ready-for-print maps of the affected areas, that can be distributed to volunteers on the field such as those made by Copernicus.
However, the main problem that I see (although I may be totally wrong!) is that all those raw data doesn't get condensed into ready-for-print maps of the affected areas, that can be distributed to volunteers on the field such as those made by Copernicus.
Thank you for bringing up Copernicus EMS and HDDS, I've added it to my observation notes. That data would be definitely be useful, but no one in the effort knew about these resources at the time.
Water rescuers were given a general idea of an area that could be assumed flooded throughout, but boaters had to exercise caution at all times because of water hazards (both stationary and mobile) and flood waters could subside without warning, leaving some boats stranded on shallow mud flats.
While it was somewhat life-threatening with water rescues, the lack of data could be worked around because the water rise to the point it was life-threatening was reckoned in 15-30 minute intervals, and people could coordinate rescues of rescuers around that timeframe. However, in a fire response version of such Net-based coordination, accurate, up-to-the-second assessment would be life-critical. Not sure how to address that without industrial-grade drones or even UAV's, and hella-expensive grade FLIR, and the FAA (and possibly DHS) would then be deeply involved.
Not sure why UAV-based realtime GIS mapping wasn't deployed. The hardware tech exists, but perhaps the pipeline for data ingestion, cleanup, processing and publishing isn't up to realtime demands, even for a limited scope of "show me what is different from this satellite GIS map of the same area". That would be an interesting problem to solve, correcting for daylight shadows, transient objects like cars and planes, etc.; I'm sure the military intelligence folks in the IMINT sector have long since worked out the initial challenges of this problem space, but open algorithms for applying to this problem space (not to speak of code) don't seem readily available to me after searching around, so it might be a long slog up the learning curve.
These disasters might be a good application of temporary air mobile vehicles supplying some form of wireless signal. If you're going to loft up a vehicle into the air to collect realtime GIS, you might as well blanket the area with an emergency wireless signal. Would have to solve problems around rate-limiting, dynamic prioritization based upon confirmed emergencies, etc.
The flooding points out to me the lack of research into flood waters diversion [1]; there is still a lot we don't know about what happens when we try to mitigate excess flood waters. We know at least some flooding is necessary for managing topsoil erosion. But even the $26B estimate to bring Houston up to a more hardened flooding posture [2] seems like cheap insurance compared to the $100B estimates being thrown around now. I've wondered if it is possible, and what it would take to build a national water grid that intakes excess flood waters in one region of the nation, processes it so it is ecologically "clean" of invasive species, and shunts it to a drier region. The capacity of such an infrastructure within the channels themselves might lessen the need for designated floodwater storage plains, and simultaneously vastly increase land utilization. However, megascale infrastructure projects still seem out of our grasp in this era.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160106114744.h...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/how-m...
Water rescuers were given a general idea of an area that could be assumed flooded throughout, but boaters had to exercise caution at all times because of water hazards (both stationary and mobile) and flood waters could subside without warning, leaving some boats stranded on shallow mud flats.
While it was somewhat life-threatening with water rescues, the lack of data could be worked around because the water rise to the point it was life-threatening was reckoned in 15-30 minute intervals, and people could coordinate rescues of rescuers around that timeframe. However, in a fire response version of such Net-based coordination, accurate, up-to-the-second assessment would be life-critical. Not sure how to address that without industrial-grade drones or even UAV's, and hella-expensive grade FLIR, and the FAA (and possibly DHS) would then be deeply involved.
Not sure why UAV-based realtime GIS mapping wasn't deployed. The hardware tech exists, but perhaps the pipeline for data ingestion, cleanup, processing and publishing isn't up to realtime demands, even for a limited scope of "show me what is different from this satellite GIS map of the same area". That would be an interesting problem to solve, correcting for daylight shadows, transient objects like cars and planes, etc.; I'm sure the military intelligence folks in the IMINT sector have long since worked out the initial challenges of this problem space, but open algorithms for applying to this problem space (not to speak of code) don't seem readily available to me after searching around, so it might be a long slog up the learning curve.
These disasters might be a good application of temporary air mobile vehicles supplying some form of wireless signal. If you're going to loft up a vehicle into the air to collect realtime GIS, you might as well blanket the area with an emergency wireless signal. Would have to solve problems around rate-limiting, dynamic prioritization based upon confirmed emergencies, etc.
The flooding points out to me the lack of research into flood waters diversion [1]; there is still a lot we don't know about what happens when we try to mitigate excess flood waters. We know at least some flooding is necessary for managing topsoil erosion. But even the $26B estimate to bring Houston up to a more hardened flooding posture [2] seems like cheap insurance compared to the $100B estimates being thrown around now. I've wondered if it is possible, and what it would take to build a national water grid that intakes excess flood waters in one region of the nation, processes it so it is ecologically "clean" of invasive species, and shunts it to a drier region. The capacity of such an infrastructure within the channels themselves might lessen the need for designated floodwater storage plains, and simultaneously vastly increase land utilization. However, megascale infrastructure projects still seem out of our grasp in this era.
[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160106114744.h...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/how-m...
The FAA until very recently categorically denied the use of UAVs, even if it would save lives.
The drone needs to have an air worthyness certificate and be flown by a full pilot in order for the FAA to allow it. This is slowly changing though with the rules for lightweight drones.
The drone needs to have an air worthyness certificate and be flown by a full pilot in order for the FAA to allow it. This is slowly changing though with the rules for lightweight drones.
> The drone needs to have an air worthyness certificate and be flown by a full pilot in order for the FAA to allow it.
It's highly dependent on drone weight and usage, but most drones are in the <55 lb category, which doesn't require either of those things for commercial use: https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/
Drones above 55 lbs do require a section 333 waiver and a part 61 airmen certificate, which is basically a mild step up from the part 107 UAS pilot training requirement. Both are significantly easier, faster, and cheaper than even the cheapest private pilot's license.
It's highly dependent on drone weight and usage, but most drones are in the <55 lb category, which doesn't require either of those things for commercial use: https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/
Drones above 55 lbs do require a section 333 waiver and a part 61 airmen certificate, which is basically a mild step up from the part 107 UAS pilot training requirement. Both are significantly easier, faster, and cheaper than even the cheapest private pilot's license.
Seriously cool stuff. I've got relatives in Houston and was frustrated that I couldn't find an easy way to see if they were impacted
I think their products are really great for the general public, because not everyone knows GIS and how to access satellite imagery. In some cases, such as fires, earthquakes, etc. they even estimate the impact into buildings (affected, destroyed, etc) which is really useful for people who may be wondering if their family/property is OK. Example: http://emergency.copernicus.eu/mapping/system/files/componen...
I hate to be a wet blanket here but it's going to be difficult to impossible to maintain a large-scale voice commo system during a widespread natural disaster. This is stuff that Amateur Radio operators practice on a regular basis and it's difficult even with organized net operations schemes, this is not something people can manage just calling in. There is a very finite amount of bandwidth and during a time when normal commo links are down you need to maximize what bandwidth you have.
If you switch to a TTY type interface you are going to be able to maintain comms a lot more efficiently for a given amount of battery life, and a much greater total communications volume. However from what you've said here, the voice is carrying a significant amount of contextual information and this might not be desirable.
I recognize the merit of connecting rescuees directly to rescuers. However from what you've said, the "flat" organizational model is becoming a bottleneck and you don't think you'll be able to scale.
My suggestion would be to look at the 9-1-1 model. You need to get people to local operators who can triage the most urgent calls according to certain categories (medical emergencies, trapped personnel, etc). You can record the 9-1-1 calls and push very compressed recordings to some kind of central system to maximize trunk bandwidth (assuming this is any kind of limitation vs operator time).
During an emergency situation, it is probably not important that these "operators" are actually official emergency personnel, that is what you are doing when you connect rescuees directly to amateur rescuers anyway.
I would just directly expose the triage category data to rescue personnel (volunteer or otherwise). Let people see the triaged location+severity of incidents in their area and communicate amongst themselves and they will respond intelligently to the most urgent situations. (again, this communication is much more energy-efficient in text form rather than in live voice)
Please let me re-iterate the importance of rehearsing these scenarios. Amateurs regularly drill their net operation skills and since the "Cajun Navy" is now a thing it would be good to rehearse that as well. Nothing dangerous but imagine amateur radio operators calling into a net and requesting rescue at various (water/road-accessible) locations throughout a weekend for a real-world dispatch/recovery operations scenario. It's great that people stepped up but we absolutely need to drill these skills to prevent dumb mistakes. This is going to happen again, courtesy of global warming.
If you switch to a TTY type interface you are going to be able to maintain comms a lot more efficiently for a given amount of battery life, and a much greater total communications volume. However from what you've said here, the voice is carrying a significant amount of contextual information and this might not be desirable.
I recognize the merit of connecting rescuees directly to rescuers. However from what you've said, the "flat" organizational model is becoming a bottleneck and you don't think you'll be able to scale.
My suggestion would be to look at the 9-1-1 model. You need to get people to local operators who can triage the most urgent calls according to certain categories (medical emergencies, trapped personnel, etc). You can record the 9-1-1 calls and push very compressed recordings to some kind of central system to maximize trunk bandwidth (assuming this is any kind of limitation vs operator time).
During an emergency situation, it is probably not important that these "operators" are actually official emergency personnel, that is what you are doing when you connect rescuees directly to amateur rescuers anyway.
I would just directly expose the triage category data to rescue personnel (volunteer or otherwise). Let people see the triaged location+severity of incidents in their area and communicate amongst themselves and they will respond intelligently to the most urgent situations. (again, this communication is much more energy-efficient in text form rather than in live voice)
Please let me re-iterate the importance of rehearsing these scenarios. Amateurs regularly drill their net operation skills and since the "Cajun Navy" is now a thing it would be good to rehearse that as well. Nothing dangerous but imagine amateur radio operators calling into a net and requesting rescue at various (water/road-accessible) locations throughout a weekend for a real-world dispatch/recovery operations scenario. It's great that people stepped up but we absolutely need to drill these skills to prevent dumb mistakes. This is going to happen again, courtesy of global warming.
So Zello is a battery flattener? Perhaps a few Signal groups with a bot would have been better, as the other cited issues with it were around rescue request tracking and a breakdown in communication when Zello channels were too busy.
Zello has three problems: one is the afore-mentioned battery overhead, the second is cellphone push-to-talk adapters resold by the company are very expensive.
You can find knockoff PTT devices on eBay but they don't have momentary switches, so you have to remember to click once to speak and again to clear the channel and any accidental brush against the toggle can end up blocking the channel indefinitely. And that's the third problem with Zello: its "only one person may speak at once" nature.
As I mentioned previously, this really seems like the same problem a music festival faces just at a different scale. If someone could build an app that supports Glastonbury or Burning Man that could be the commercial underpinning that lets this hypothetical app donate services during a disaster.
You'd already know how to add and allocate people to bands of channels based on their role and responsibilities. And how to deal with griefers who try to channel dominate or block for their own selfish or stupid ends.
Heck maybe Zello (or this hypothetical app) add a more WhatsApp-like buffered playback mode that means people just queue for whose message is heard next but no one hears anything from you until your transmission ends, rather than trying to make your cellphone literally emulate a two way radio or Sprint/Nextel phone.
That would also mean you could just see the previous stream of talk activity and play it back on joining or rejoining a channel. Add a way to tag conversations with rescue numbers and you can even make accessing data about a given rescue searchable.
Sounds like a fun project. If anyone needs an SRE guy when they get ycombinator funding look me up. :-)
One last note to potential investors: the Department of Homeland Security established CERT to let the general public be trained for assisting first responders. Included in that training is buying a go bag of your own for basic first aid. Adding a $10 waterproof PTT switch to your bag is not unreasonable. (Asking people to shell out $50-$175 which is what current Zello ptt adapters cost is too much IMHO).
Anyway one could potentially sell this to the government although that would probably mean FEMA coordinating the onboarding of users and devices during a disaster for both the good and bad it implies.
You can find knockoff PTT devices on eBay but they don't have momentary switches, so you have to remember to click once to speak and again to clear the channel and any accidental brush against the toggle can end up blocking the channel indefinitely. And that's the third problem with Zello: its "only one person may speak at once" nature.
As I mentioned previously, this really seems like the same problem a music festival faces just at a different scale. If someone could build an app that supports Glastonbury or Burning Man that could be the commercial underpinning that lets this hypothetical app donate services during a disaster.
You'd already know how to add and allocate people to bands of channels based on their role and responsibilities. And how to deal with griefers who try to channel dominate or block for their own selfish or stupid ends.
Heck maybe Zello (or this hypothetical app) add a more WhatsApp-like buffered playback mode that means people just queue for whose message is heard next but no one hears anything from you until your transmission ends, rather than trying to make your cellphone literally emulate a two way radio or Sprint/Nextel phone.
That would also mean you could just see the previous stream of talk activity and play it back on joining or rejoining a channel. Add a way to tag conversations with rescue numbers and you can even make accessing data about a given rescue searchable.
Sounds like a fun project. If anyone needs an SRE guy when they get ycombinator funding look me up. :-)
One last note to potential investors: the Department of Homeland Security established CERT to let the general public be trained for assisting first responders. Included in that training is buying a go bag of your own for basic first aid. Adding a $10 waterproof PTT switch to your bag is not unreasonable. (Asking people to shell out $50-$175 which is what current Zello ptt adapters cost is too much IMHO).
Anyway one could potentially sell this to the government although that would probably mean FEMA coordinating the onboarding of users and devices during a disaster for both the good and bad it implies.
Adding a $10 waterproof PTT switch to your bag is not
unreasonable
Sorry washpost, but I'm going to go with 'boats' over some super kewl internets startup. Preeety sure they would have found another way to communicate if needed.. another way to get people out, not so much.
Houston is huge and not all of it was flooded. Coordinating the private boats to actually get them in the water in areas where people were in trouble likely made the boats a great deal more effective.
It's also not clear to me how many rescues were done by the people volunteering their own time and resources vs the various government agencies (that have a lot more equipment and plans and stuff).
It's also not clear to me how many rescues were done by the people volunteering their own time and resources vs the various government agencies (that have a lot more equipment and plans and stuff).
maxerickson says: "It's also not clear to me how many rescues were done by the people volunteering their own time and resources vs the various government agencies (that have a lot more equipment and plans and stuff)."
Did they indeed have more equipment and plans and stuff? Is there some clear role that they played and were clearly beneficial in this emergency? Could/would not almost everything they did that was useful be done by civilians in their absence?
I'm not impressed. I don't understand why the National Guard(NG) was necessary. Early on, the government agencies and NG brought trucks and helicopters; civilians wisely brought boats. [OK, to be fair, later the NG brought some amphibious vehicles and boats, but we're not taking Omaha beach here, folks]. Mostly the National Guard and FEMA guys in the field just stood around their trucks at attention or drove around. The inside people _did_ help set up shelters, food, etc. The helicopter fellows _did_ some rescuing but I question the value of that since helicopters are costly to run, dangerous (they fail frequently with disastrous consequences), cost like heck to maintain and the same thing can usually be done far more safely with a boat (or a lifesaving ring).
National Guard might possibly serve in a policing function but New Orleans/Katrina pretty much showed how that can fail. NG isn't really a policing agency, it's part of an army. Armies are good at killing people and I want my Army to be strong in that manner. So let them train and deploy at that.
Events like hurricane Harvey appear to be mostly minor training operations and photo ops for the National Guard. "Feel-Good" stuff, in other words. It might be best for the victims _and_ the NG if the NG didn't participate. And it would save our tax dollars.
Local law enforcement agencies (the various police and sheriffs' offices in the Houston area) have plenty of law enforcement officers familiar with local terrain and culture who are eager to earn overtime pay policing flood areas. They're also less likely to bust a cap in your ass for stealing gasoline.
"The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina"
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/08/secret-histor...
Did they indeed have more equipment and plans and stuff? Is there some clear role that they played and were clearly beneficial in this emergency? Could/would not almost everything they did that was useful be done by civilians in their absence?
I'm not impressed. I don't understand why the National Guard(NG) was necessary. Early on, the government agencies and NG brought trucks and helicopters; civilians wisely brought boats. [OK, to be fair, later the NG brought some amphibious vehicles and boats, but we're not taking Omaha beach here, folks]. Mostly the National Guard and FEMA guys in the field just stood around their trucks at attention or drove around. The inside people _did_ help set up shelters, food, etc. The helicopter fellows _did_ some rescuing but I question the value of that since helicopters are costly to run, dangerous (they fail frequently with disastrous consequences), cost like heck to maintain and the same thing can usually be done far more safely with a boat (or a lifesaving ring).
National Guard might possibly serve in a policing function but New Orleans/Katrina pretty much showed how that can fail. NG isn't really a policing agency, it's part of an army. Armies are good at killing people and I want my Army to be strong in that manner. So let them train and deploy at that.
Events like hurricane Harvey appear to be mostly minor training operations and photo ops for the National Guard. "Feel-Good" stuff, in other words. It might be best for the victims _and_ the NG if the NG didn't participate. And it would save our tax dollars.
Local law enforcement agencies (the various police and sheriffs' offices in the Houston area) have plenty of law enforcement officers familiar with local terrain and culture who are eager to earn overtime pay policing flood areas. They're also less likely to bust a cap in your ass for stealing gasoline.
"The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina"
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/08/secret-histor...
Nice rant. Do statistics back it up or is it just a feel good government bash?
I read the article and see no sign that it says boats are less important than this app.
I'm also mystified why you might think that it could be a secret that something called a "navy" would have boats.
Now this IS a shitty article in that it's mostly repeating things said by Zello's CEO, perhaps you could try criticizing that?
I'm also mystified why you might think that it could be a secret that something called a "navy" would have boats.
Now this IS a shitty article in that it's mostly repeating things said by Zello's CEO, perhaps you could try criticizing that?
I was starting my path to get my HAM license while listening with my cheap chinese radio. Harvey directly hit my area, something like 50 inches of rain. As the phones started to get unreliable and then NOAA went down, I knew cell phones in a disaster don't mix well. I kind of wish the testing wasn't as "difficult" or GMRS was a little less regulated in terms of hardware. It's kind of a "prepper" thing but more people should learn radio stuff because cell phones aren't your savior.
Getting a ham radio license is extremely easy nowadays. You can easily cram for it in a day or over a weekend.
When I got my license, I took two written tests and a Morse Code test (at the same time) and that wasn't even very difficult. It is much, much easier nowadays.
When I got my license, I took two written tests and a Morse Code test (at the same time) and that wasn't even very difficult. It is much, much easier nowadays.
They literally have 1-day cram sessions at DEFCON for ham lics. We need more hams, especially for stuff like this. Using cell infra and internet to accomplish this is crazy. Get your license!
Recently got my tech license, it wasn't that difficult. In an emergency it's permissable to use cheap radios that do not confirm to GMRS/FRS rules on those frequencies.
Some rescuers used plain walkie-talkies which were clearly visible in news photos. I'd prefer one of those in an emergency, since they don't depend on a central server.
This. Unless the app supports p2p communication which most don't, they can be rendered useless in a jiffers on service and/or power loss.
A good example could be FireChat, but many users reported intermittent or flat-out no connection.
A good example could be FireChat, but many users reported intermittent or flat-out no connection.
The secret weapon is compassion and hard physical work, but that's apparently too alt-right for the WaPo.
It sounds like municipalities could use a "311" app or webpage where people could do things like share their current location with the police and check for information related to their precise location.
Los Angeles has such a service, including a decent mobile app. It's worked well enough for me for non-emergencies, like reporting unsafe road conditions or discarded furniture in alleyways. Don't know if they have special features for emergency situations.
https://myla311.lacity.org/
https://myla311.lacity.org/
Neat. I guess I'm thinking about some middle ground, where if someone decides to stay in their home it is useful to them to notify the police that a certain number of people plan to shelter in place at a certain location. Emergency situations probably wouldn't benefit any from an app doing the triage vs 911 operators. Maybe the operators would benefit if the app was able to initiate certain types of relatively urgent reports.
("My house is beginning to flood and I'm concerned about my safety" is a very different situation than "Someone was just involved in a vehicle collision and requires an ambulance")
("My house is beginning to flood and I'm concerned about my safety" is a very different situation than "Someone was just involved in a vehicle collision and requires an ambulance")
Recovery has progressed to the trash-removal stage. More garbage trucks are being brought in from other cities. ("Uber for garbage trucks", anybody?) Debris should be sorted into vegetation, construction and demolition, appliances, electronics, and hazardous waste. Plus regular household trash. The different stuff goes to different places.
Proprietary ham radio?
They were using it to communicate with people in need of rescue, so not really. No special equipment, etc.