Focus on Japan

Like everyone else, I am watching the news about Japan. My family lost houses (no people, thankfully) to Katrina’s storm surge, but even that does not let me truly comprehend what is happening over there.

Technology plays an ever-larger role in crises and the aftermath of disasters. Until this disaster, the world was riveted by uprisings in Egypt, Libya and around the Middle East. These uprisings rely heavily on ubiquitous technology to organize and communicate. Then the earth shook Japan onto center stage.

But if ever there has been a test of how effectively technology can be used to facilitate disaster response, this has to be the biggest the world has known for the kind of technology we have now. Surely Japan of all countries can wring as much help as possible out of modern technology. Every Japanese technology professional I have ever worked with is superb and relentlessly strives for excellence.

If you have ever been in a disaster zone, you know how difficult it can be to get in touch with loved ones and report how you’re doing or find out how they’re doing. Normal communications aren’t working properly. Emergency responders need priority in whatever is left of the communications network, yet it is swamped by people trying to contact loved ones.

It’s usually a little more feasible to place a telephone call from inside the disaster zone to the outside than the other way around. Having been through a few disasters, I learned long ago to designate one family member I will try to reach first with my news, and a fallback if I can’t reach that one, and so on. The family knows not to try to call me when I’m in a disaster zone. After I reach one contact, that person will update everyone else. We only use the crucial overloaded telephone connections in the disaster zone once. We all use some version of this system. Since much of my family lives in hurricane-prone areas, we have a lot of practice.

This time Google is making a special database available to help people in Japan find each other. Google’s database strikes me as a wonderful idea, much more efficient than the telephone tree approach.

I feel for the people hit by this disaster anywhere but especially in Japan. What is happening there right now is terrible. But I suspect that out of this awful catastrophe, the Japanese will give the world something priceless—a model for disaster response that moves the entire field forward by giant strides and saves a lot of lives in a future disaster somewhere else.