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December 27, 2004
Tsunami Warning System
Tsunami Warning System: There's one for the Pacific region, but not for the Indian Ocean. Still, it may be possible, at lower cost than before... we need three things: (a) detection (it's practical now to discover earthquakes worldwide); (b) alerting the population; and (c) training the various populations about how to respond. I assume that there is a parallel monsoon warning system already in place, although those messages can be distributed over a few days, instead of a few hours with far-offshore earthquakes. If you were travelling to such a region, then I could see a personal device like a mobile phone without a keyboard or display, which could be contacted by a warning server anywhere in the world... include an airhorn in the device, and it could be a personal warning system... should be cheap enough to leave behind at a resort when done, so that it could be useful to others. A big part of the tragedy this time was the lack of training, though... even in San Francisco we see some people go to Ocean Beach after a large quake. My big point: How can cheap peer-to-peer devices help change the equation in alerting large groups of people during emergencies...?
Posted by John Dowdell at December 27, 2004 1:01 PM