--- From: "Thomas Lipscomb" <tomat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Terra Lycos wants "Emergency Online Broadcast System" Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 11:30:08 -0500 Declan-- I'm afraid I disagree. One of the lessons of 9/11 is what a lousy job everyone did in getting the simplest information out quickly to those in the NYC area... much less the rest of the world. Take a look at the Office of Emergency Management website of NYC.gov... . Totally useless... STILL. And yet no one could find out what subways were still operating... what trains were and were not running... which streets were blocked. Where the actual impact zone was... . What kind of attack we have experienced. Who to call... whether there was really any need for all the blood donors and volunteers who flooded area hospitals etc... what broadcast media were available with information where... etc etc... . there are "combat information center" templates available to have this kind of information preformatted with maps, information that will need filling in etc... for everything from an anthrax impact zone, to a dirty nuke.. or just a truck bomb. We are going to get hit again. The only question is where and when... . True enough the old Civil Defense structure is an antique. But the need for this information remains easy to anticipate... . And WHO is going to do it? It is bad enough that hundreds of emergency workers died senselessley on 9/11 in a veritable "Charge of the Light Brigade" into buildings experts already knew would collapse and the city authorities have so far managed to cover up. Clearly a major reevaluation of the intramural squabbling that lead to incompatible communication systems for emergency services is required. Having every emergency vehicle and ambulance in the city in a traffic jam neat the WTC was criminally stupid. But the information to the local populations can be critically important as these attacks occur to minimize panic. It is time to focus on this need. Not to reject attempts at it Thomas Lipscomb Chairman Center for the Digital Future New York ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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