The deadly tornado in Indiana and Kentucky is another opportunity for us to consider new, innovative ways for one-to-many and many-to-many communications system in a world of Open Source Emergency Response. In this NYT article, Tornado Survivors Question Siren Warning System, people question the utility of TV warnings and land-based sirens for emergencies in the middle of the night:
While the local authorities in southern Indiana defended the region’s warning system on Monday, some shaken residents said they wondered now whether it was enough, whether something louder or faster or more technologically advanced might have saved some here.
My first instinct is toward cobbling together some informal CTA Alerts-style network where people sign up for the alert, set their phone on high volume, and keep it near their bed. That is something people can do right now to at least improve their chances of getting notification.
But what if we had a more formal, organized way of approaching a new Emergency Broadcast System? What if we manufactured all of our cell phones with a special channel that local government and emergency bodies had the right to publish to? Why don’t we think of our phones as a broadcast device just like we treat TV and radio?