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tegyriusToday's offering is a pretty darn cool program from the Portland, Oregon Bureau of Emergency Management: BEECN, or the Basic Earthquake Emergency Communication Node. They're preplanned sites where citizens can go after a quake or other major disaster to report damage and injuries and request assistance when normal communications are offline. The FAQ doesn't specify, but I suspect the comms are provided, at least in part, by the ARES/MARS amateur radio volunteers.
This looks like a win-win-win to me. It makes effective use of volunteer manpower (assuming I'm right about the MARS/ARES assets, but those are the logical people to staff such sites), it gives citizens a communication channel to civil authorities, and it helps the city establish and maintain situational awareness so it can prioritize and allocate resources.
This looks like a win-win-win to me. It makes effective use of volunteer manpower (assuming I'm right about the MARS/ARES assets, but those are the logical people to staff such sites), it gives citizens a communication channel to civil authorities, and it helps the city establish and maintain situational awareness so it can prioritize and allocate resources.