How to improve Disaster Reliefs

Disaster Relief

Dear all forum members,

My name is Narut Ruthiraphong. I am currently doing a research on how to improve efforts in disaster reliefs for Central Saints Martins in London.

As I am from a country where lives were effected in the tsunami, I am looking forward to improve the systems and use design innovation to decrease respond time.

So my question is this, if you have volunteered in the aftermath of tsunami or Katrina or any disasters that concern major flooding. What was the biggest difficulty you faced other than lack of funding. For example, is it to do with supplies distributions, locating people or using ineffective equipments?

Any kind of suggestions or answers would be greatly appreciated, as it will go the efforts of helping and saving more lives

Thank you for your time.

OS119

Hi OP,

i've not worked in disaster relief in a volunteer capacity, but my experience is that the greatest difficulties are in initial information gathering, decision making and communications, local political authorities and their sensitivities - not least ego and corruption, and physically getting aid/tech support from hub points to affected communities.

getting hold of cash hasn't been a problem - spending it coherently and effectively has.

Disaster Relief

Thank you for your reply OS 119,

Now I want to focus on getting aid/tech support from hub points to various communities. How is that usually done? ie. would relief workers has to transport it themselves or would the local government be responsible.

And also, if there is no road (it had been flooded or blocked); what is the current method for distributing supplies.

OS119

unfortunately for NGO's, the answer isn't them!

IME, military logistics have proved by far the most effective means of disaster relief - its a self-sufficient organization designed from the start to move very large quantities of people and material from disparate locations to hub, and then out to other disparate locations, in bad weather, and with normal lines of communication closed.

it has organic communications, assessment, decision-making, command and control (leadership) and rehearsed systems.

who does what is less important, imv, than all assets (local, NGO or International) being under one central control system with clear aims. as an example, a friend of mine who was serving with a Royal Naval vessel in the Indian Ocean Tsunami relief operation, was aware of single community that had 3 separate aid missions from different agencies, while other similarly affected communities in the area had nothing whatsoever - this was a failure of communications, of management, and of decision-making.

as for getting supplies to where they need to be when road/rail is out, the answer is helicopters - and in some situations, ships and smaller boats - the advantage military forces have in this area is that they have equipment deliberately designed not to need ports/docks and road networks in order to bring large quantities of material ashore and then to its final destination.

unfortunately, its not cheap.

Disaster Relief

Thank you for your insights,

My premilinary research has revealed as well that military equipments are very well suited for these situations.

The problems is coordinating and management which is a little beyond what I can do.

My project is to appropiate military equipments for humanitarian works which is very difficult, since most civilians are allowed to use them.

So, now I am focusing on developing products that use military methodology for civilian usages in these situations

OS119

i'm not sure the problems are physically difficult - civilian engineering organisations use heavy equipment, helicopters and even landing ships to do their work - the problems are political/organisational (effectively; who's in charge and how do the various organisations implement those decisions?) and the cost of the platforms that would be ideal for use in disaster relief.

Disaster Relief

Yes I do acknowledged that but the capability of my research will be used to developed a product later on. Organization and coordination are out of my area of research since it is impossible to improve upon that from a physical point of view. Thank you for your comment