[Thinking Through Design] Reaching out during disaster

MANILA, Philippines – Reaching out to people is a typical first response during disaster, and we often reach out through telecommunication.

This was of the salient points in Maria Ressa’s discussion of Climate Change during the PH+Social Good Summit and launch of Project Agos last September. Our design research on flood at Curiosity echoes that point, with the importance of cellphones always surfacing in our conversations with flood survivors. 

One mother we met was stranded along Edsa when she rushed home from work to get to her two young children. They were at home, marooned on their roof in a submerged gated community in Marikina. “The cellphone was the only thing that kept me from being hysterical,” she said.

Design research that shows how telecommunication can help those affected by flood involves knowing how people relate with each other and with their gadgets during this type of emergency. The work also entails understanding the urgency for a solution by empathizing with how people feel about the challenge at hand.

Survivor and rescuer dilemmas

I was one of the many #RescuePH volunteers led by social media expert Ros Juan when Habagat flooded parts of Luzon in 2012. Our aim was to sift through the Internet to compile information about people who needed help from the flood, so that organizations could deliver aid better and faster.

My eyes were glued to my laptop to spot calls for help that trickled through my social media feed on a mid-morning that week when my cellphone buzzed. A woman named Grace (not her real name) had sent me a text. Grace was with 15 families in a flooded barangay, and some of them had small children in their care.

My friend and I tried to keep in contact with Grace while waiting for help to arrive. We received the same update every hour: The flood in the area was neck-deep. During mid-afternoon of the same day, the texts stopped. I tried calling Grace’s cellphone repeatedly only to be informed by the automated message saying “The subscriber is either unavailable or outside the coverage area.”

To this day, I wonder what happened to Grace and all those families who depended on her. Having seen no news of casualties in her barangay, I can only hope that they made it out of the flood, one way or another.

When I met with other volunteers later at a post-mortem meeting, they shared a similar observation I raised about rescue communication in urban poor areas. Many calls for help came from people texting on behalf of multiple families, even entire barangays. These individuals don’t always appear self-appointed, but they were likely those in the community who had the most load or battery left in their cellphones and forced by circumstances to take on a central role.

In an instant they materialize as community gatekeepers, relaying and receiving critical information and, therefore, hope. Because anyone can instantly become the community’s most important contact, empowering people to use their cellphones — and by extension the Internet — as tools to seek aid during an emergency is a critical task for those of us who aim to help communities manage flood better.

We should also tackle the problems of those doing the rescuing. Rescuers and relief workers themselves need help in this area. When the volume of calls for help becomes overwhelming, rescuers must be able to identify and prioritize vulnerable populations. In many disaster situations, rescuers typically miss this information.

Socially-inclusive disaster telecommunication, therefore, must flag critical information about pregnant women, the elderly, people with disabilities and children, to name a few. Rescuers and volunteers also need real-time information to respond effectively.

A Habagat volunteer told me his Manila-based rescue team was asked to help residents stranded in a subdivision in Antipolo. It took two hours for the team to gather the necessary vehicles, supplies and equipment before they could depart. It took another 7 hours to navigate flooded streets and arrive at their destination.

When they finally arrived in Antipolo, the flood had already subsided, and their time and effort could have been diverted to rescuing other flooded areas if only they received more timely information.

Designing for better communication

How does design fit into all of this?

Design, in part, refers to anything created by humans to achieve particular ends. Knowing the importance of cellphones to flooded communities, design could involve making certain objects that help people extend mobile battery life during disaster, especially when power runs out.

Some of the solutions we’ve been exploring as a result of our research are batteries powered by flood water, the heat given off by the human body, gravity or by simple hand movements.

Developers could design automated systems to relay rescue information real-time. Perhaps telecom companies could devise a way for people to call for help even though they’ve run out of load.

Design also involves developing processes. How can disaster response programs not only save the vulnerable, but also help the pregnant, the elderly or the sick to contribute to the safety and protection of their communities?

These systems of response must also allow for communication among those who live off the grid. In the PH+Social Good Summit, Red Cross Chair Richard Gordon said whistles are still the most attractive means of getting attention and help.

Albay Governor Joey Salceda shared that while typhoons always bludgeon the province, people keep the casualty count low by employing a provincial-wide warning system of mixed online and offline communication channels including Facebook, Twitter, physical community information boards and word of mouth.

True, the continuing spate of floods poses endless and daunting challenges to us Filipinos. The lens of design, however, can prevent a shortage of hope by reminding us that there are always more solutions than there are problems. – Rappler.com

Smartphone with livesaver photo from Shutterstock

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• [Thinking Through Design] Design research: An everyday example 
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