Topic: Disaster Preparedness

This paper calls for re-thinking how data are leveraged in planning for and responding to disasters in the United States, by calling for preempting the needs of medically vulnerable populations, and provisioning for disruptions in major utilities during natural disasters.

Our team at CrisisReady has built interactive decision-making tools to help first responders and aid agencies make decisions on mobilization and resource allocation based on near real-time population displacement data. We have built instances for the Dixie wildfire in California, and hurricanes Ida, Fiona and Ian.

In 2016, to assist the Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute (HKJC DPRI) and other disaster management players in Hong Kong in identifying priority areas for research, training, and partnerships, HKJC DPRI launched a study titled “Disaster Preparedness in Hong Kong – A Scoping Study” to assess the current disaster preparedness situation in Hong Kong.

On September 20 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico,USA, damaging homes, roads, hospitals, and water, power and communication lines.  Though the official death toll stood at less than 60, reports from the island seemed to suggest otherwise. Denied access to these data, Harvard University Professors Caroline Buckee, Satchit Balsari, Rafael Irizzary, and Jennifer Leaning oversaw a household based survey that estimated excess mortality in Puerto Rico from September 20 through December 31, 2017 was closer to 4000, and not 59, as estimated by the US government.