Relief Box

I’ve often wondered why government disaster agencies and non-governmental relief organizations don’t have a box they can drop into a disaster area to provide connectivity and other vital services. After all, the sun was shining brightly on New Orleans while the waters were rising.

It seems such a thing does exist. Jamais Cascio provides a description of components that add up to power via solar and other sources, satellite telephone, satellite Internet access, WIFI Internet, and water purification. Pack the other parts along with some food into SkyBuilt Power’s Mobile Power Station and drop by parachute: instant relief in a box!

Now to make lots of things like this much smaller and cheaper so you can litter the landscape with them, and make them find each other and build an Internet mesh….

-jsq

Stronger Onlne Bank Security

The AP reports that U.S. federal regulators have sent a letter to banks saying they should go beyond passwords to two-factor authentication by the end of 2006. There are all sorts of possibilities for what the other factor might be, from cell phone acks to a physical gizmo that emits a code to use. I’m betting banks will ask what your last payment for x purpose was.

Dan Gllmor reports a bank he used only a few years ago still used social security number as logn name. He says:

I don’t keep much money at that bank anymore.
Banks are probably worried that more people will do what Dan did, thus limiting their online reach.

-jsq

Eating Earthquake Pie

What happens when a government does not protect its own people, or bring them relief after a natural disaster destroys their homes and kills many of them? Here are some examples:
In Egypt, the years after the [1992] Cairo earthquake saw the largely non-violent Muslim Brotherhood take over key parts of civil society, and a vicious war between radical militants and state security services.
— Why Musharraf had to eat humble pie Islamic religious groups will quickly take advantage of government shortcomings, warns Jason Burke Sunday October 16, 2005 The Observer
The Observer article does not mention that it was the previous suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian state that had radicalized Sayyid Qutb, making him one of the historical strategists of the current jihadists, and executed him, making him a martyr to their cause. The article makes the point that such religious organizations, especially radical ones, are less likely to be corrupt than are government agencies, and thus often take advantage of a natural disaster and succeeding failure of the government to help in order gain the confidence of the people for the religious organization. This is especially possible when the government has harrassed traditional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), often considered too liberal by the powers that be, until such NGOs are ineffective. Radical religious organizations can then step in and pick up the slack. Continue reading →

Killer ‘Cane

Reader John C. Griffin recommends the book Killer ‘Cane: The Deadly Hurricane of 1928 by Robert Mykle. This was Hurricane #4 of the Atlantic Hurricane Season of 1928, a Category 5 hurricane, with max wind speeds of 140 miles per hour (mph). When it came ashore in Florida on 16 September, it was still a cat 4 with winds of 135 mph. 2,500 people died. Continue reading →

The Spanish Armada: Control of Commerce Through Decentralization

At the Texas Regional Infrastructure Security Conference last week, I heard Howard Schmidt speak. He mentioned the Spanish Armada.

Doubtless you all remember that in 1588 King Philip II of Spain sent a huge fleet of ships to conquer the England of Elizabeth I (130 ships and 30,000 men), but weather and other circumstances intervened and the invasion failed. Many factors led to this invasion, ranging from Elizabeth not having married Philip like her sister Mary had done, to Elizabeth like her father Henry VIII being a Protestant and Philip being a Catholic with authorization from the Pope to go take back England for Holy Mother Church, not to mention the usual great power land-acquisition game that was popular at the time; Philip already owned large chunks of Europe through the inheritance and marriage policies of his Hapsburg family, and large parts of the New World through conquest.

Howard Schmidt went straight to an even more basic reason: control of commerce. Continue reading →

Rita Cat Bonds

As noted previously, Hurricane Katrina seems unlikely to trigger any catastrophe bonds to pay out. Hurricane Rita could be different:

"Cat bonds have been largely untested until these hurricanes in the U.S., so the industry will be watching Rita very carefully," said Rene Cotting, a specialist in insurance-linked securities at ABN AMRO. "It’s possible some bonds will get hit."
— Catastrophe bonds face test with Rita Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:22 AM ET By David Wigan LONDON (Reuters)

Continue reading →

NOLA levees not overtopped?

News stories have said that Hurricane Katrina was a cat 4 and New Orleans levees were built to withstand a cat 3. However, Katrina made landfall quite a bit east of New Orleans, which meant that NOLA did not get cat 4 winds, rains, or flood surges. It turns out that the surge was 11 feet and the floodwalls were supposed to handle 14 feet.

But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University’s Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina’s surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals — and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
— Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding By Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, September 21, 2005; Page A01

Continue reading →