NPR interviewed Admiral Thad Allen of the Coast Guard about the lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. One of the more compelling quotes from this online interview is his assertion that we must do a better job of involving the public “or they will involve themselves.”
“Based on my experience with Hurricane Katrina and this event, we will never have a major event that doesn’t involve a major public participation,” according to Allen. “We have to figure out a better way to focus the resources, passion and commitment out there, because if we don’t they are going to be disaffected and your going to break down the unity of effort that you’re trying to achieve. I’d like to turn President Bush’s thousand points of light around and say that we need to organize those points of light into a laser beam.”
In the Haiti earthquake response we saw an amazing outpouring of effort that used a common map platform to focus efforts. In effect, the mapping platform provided both a service and a focus of effort that helped individuals feel like they were involved and contributing. Since that time, there have been events that drove custom disaster relief map services, but none have achieved the critical mass and global interest and involvement.
Currently in my part of the world there’s a raging fire in Boulder that has displaced thousands of people, several friends included. I have seen more than a dozen online interactive maps of this incident, but none have received a critical mass of effort that makes these maps a timely snapshot of efforts on the ground, or that effectively harnesses the concern and interest of the crowd.
Maps are capable of focusing energies and efforts, and help to drive an understanding of the meaningful contributions that can be made. A more inclusive map framework would be a logical next step to achieve what Thad Allen suggests. Who will take the lead on polishing the map lens for a laser-like fosus for the next big disaster?
