People in several states in the Eastern United States are still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sandy, and there are many kinds of disaster relief efforts going on. At the same time, many event organizers are working overtime to ensure that some normalcy is preserved. As evidenced in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, technology–including open source technology–can help organize disaster relief efforts and coordinate people. Here are just a few examples of tools that can make a difference.
Open source technologies focused on disasters come in many flavors. For example, we’ve covered open source tools that are used to both predict earthquakes and deal with coordination efforts in their aftermath. And, in this post, Lisa covered Sahana, an open source web-based disaster relief management system that helps government and emergency workers deal with the aftermath of catastrophic events. It’s flexible enough that relief workers at the local level can leverage it.
