We have wifi, secure servers, the Internet, right? I have had numerous conversations with fire officers about several “what if” scenarios involving the loss of electrical power, phone communications, internet, and similar elements of public safety delivery.
In during the recent snow storm in the northeast, one of the country's largest communications firms lost power in a regional distribution hub. In order to prevent a "melt-down" (as explained by a company representative), they shut down their servers, and 91% of the regional customers were with out tv, Internet, and phone services. During this major emergency, which evacuations were occurring, local emergency services were stretched, and two homes in a flooded area burned, as fire fighters rescued people by boat. The implications of these events demand our consideration.
The message is not blame or customer service, but a concern about how reliant we are becoming on the communications infrastructure that allows us to use all the GIS data, maps, and non-spatial information that we've been developing. Map books may not be the (only) answer to infrastructure failures, but we need to develop contingencies for the access and use of GIS data with the same attention we do for securing the data itself.
