The Fletcher School Situation Room has played a pivotal role in supporting Ushahidi’s deployment in Haiti. Denise Roz Sewell, one of Fletcher’s core volunteers, has been on the front lines of the disaster response. Roz is a Pickering Fellow and was a Fulbright scholar in Morocco prior to joining Fletcher. She shares a startling experience with us here.
“It is Life or Death?”
Before starting with the Fletcher Situation Room, I can honestly say that I said that phrase without ever actually meaning it. Normally, it was said in mocking because whatever deadline was coming up seemed like the epitome of life or death for me at that moment. However, this Sunday, I turned to a fellow colleague who came up to ask a question and I replied, “Is it life or death?” She blinked and said, “Well, no…” I immediately turned back to my computer and calmly added, “Alright then, I’ll come find you later, because this is.”
I had just received a twitter message on the Haiti Ushahidi website, saying that not only were people still trapped in a building in Port-au-Prince but that one among their party was badly injured. Since this report was from twitter, I turned to one of our Haitian volunteers to confirm the information. Using our SitRoom GoPhone (T-Mobile, of course, for its free calls to Haiti), we called the phone number left on the report, and four very distressed Haitians picked up on the other line. They were on the second floor of a factory, unable to leave and unable to get help for their bleeding friend. I took this information and instantly mapped it. Hypercube and Google Earth are constantly open windows on my desktop, and within 5 minutes at most, I can find coordinates to most locations in Haiti.
This is partially due to the fact that our mapping team has spent 12 days scouring the web for locations in Haiti so that now, there isn’t any part of the country that we have not seen. This is also due to the fact that we now have an ‘Urgent Response Team’ (headed by Jen Ziemke and myself) and our whole job is to respond to these types of messages. That way, when I learn of someone bleeding on the second floor of a Haitian factory, I can confirm it, map it, and send it to our contacts in the United States Coast Guard within 15 minutes via email or Skype:
Roz: So we know we talked to two people that were on the scene, and we asked them if they were ok and she said that three people were ok and one was not. We asked them if that person was bleeding and then they said yes, and then the call was cut off. It sounded like they were inside, not outside, it had a tunnel effect, similar to a factory.
Coast Guard: Is your opinion that they are trapped, crushed, just stuck in a house that they can’t get out of due to other injuries?
Roz: In my opinion, it seems that they are stuck in an unsafe or that the person is too injured to be moved. They were speaking as if the situation was very urgent.
Roz: GPS = 18.528995, -72.406196
Coast Guard: Working on it
After this, the USCG deploys a team and a helicopter to the coordinates that we gave. So yes, it was life or death, but this time our work allowed us to say ‘life.’
13 Responses
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Incredible effort, Roz and the Fletcher team! This is a story that needs to be told and the lessons learned by the highest levels of governments and aid organizatoins. Look what Ushahidi and committed people (inside Haiti and out) can accomplish with more love than money and more ideas than bureaucracy! Go Team!
awesome, need to be sharing this stuff, a hidden gem you have here i sticking a link on my site to this post. thanks
I agree, thanks for letting me know dude, very informative, waht people can achieve is incredible
Very inspiring story. Already passed this link on to my mates.
It is really awesome, need to be sharing this stuff, a hidden gem you have here i sticking a link on my site to this post. I want a blog for the
Painting and Decorating
, as i have been working on this subject.
very inspiring, depends were you are from. daily goings on for my family, thanks
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