Toward a multimode communication network for disaster management

INFORMATION chaos is bound to happen in the aftermath of a disaster situation because it is possible first responders could get affected. With my limited internet in the mountains, my social media timeline alerted me to how Typhoon "Odette" (International name: "Rai") hit Cebu, Siargao, Dinagat Islands and other provinces. My source was Twitter. When data connection is spotty in places like the highlands, Twitter loads faster than Facebook and Viber. I have never seen Cebu, my hometown, in such a wreck, so I used the search function on Twitter and Facebook for updates. Based on the complaints on twitter, affected netizens felt the devastation is underreported. They do not have news about what is happening to their families or in nearby areas. With intermittent connection, I could see many complaints saying the national media is not covering the devastation. But major newspapers provided updates on their social media platforms. I think the limited communication access in Odette stricken areas due to damaged internet infrastructure prevented them from sending text messages or scrolling through the news online.

My fellow Cebuanos may not know it, but I read social media posts on relief drive initiatives starting in the early dawn of December 17. Ryan Macasero, a Cebu correspondent for Rappler, provided the picture of the challenges in covering the news. "If you're frustrated about the slow pace of news coming out of the Visayas, so are we. To give you a sense of what we're dealing with here, I've had about 5 minutes of decent data in the past 2 hours. We contact our home base in Manila in few minute spurts." A friend says "we need to think seriously about how to provide information in an emergency. Even social media did not serve internet as news discovery platform, because there was no internet." Radio would have been helpful if everyone used their battery powered transistor radios for updates. Desperate for news, Max Limpag, a Cebu-based journalist, tuned in to AM radio only to hear radio drama. In times like these, Limpag missed ABS-CBN and its Cebu radio affiliate DYAB who would break programming to focus on disasters. With the internet infrastructure devastated in Cebu, Limpag added that radio would have been the best medium for updates. Another suggestion is to use text only subdomain, not just mobile only. The text news like WAP, with no scripts and trackers, would be helpful with intermittent and slow networks.