Here is an e-mail from one of my friends related to the Katrina disaster, and it reflects directly on the stratellite potential. In his message substitute stratellite for satellite:
>>This morning I was thinking about the problems that were experienced in the relief effort. Yeah, I know, me and 200 million other people have been thinking about this same subject for a week now. Anyhow, what I zeroed in on was the lack of communications. Apparently, there was little or no communication among the local, state, and federals who were trying to coordinate the relief effort. Phones were out and, as I understand it, cell phones were also out. This helps to explain why the NO police department was left on its own and was disorganized and may explain why many people were waiting for rescue and no one came for days and days.
Surely, the people who work disasters for a living must know that communication
is essential for simple daily operations and are even more essential during an emergency situation. Yet it appears that no one had planned for maintaining communications during an emergency and no equipment was provided for this purpose.
As the problems related to this disaster are studied and reviewed, I expect the lack of communications capabilities will be one of the most important issues discussed. So, what can you do when the phones are out, electricity is out, cell phones are out? This is a question the city, state, and feds should have asked themselves before the disaster. There is a good answer. It is called a satellite phone. These battery operated phones operate by direct link to a satellite. They were used extensively in Iraq by the news networks at the beginning of the war. If the NO police chief had such a phone, he could have communicated with anyone he wanted to talk with. Just maybe, someone would have provided him some help earlier. Since the Civic Center and Super Dome were planned to be areas of refuge for those who did not evacuate, it would make sense that someone would be put in charge of those facilities and would be provided at least one satellite phone. Then it might not have taken days for officials to realize there were people at the Civic Center and they had no food or water.
Just wanted to get this out of my mind and into yours.<<
AI
