Why we need Sound Recognition NOW.
Camp Fire, the most devastating wildfire in California’s history, destroyed over 13,900 residences, over 500 commercial buildings, burned over 150,000 acres of land, and ultimately taking the lives of over 88 people, according to the latest Cal Fire incident report.
A victim of Camp Fire said…
“We never got a single notification. Nothing came over our cellphones.”
What the actual hell?
What happened with the alert system, evacuation plan, and other methods of communication for reaching to the mass in time of emergencies?
Coming from multiple news sources, less than 25 percent of the 27,000 Paradise residents received any form of emergency warnings.
Majority of the residents said they relied on contact from alarmed relatives and seeing the sight of the Camp Fire as the primary cue to evacuate.
That’s ridiculous.
What about the wireless emergency alert system that is tied to a federal warning program that transmits communications through cellphones and broadcasters when wildfires start?
Well, that did not work well for the Paradise residents as well, as the county decided not to use that emergency alert system.
Same went for the Woolsey Fire on November 8th, 2018, destroying almost 100,000 acres and around 1,500 buildings.
Many of the residents in Los Angeles and Ventura counties did not get any form of warnings.
Sounds familiar? Same thing happened to the wildfires that impacted the Sonoma County in October 2017.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office decided not to send a blanket alert over the federal Wireless Emergency Alert system as the Tubbs fire leaped from wildlands into Santa Rosa last year.
And all other wildfires in the past decade.
I’m gonna be real here.
If you have a cellphone, you know how it is so easy to receive alerts from Facebook, Amber alerts, breaking news, and other notifications sent to millions of people simultaneously.
In this case, why is it so difficult to deliver emergency alerts & notifications to those who need them without wasting any precious seconds.
Answering this is hard, because there’s many variables and factors that we need to address when figuring out the best method of communicating with people during emergency situations.
However, using telecommunications as means of emergency response (e.g. sending notifications, text messages, phone calls) seem to be failing miserably, again and again.
It’s 2019.
Telecommunications tech should be up to date and capable of scaling up to manage thousands of automated calls, texts, etc.
If it’s too many people… just scale up the technology.
Still too hard? Redesign the system.
We’ve seen big tech companies scale up to handle millions of users beautifully. So where is this technology that can save of our lives during critical moments?
There’s approximately 3 million Deaf people, people with some form of hearing loss living in California alone.
That’s 1 in 120 people that may not hear an alert for text message, phone call, broadcasted announcements, and so on.
Newsflash: These people are important as well.
What can we do to improve people’s access to information during emergency situations?
Many things.
For a start, sound recognition technology coupled with IoT solutions can do so many things for us and save our lives.
I’ve talked about so many use cases before, so let me try explaining this through a story about Camp Fire in a parallel universe with better sound recognition technology and IoT solutions:
The wildfire starts in Pulga, CA near Camp Creek Road on the early morning of November 8th, 2018.
Firefighters arrived to the scene approximately 10 minutes later, expecting to deal with a small brushfire that was reported. Initially after the arrival, the brushfire erupted due to low humidity and high wind speeds clocking as high as 50 mph.
From that moment, the firefighters aborted their firefighting efforts to focus on helping civilians evacuate.
Fire alarm sound were detected by smart speakers, security devices, and other hubs. Notifications immediately sent to the users. Users also have the options to bypass the notifications to be sent directly to fire department, police station, and so on for a faster emergency response/ 911 calls.
Users immediately prepare for evacuation rather than having to rely on firefighters doing the majority of evacuation efforts, which ultimately increased their chances of survival.
Users proceeded to get out of the building quicker, and thanks to the notifications from sound recognition, start to send texts/ calls to their friends, families and other loved ones.
This type of communication spreads faster than the incoming wildfire.
This kind of technology is already so, so possible — so why can’t we see this parallel universe come true anytime soon?
The humankind has witnessed numerous amazing inventions in its short history — the birth of Internet, automobiles, sliced bread, and so on.
How can we get more people into the vision of developing sound recognition and notification/ alert system that will ultimately give our citizens peace of mind, and a sound environment on a daily basis?
How many more people suffering do we need to see before we finally recognize the importance of developing sound recognition to be used in securing and improving our situational awareness?
A few more wildfires, leveling cities and causing more deaths?
After the overdue earthquake that Californians have been anticipating for the past two decades?
When the safety of coastal towns goes kaput once climate change is FUBAR?
A couple more school shootings?
Where does the line stops?
Because we would like to know so we can better prepare before and work on a safer world for all.
