{"id":78903,"date":"2014-01-06T23:44:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T15:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/emergency-lu-team-leader-recaps-disaster-response-lessons-learned-in-the-philippines\/"},"modified":"2014-01-06T23:44:50","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T15:44:50","slug":"emergency-lu-team-leader-recaps-disaster-response-lessons-learned-in-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/emergency-lu-team-leader-recaps-disaster-response-lessons-learned-in-the-philippines\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency.lu Team Leader Recaps Disaster Response Lessons Learned in the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

[Via Satellite 1-6-2014] It has been roughly two months since Typhoon Haiyan battered the Philippine islands, causing an unprecedented level of damage. As soon as rescue efforts could begin, Luxembourg-based emergency.lu <\/b>deployed personnel and equipment to restore Internet connectivity for humanitarian groups. The work done by emergency.lu helped propel disaster relief to a new level of efficiency, as the first 72 hours are critical to saving the most lives. While no two natural disasters are the same, the team that was deployed was able to learn valuable lessons from the Philippines on how to continue to improve relief efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe typhoon Haiyan response was the first deployment of emergency.lu to a sudden onset disaster offering free connectivity to all the humanitarian actors,\u201d Gilles Hoffmann, team leader of the emergency.lu Philippine deployment, told Via Satellite<\/i>. \u201cAs soon as we had fuel for our power generator, the system was built up and functional in less than two hours. We provided Internet in the City Hall and to some NGO\u2019s having their office on the opposite side of the road. The next day we spread out the connectivity to all needed locations in Tacloban with the help of our partners from the \u2018Emergency Telecommunication Cluster.\u2019 Additional systems have been installed in Ormoc and Guian in the following days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoffmann has been deployed on previous missions with emergency.lu to reach estranged locations around the world. He has been sent twice to the Republic of South Sudan, and once to the Comoros Islands in response to flash floods. He has also been on several training exercises. These experiences helped ready Hoffmann for emergency.lu\u2019s first response to an onset disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoads were blocked, cars and trucks [were] unavailable and air transport [was] insufficient,\u201d said Hoffmann, describing the situation. \u201cWith the support of our colleagues from the Logistic Cluster we were able to manage this situation. Overall coordination of all the efforts is also a big problem in the first hours and days in such an environment, as well as practical problems [such] as water and food supply to the team, sanitation, climate etc. Preparedness and training helps to address these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The satellite based infrastructure, enabled largely through SES<\/b>, provided connectivity to humanitarian workers at various stages of the rescue effort. Responders were able to communicate between each other, enabling rescue teams to coordinate with the \u201cOn Site Operations and Coordination Center,\u201d along with their own headquarters. \u201cAs of today, more than 5,300 users have registered to the \u201cEmergency Telecommunication Cluster\u201d network which is distributing the emergency.lu connectivity,\u201d said Hoffmann. \u201cThis communication allows a better coordination of all the relief efforts as well as to share data assessment reports, maps, pictures, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being the first unscheduled deployment, emergency.lu was still faster at setting up connectivity after Typhoon Haiyan than during previous disasters. The emergency.lu platform is not content with this however, and is looking to apply what its members have learned to future responses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"SES
Photo: Mariko Hall (WFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEmergency.lu has pre-booked satellite capacity to be able to respond immediately when a disaster strikes,\u201d said Hoffmann. \u201cThe Philippines are located on the edge of the beam causing a low elevation angle of about 13 degrees. Due to this low angle it was difficult to find spots with a clear line of sight to the satellite. Together with our partner SES we will try to find a solution for this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately emergency.lu wants to offer more than just Internet connectivity. It has several other services described as \u201cunder development\u201d with the Emergency Telecommunication Cluster. These additional services will broaden what emergency.lu can do, and make it possible to save even more lives in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Haiti earthquake 2010 was actually the trigger to develop the emergency.lu solution,\u201d said Hoffmann. \u201cOne lesson learned after Haiti was that the coordination efforts were hampered due to a lack of communication in the first hours and days \u2026 during the Philippines response we offered only Internet connectivity, but we want to deploy services like voice services, tracking and tracing, mapping, file sharing, etc. in the next emergencies. The aim of emergency.lu is not to only offer connectivity but to offer services to the humanitarian actors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Via Satellite 1-6-2014] It has been roughly two months since Typhoon Haiyan battered the Philippine islands, causing an unprecedented level of damage. As soon as rescue efforts could begin, Luxembourg-based emergency.lu deployed personnel and equipment to restore Internet connectivity for humanitarian groups. The work done by emergency.lu helped propel disaster relief to a new level […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}