Cajun Navy Relief Tackles 2017 Hurricane Harvey Response with Modern, Mobile Technology: Cajun Navy Relief Revives a Tradition of Volunteer Boat Rescue
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Customer Success Story Cajun Navy Relief Tackles 2017 Hurricane Harvey Response with Modern, Mobile Technology: Cajun Navy Relief revives a tradition of volunteer boat rescue The last decades have brought an escalating succession of Cajun Navy Relief faces the devastating tropical storms to America’s Gulf Coast – none more Great Flood destructive than Hurricane Katrina. The storm claimed more than 1,800 lives, costing the region over $100 billion in damages. To this day, it represents a singular moment in the lives of most Gulf Although powerful named storms excite greater national attention, State residents, especially Louisianans, who were hit directly by the unnamed torrential rains are yearly occurrences in the Gulf. In hurricane. August 2016, prolonged rainfall in the southern part of Louisiana, including in the capital city of Baton Rouge, precipitated the Amidst the destruction, a tradition of homegrown, all-volunteer Great Flood. This catastrophic flooding elicited a call to arms boat rescue, unique to the low-lying, flood-prone state, also for volunteers on Facebook. That call resurrected the Cajun resurfaced. At that time, locals began to call themselves the Cajun Navy, reviving Cajun Navy Relief, in particular, one of the more Navy, constituting an informal, all-volunteer armada without formalized of the volunteer groups. With thousands stranded in affiliation to the much-maligned governmental response. The their homes, Cajun Navy Relief arrived to provide much-needed Navy’s members were there to help however they could. They back up to official first responders, who were inundated with ended up doing so, by taking their private boats, normally outfitted emergency calls. for the navigation of the area’s many swamplands, and directly assisting in the rescue and relief of stranded neighbors. After All told, the Great Flood relief effort involved the rescue of Katrina, the Cajun Navy would remain docked. But a decade later, 20,000 people and 1,000 pets. Besides local law enforcement and the Navy sailed again. volunteers, like Cajun Navy Relief, 1,700 soldiers of the Louisiana National Guard were also mobilized. Louisiana Governor, John Bel Edwards declared half of the state’s parishes disaster areas. For Cajun Navy Relief, the Great Flood would provide invaluable rescue and relief experience for natural disasters to come. 1 Customer Success Story - Cajun Navy Cajun Navy Relief responds to Mobile technology helps Cajun Hurricane Harvey Navy Relief scale operations fast Without a doubt, 2017 was one of North America’s most For its Harvey-rescue efforts, Cajun Navy Relief relied heavily on destructive hurricane seasons in recorded history. A near- consumer communication technologies. Especially, the following unprecedented four hurricanes reached (at least) category-four two apps: level; and three of those storms made landfall in the United States. The first was Hurricane Harvey. Glympse. A free GPS app, which lets people share their location in real time with other users. Over the course of a few short days, Harvey strengthened from Zello. A walkie talkie app, which offers push-to-talk a tropical depression into a powerful category four. On August communication over cellular or Wi-Fi networks, making it 25, the hurricane struck the Texas Gulf Coast, with maximum possible for lots of users to organize and communicate. In sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. The storm then stalled over the week after Harvey hit, an estimated six million people southern Texas, before slowly moving eastward, back into the Gulf downloaded the app. of Mexico. Cajun Navy Relief’s impressive use of mobile technologies Harvey was Texas’s longest, landfalling hurricane. And its slow demonstrates that disaster relief has indeed leapt into the digital movement over the state would lead to catastrophic flooding age. Now, easy-to-use software can help volunteer organizations, across southeast Texas, where the storm dropped 50 inches of with diffuse membership bases, quickly build up their rescue rain and flooded nearly 30,000 square miles. Just to give you a efforts in the face of increased need on the ground. But no one sense of the scope of the flooding: the volume of water actually is quite prepared for a disaster of Harvey’s scale. And the storm managed to sink the earth’s crust. This unimaginable natural would point up operational challenges for Cajun Navy Relief: disaster would rally Cajun Navy Relief. Critical information processing was laborious and required an excessive number of volunteers focusing on multiple The Texas Gulf Coast shares many similarities with neighboring systems, both digital and analogue, which inadvertently Louisiana. The low, flat marshy topography reaches across state fragmented the operational picture for managers. lines. And the cultural bonds are strong as well, solidified in the Sensitive information, at times, was held on unsecured wake of Katrina, when many fleeing Louisianans were warmly services. welcomed in Texas, especially in the city of Houston. Some of the digital systems deployed weren’t able to efficiently handle the increasing volume of requests for Cajun Navy Relief’s first contact was with Dickinson. The team assistance. spent the better part of a day there. From there, it was on to And finally, existing technologies weren’t able to easily tack Humble EOC and an assignment to launch at Tidwell Road and boat captains and volunteer responders. Beltway 8. After that, the effort grew apace, with senior leaders ending up in Vidor. To overcome those challenges, Cajun Navy Relief, now in the midst of its Harvey relief efforts, reached out to Noggin. In Noggin, Cajun In the mid-sized Texas city of Port Arthur, things picked up again. Navy Relief hoped to find a technology partner who could help the The city’s evacuation center had flooded, forcing evacuees to volunteer organization scale more efficiently, remove informational spend the night at a local bowling alley. In Port Arthur, Cajun silos, as well as provide better situational awareness for the group’s Navy Relief worked in tandem with the overtaxed Coast Guard. emergency responders. That’s the role often played by informal rescue efforts during natural disasters. They help bolster the work of state-sanctioned In just a few days, the team at Noggin, working around the clock, emergency responders, who are often stretched thin. Cajun Navy managed to stand up a simplified version of its fully-integrated, Relief, in particular, would make their way to Texas with vital emergency management system, Noggin OCA. With the supplies, including cell phone chargers, fuel, food, water and, of system, Cajun Navy Relief was better able to capture requests course, private rescue boats. for assistance, manage the dispatch of responders, coordinate rally points, and collect donations for boaters and victims. More specifically, Noggin OCA helped managers more easily categorize volunteers based on capability and equipment, so as to ensure that the most-capable responders were the ones assigned to each rescue request, as well as relay the status of ongoing operations 2 Customer Success Story - Cajun Navy to law enforcement and other official response bodies, either by At a glance: Noggin OCA at work phone or by third-party communications. for Cajun Navy Relief With Noggin OCA, Cajun Navy Relief deployed an integrated, emergency management system. Here is how the system helped the Harvey rescue and relief effort: Before, we had to do Helped coordinate rally points. Volunteer dispatchers used the system to map rescue requests and determine “everything manually, but where most requests were coming from, so as to establish emergency command, launch, and meeting locations. Noggin changed that for us. Improved volunteer capability management. Volunteers Everything in our process used the system to track available equipment, boats, and responders. Once tasks were logged into the system, that was manual is now volunteers could add additional information about the rescue, thereby increasing situational awareness. automated – it’s amazing. Enhanced information security and improved ease of use. The system allowed for the secure transfer of addresses ” where rescues were needed. Additionally, responders used the app to coordinate deliveries of supplies. Fostered greater collaboration. The system enabled volunteers to Cajun Navy Relief would use Noggin OCA for the entirety of log rescue requests and assign manual tasks to responders via a its Harvey rescue mission and continue to use the system for third-party messaging app. Volunteer managers were also able to subsequent relief efforts after Hurricanes Irma and Nate. All told, track request statuses, so as to determine if additional resources The system registered more than a hundred requests over the were needed. course of the three catastrophic storms. On the partnership with Noggin, Cajun Navy Relief senior officials would comment that it was, “A huge win for us,” going on to say that, “now we’re able to collaborate with other response agencies better than we ever could. Before, we had to do everything manually, but Noggin changed that for us. Everything in our process that was manual is now automated – it’s amazing.” About Noggin Noggin is an industry-leader in enterprise Cajun Navy Relief going forward resilience technology with its next- generation,cloud-based software products. Looking back on its Harvey efforts, Cajun Navy Relief was The award-winning Noggin software suite responsible for more than 5,000 documented rescues in provides an all hazards approach to disruption southeastern Texas, including in the flooded cities of Houston, management housing all of the tools Beaumont, Vidor, Port Arthur, and Orange. In praise of the group’s heroism, President Trump lauded the Cajun Navy during his needed to help make informed decisions and inaugural State of the Union address last January. respond effectively to any incident, large or small. It’s not overstatement to say that Cajun Navy Relief is a living embodiment of the state’s longstanding tradition of volunteer Visit us at www.noggin.io boat rescue; and the group has no plans to cease operations.