The first 48 hours after a disaster are of utter importance for the management of the situation. An open source software solution will assist the messy and chaotic situation. This disaster management system has a first response application which can be used to coordinate and inform all actors, including all non-operationel and governmental administrative layers.
In disaster situations it is necessary to coordinate the effort for the best result. One way of coordinating is by using the disaster management systems Sahana Eden.
Sahana Eden is an Emergency Development Environment - an Open Source framework to rapidly build powerful applications for Emergency Management.
- GitHub for Sahana Eden
The platform provides solutions for practitioners to reduce the impact of disasters through tracking local needs and coordinating across agencies. One of the application in Sahana Eden is SAFIRE (Sahana First Response). This component is an all-in-one Emergency Operation Centre. It is possible to coordinate the assistance to incidents such as burglary, accidents, disputes, murder while a centre also could deal with casualties and damages during bigger incidents such as earthquakes.
Disaster Management
The Sahana system has been used by governments and NGOs in 60 locations worldwide since 2004. The organisation behind – Sahana Software Foundation, a US-based non-profit organisation – encourages all users to implement the system themselves or with help of a professional.
While the Sahana Eden platform was developed in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami and earthquake in South East Asia in 2004 and developed in the US-based organisation in 2009, SAFIRE came later.
SAFIRE Emergency Response
In 2018, the National Department of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM) Office of the Republic of Seychelles used SAFIRE to coordinate resources, share a common operating picture with multiple actors (including fire department, local government, Red Cross), and report for all administrative layers and offices of the command. SAFIRE lists the stakeholders in three categories: the operation centre staff, first-response teams, and non-operational stakeholders (ministries, governmental departments, civil society, and the public).
These open source elements will remains relevant as long as countries risk to face situations of emergency disaster.