A Wave Of Destruction

In America, indeed in most “First World” countries, we take ubiquitous, virtually instantaneous communications for granted. This has been true for the past century, but the last decade has seen an almost unbelievable explosion in the availability and capabilities of our communications networks. In the early 90s, the FCC still was using rotary dial phones in some offices and handling all of its transactions by paper. Today it seems that all Commission employees are weighted down with cell phones, Blackberries and other communications devices and only the most esoteric filings are still submitted in paper format.

It was not so long ago that municipalities in this country first began to implement 911 emergency call centers that could identify automatically the telephone number, and therefore the fixed location, of the caller. Now, we have elevated the right to wireless E911, with the ability to pinpoint location to within a hairsbreadth, as the equivalent of a Constitutional guarantee. Ten years ago we were enthralled by the idea of being able to make a call from our cars. Today any carrier that can’t deliver E911 location-finding capability with pinpoint accuracy is viewed as failing its civic duty.

But it only takes a few days of watching the unfathomable human loss and property destruction wrought by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean to appreciate how good we already have it and how vital communications could have been both in that emergency and will be in its aftermath.

All violent acts of nature, whether hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, volcanic eruptions, floods or earthquakes, can take a heavy toll on the affected population. The extraordinary sequence of hurricanes in Florida this year left many without homes or other possessions. Yet there was minimal loss of life largely because of the advance warning that was disseminated throughout the population by a variety of communications means. Scientists used communications devices to identify and track the hurricanes and transmitted that information to broadcasters and other media sources. People knew well in advance that the storms were coming and had an opportunity to prepare for them, to leave the area, or both. Some communications remained available during even the most violent parts of the storms and residents were able to contact loved ones about their situation promptly thereafter. For those who still are without a permanent roof over their heads, cell phone coverage likely is but small comfort. For the rest of us, uncertainty about the safety of family and friends can be almost unbearable. The ability to pick up a phone, dial a cell phone, send an IM or email and get an almost instantaneous response during times of emergency is close to miraculous.

Earthquakes may be the most terrifying of all natural disasters because they come with little or no warning and because there is an almost atavistic need to believe that the earth beneath us is stable. Those that occur beneath an ocean are even more difficult to predict and, as seen this week, can trigger tsunamis of truly biblical proportions whose course and magnitude are close to unknowable.

It may be that any attempt to communicate a warning to the Indonesian populations closest to the epicenter would have been futile given the speed at which the tsunami was traveling. But since people generally needed to retreat only a mile or so inland to escape its deadly reach, just a few minutes might have been sufficient to save many lives. Yet even if the Indian Ocean had sounding devices to warn of tsunamis as parts of the Pacific now do, and even if their approach had been communicated to the Indonesian government in time, it is not clear how the government could have disseminated that message to its people.

Americans are complacently (or unhappily) accustomed to being bombarded by constant communications. Information is transmitted by television and radio, on their computers, from friends sending IMs, calling on cell phones or even using those old-fashioned fixed telephone instruments. If anything, our society gets too much information too quickly, often without much discrimination or thought behind it. However, the benefits of the communications revolution are exemplified by the variety of governmental networks used to broadcast emergency messages quickly and efficiently. The system doesn’t always work perfectly, but it generally ensures delivery of vital information on a timely basis.

The poorest parts of Indonesia, the parts devastated by the tsunamis, likely had little or no access to communications mediums of any type. It is doubtful that any television or broadcast station was available to deliver an emergency message even if a warning had been received. This is not a population with basic wireline telephone service, much less cell phone coverage or internet access. There may have been no way to alert them to the impending danger.

In the aftermath of such a disaster in America or other advanced countries, people would be checking in with loved ones using one or more of the array of communications devices generally available to us. In Indonesia, a process of elimination, body by body check of the dead may be the only means of determining whether relatives remain alive unless and until they are reunited in person. The absence of communications surely prolongs the agony of uncertainty about the fate of family and friends. It most certainly will delay relief efforts and the rebuilding process as well.

However advanced society becomes, we never will bend nature entirely to our will or place it fully under our control. Natural disasters always have been and always will be part of our human existence. But led by America, advanced nations have devised methods for protecting their populations from the worst of those events, a number of which rely on communications capability. The catastrophic, multi-national disasters experienced this week should be a reminder to those of us enjoying communications overload that we have much to be thankful for and an obligation to use this plentitude to address the needs of those who are without.