What to do if an earthquake hits
The Earthquake Nations Alliance describes itself as a “public-private grassroots” partnership of people, organizations and regional alliances aimed at enhancing disaster preparedness in the face of earthquakes and tsunamis.
Orange County residents received a text alert Thursday morning urging them to evacuate as part of the statewide Great California Shakeout.
First staged in Southern California by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2008, the event will resume Thursday at 10:20 a.m. with approximately 9.4 million people across the state expected to participate in earthquake drills. Of those, an estimated 865,820 in Orange County will participate.
This includes around 5,000 nurseries and kindergartens, 510,000 schools, 47,000 municipalities and 6,000 seniors’ facilities.
And at one of these aged care facilities, a team of administrators and computer science researchers from the University of California, Irvine, are working to put the new technology into practice alongside the drill. It can provide important information for locating a patient in the United States. Emergencies and evacuation events.
“Over the years, I… and our team [have] We have done a lot of work to raise awareness of disaster response, but one thing we have encountered, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, is that when we look at all kinds of disasters, the elderly are vulnerable. Equilibrium was affected,” said Nalini Venkatasubramanian. He is a computer science professor at the University of California, Irvine.
The problem, Venkatasubramanian said, is that older people often do not get the care they need after being displaced. He pointed out that evacuation to the premises could not lead to a potential loss of power. off.
The idea of ”CareDEX” was born. This technology was developed by Venkatasubramanian and his Nikil Dutt, a distinguished professor of computer science. Sharad Mehrotra, Prime Minister’s Computer Science Professor. Lisa Gibbs, clinical professor of geriatrics; and geriatrics project scientist.
“The idea was to create an information readiness to enable us, aged care facilities, first responders, governments and other stakeholders to track the priorities and needs of older people. , dementia, oxygen dependence, [diabetes] — These are the types of conditions that require attention,” said Venkatasubramanian. “I can’t come back in a month and say, ‘Take care of me.'”
Venkatasubramanian and her team have been working with Anaheim City Emergency Manager Jannine Wilmoth and the Walnut Creek retirement community to pilot CareDEX.
“From an operator’s perspective, all of these humans are ultimately my responsibility,” Walnut Creek executive director Debbie Infield said in an interview Tuesday. “Knowing where they are is half the battle.”
According to Infield, the software provides information about a patient’s schedule, helps track where a resident was last seen through WiFi-enabled tags and devices, and helps her or first responders find a patient. help you get the help you need.
“Disaster preparedness is as important as response,” said Venkatasubramanian. “People who don’t know how to use technology may not know how to use it in a disaster. Having it always embedded in the dual-use process is a very useful thing because people are used to it.
“The other is practice, practice, practice. This kind of exercise is essential for people to understand what can go wrong and to be able to anticipate and prepare for what can go wrong. I think you are raising the degree, sending alerts and messages may not work… [the] blind. “Hey, evacuate,” I say, but there might be someone in a wheelchair on the third floor.”
Venkatasubramanian said the ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t always work, especially for the elderly and disabled.
“Today we have the technical capacity to do this, but the challenge is how do we make it accessible to everyone… …is there a way to be prepared? I think disasters are happening more frequently now, so we want to make citizens aware of the importance of being prepared for disasters.You want to know where your loved ones are. I want to know that they are being cared for and that people have information on how to keep them safe.
“A lot of this can be done before a disaster,” she said. When people are prepared and have a plan for what to do in an emergency, “it helps them remember what to do when disaster strikes, which helps improve outcomes,” she said. Told.
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