Could save us from evil.
Should we have confidence in the government’s ability to deal with another mass national crisis such as September 11th? Since then, new and more sophisticated technologies have been implemented and the Department of Homeland Security has been created. When the next man-made or natural disaster arrives on our shores, will the American people be ready? If the recent example of the uncoordinated response to Hurricane Katrina is what we can expect, we will be dangerously unprepared. Is there something that can be done to prepare the nation immediately, not in a year or two?

Back in 2002, entrepreneur Charles Jennings decided that emergency crisis responsiveness on the national, regional and local level was barely adequate. After meetings and testing with emergency preparedness officials in Portland, Oregon, Mr. Jennings founded a nonprofit technology consortium; the Regional Alliances for Network and Information Security (RAINS). Engineers working for RAINS were able to create an emergency communications product that goes by the name of Connect & Protect. Connect & Protect is now deployed by government first responders, schools and private security firms.

Russell Shaw writes in “Here’s a private-public sector solution to our disaster communications problem” of an interview with Charles Jennings about this life-saving project:

The central problem with emergency response is that we still rely too much on government to do it. There is no “Big Brother” ready and equipped to save us. … we have developed is a system that redefines the concept of “Emergency Response Agency” - from simply government to something much broader that includes hospitals, schools, building owners, private security firms, and so on. The dirty little secret about emergency responders is that there simply are not enough of them to manage extreme disasters. Given that fact, if you are on your own in an emergency, and are called upon to make life-saving decisions, you would hope to have the best possible set of facts available to you to make that decision. We help provide the basis for such a decision.