Reunifying Families after a Disaster via Serverless Computing and Raspberry Pis
Justin Franz, Tanmayi Nagasuri, Andrew Wartman, Agnese V. Ventrella, Flavio Esposito · 2018
Children constitute a vulnerable population and special considerations are necessary in order to provide proper care for them during disasters. After disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the rapid identification and protection of separated children and their reunification with legal guardians is necessary to minimize secondary injuries (i:e, physical and sexual abuse, neglect and abduction). At Camp Gruber, an Oklahoma shelter for Louisianan's displaced by Hurricane Katrina, of the 254 children at the camp, 36 ((i.e, 14.2%) were separated from their legal guardians. It took 6 months to reunify the last children; 70% of the children were with their legal guardian after 2 weeks. Imagine not knowing for 2 weeks (or 6 months) if your children are dead or alive. To exacerbate these natural challenges, during a disaster Internet connectivity is scarse or unreliable.