Crowdsourced disaster assistance is a thing thanks to the wonder of the internet. One of those efforts is Tomnod, where anyone with internet access can go and help out. You can do as much or as little work as you want, but every little bit helps.
How does it work?
When a disaster like a hurricane, wildfire, earthquake, etc., hits, Tomnod will acquire aerial photos of areas damaged by the disaster, and aerial photos of the same area from before the event (hopefully not more than a couple of years old).
Using these, participants can survey the damage section by section, tagging damaged areas (like damaged buildings, blocked roads, damaged bridges, etc.). Participants can help anonymously, or they can set up an account, which will allow them to keep track of what events they’ve helped with, how many sectors they’ve reviewed, how many tags they’ve made, and so on.
What if I’m wrong miss something or tag something incorrectly?
The beauty of efforts like Tomnod lies in the numbers of participants. Each area is viewed multiple times by many different volunteers, each tagging things. The more an item is tagged, the more confidence users of the Tomnod data can be that the tag is legit. For example, a damaged building might have 23 tags showing it to be damaged, while two people weren’t sure if a tree down the road was a building or not and tagged it. Someone looking at the data can be pretty confident that the building tagged 23 times is a damaged building and that the thing tagged only twice is likely a misidentification.
So, what does all this accomplish?
The data can help rescue efforts and rebuilding by helping them prioritize areas and do preliminary assessments of damage. As you might imagine, getting a good handle on the damage over an area the size of someplace like Puerto Rico is daunting. By marking blocked or damaged road, they can reroute travel or prioritize opening important travel corridors. And so on.
Other efforts
There are also current efforts to assess damage from Hurricanes Irma and Harvey.
When there isn’t a disaster that Tomnod can help out with, they do other types of assessments. For example, past efforts have included helping assess population density and locations in South Sudan to assist future famine prediction and relief. Another effort uses volunteers to identify and mark populations of Weddel seals in Antarctica so researchers can assess their population trends.
Disclosure — I am not affiliated in any way with Tomnod, but have participated in multiple campaigns on the site over the past several years.
For those who have little financial ability to provide aid to disaster victims, or for those who have contributed financially but want to do more, efforts like these provide a way to help. Even a few minutes a day can make a difference.
Thanks for your time, all.