The Vital Role of the Civilian Community in Responding to Natural Disasters
But given the modern reliance on the internet and mobile phone coverage, a fundamental and critical first response was the need for stable telecommunications connectivity. Immediately following the fires, a widespread telecommunications blackout hampered government and grassroots efforts to distribute those supplies in the worst-affected neighborhoods.
To provide a solution for this critical need, and one that local authorities were unable to meet quickly, there was a remarkable local community effort that ultimately involved cooperation between local Hawaii businesses, the US Space Command, SpaceX and other key stakeholders. Fundamentally, it came down to trusted people-to-people linkages.
A local consortium quickly banded together led by a Hawaii resident and tech entrepreneur in the defense and national security sector (and Strategist contributor), Bernice Kissinger, and a local technology provider, SMX.
While SMX doesn’t have any employees on Maui, there are around 100 SMX employees on nearby Oahu. As the company witnessed the tragedy unfold, the leadership team wanted to find a way to help the community and show the company’s commitment to helping supply aid.
As a leader in next-generation mission support, digital transformation and IT solutions, SMX leveraged its expertise in supporting technology solutions in remote and austere environments, access to technology resources and industry partnerships to help address one of the many critical challenges on the island: connectivity.
SMX, Kissinger and others were able to leverage their relationships with the US government, the local government and SpaceX to obtain Starlink units from SpaceX to deploy to Maui. Within days of the initial request, 16 Starlink systems, complete with generators, were delivered to the island. The Starlink system is a satellite internet constellation and several SMX employees have been on the ground supporting the installation and training local responders.
Given that it took almost three days for the US government to provide a substantial response to the disaster, this is an example of how the community can step in and fill the void. And it didn’t only include the hardware, but also came with essential training and education for local providers. This has provided the local community with much-needed internet and mobile coverage.
The Starlink terminals have been strategically deployed in the impacted areas. A mix of terminals were spread between makeshift evacuation camps for first responders and their families who lost everything in the fire. Site included construction and industrial areas, essential facilities like sewage treatment plants, schools, various emergency shelters and community centers, churches and markets.
All parties agree that central to the success of this project has been the understanding of, respect for and use of official chains of command. All proposals were put initially to US government emergency response agencies and the state emergency management agency before engagement with local community leaders. This also included liaison, consultation and cooperation with the US Space Command, the Maui Economic Development Board and various small-business owners.
It’s important that lessons are learned from this tragedy. As part of that, governments need to recognize the important role that local networks can—and usually do—play and build this into national disaster and emergency management policies and procedures.
Guy Boekenstein has spent more than two decades working in the Indo-Pacific region in the defense and national security sector and is the Australian director for a US defense technology accelerator. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
