Digitizing & Collecting Damage Assessments
Damage assessments play an important role in allocating resources ranging from water pumps, to fire fighters, to high water vehicles. Damage assessments provide early insight into the living conditions and the support which will be needed for a few people or an entire community like seen with Hurrican Ian.
View our Damage Assessment Form
Custom Damage Assessment Form
Organizations utilizing the PubSafe platform receive a custom damage assessment form. When this organization specific form is submitted, it is associated with the organization for report and map views. Since damage assessments are for the response community in general, all damage assessments are visible to other organizations on the PubSafe platform. Future integration includes sharing information collected with the Disaster Partner HUB to future disseminate information used in decision making.
Rethinking Damage Assessment Collection
Historically initial damage assessments were done by FEMA, DHS or State EOC personnel. In phase two other organizations got involved such as insurance companies. Damage assessment information was put into information silos across every organization. Lately, there has been a movement to consolidate information at different points of a disaster continuum to provide better information to decision makers.
At PubSafe, we believe this process can move toward real-time crowd-sourced information like we like to do with all data collected. Through the mobile app, unique organization DA form, and the web portal, PubSafeTM can collect and share assessments in near real-time with all decision makers. To do this, we have empowered any citizen to submit a damage assessment form.
Damage assessments are put into two classifications, verified and unverified. Verified being done by an organization member and unverified being done by anyone not associated with a PubSafe organization. These two categories allow for reporting, filtering and mapping of information which can be used as input on decision making.
Damage Assessment Accuracy
The first “objection” naysayers will point out is that DAs done by untrained people will not be accurate. There is always going to be a error percentage which must be accounted for in decision making. The most trained professionals make mistakes all the time but it doesn’t mean we stop the process of continuing. By enabling any citizen to submit a DA, data will be collected faster and on a bigger scale than ever before. All levels of government will have access to the same information, at the same time, without red tape or sharing just what someone wants to pass along. This process also creates transparency and accountability. Time will tell how well citizens do submitted damage assessments. Only feedback from a real disaster will validate this new and innovative data collection method.
Video Transcript
Read the Damage Assessment Transcript
Hey YouTube, this is Aaron with PubSafe and today we’re going to be talking about a new feature that we added kind of on the fly. I was at the VOAD conference probably cold months ago now and the whole idea of this damage assessment came up and it struck me as you know that’s a pretty important function that we really need to be taking a look at and our core premise is data collection.
For the betterment of the general public and to do that we want to bring information to decision makers faster and easier than they have been able to get it before. which really involves you. which is crowd sourcing data that would otherwise not be available to…decision makers. until days weeks months after a disaster is struck.
So, within a couple of days actually why I was still at the conference. I contacted my developer and said Hey, we’ve got to do this This is such a big deal that I want to get this thing put in place as soon as possible So,
while I was working, at grow out of the developers were working we were communicating and say Hey, what really needs to go into a damage assessment And how do we facilitate. Our pub safe users to be able to provide input on that. So, we actually went and found You know the, the online you know female approve a demo assessment, form. We digitize that And then we said okay well, what are we going to do with this And how do we how do we manage this As it relates to. NGOs and is, how how do we take it a step further which is really enabling any citizen out there to submit a damage assessment Now.
Obviously we need to understand who’s. the assessment and, as with any statistics. There’s a there’s going to be a degree of error right? if we have professionally trained insurance adjusters that are going out and doing damage assessments, their degree of accuracy is going to be higher than the NGO who may be going out as part of the team to do a damage assessment And maybe they were trained Maybe not Maybe they do this once a year once every two years. Their degree of error is going to be higher And then you have what we believe is the key to all this as citizens.
And citizens don’t know how to do damage Just ask them but we can give them a form So if we can keep that in the box so to speak. Keep them into four and only give them certain choices in the form. Then we’re going to improve the error rate.
when collecting information that way now why even do that Because obviously there’s tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of millions of people that could potentially be submitting. damage assessments. And that information could be coming minutes after a tornado minutes after a wildfire minutes after a flood or a hurricane comes through. And that information through what we’re doing at pub safe can then be rolled up to decision-makers. And from there they can allocate resources right They may look at a damages assessment and say Hey you know we’ve got flooding over here These homes are damaged.
But you know what We don’t need to send rescue vehicles there yet because the water’s already receded. immediate life-threatening conditions are no longer present Right? So that goes along with. Puffs safes ability to crowdsource help requests. take a look at sit reps to look at location update information into message people, all of that being done through the post.
Platform. Is a facilitator of more rapid and accurate decision-making. So We didn’t want. Total chaos when it comes to, initial damage assessments. And you’ll see here on your screen that we actually did a blog. on this which will be available to you Obviously you can go to our website and just go to the blog and pull up damage assessments and you’ll see, you know what we got going on here. You can click on these and you can go look at it in March you but it’ll kind of explained to you. You know why we’re doing what we’re doing And, you know real-time data collection which is crowdsource is always our goal.
You know it’s not always going to be accurate. Again but it is better than waiting days and weeks for an insurance adjuster or somebody to get out to an area. especially in rural communities you. You’ve got underserved communities They don’t have the resources don’t have the manpower. You know a lot of the manpower demands are in areas of higher density populations.
Consequently, nobody has visibility as to what’s going on in either underserved communities rural communities or places like that or even third world countries.
because you know pub safe is a global platform So. you know this can be used to collect that information And then what we did was we said we don’t want to silo information That’s a big. sticking point, you. With me especially, and I don’t want information to go in silos and I don’t want people to, be possessive of information in their silos. By doing what we’re doing we’re actually going to make information available.
at the lowest level and the highest level simultaneously. When a damage assessment is done, it is ported into the puffs Hey portal. And in the portal we basically designate Hey these damages assessments were done by your organization, but these are all the other damage assessments that are being done in your area. So you have both of those things visible. inside of the Pepsi portal.
but then you can filter those right So if you only want to work with damage assessments created by organization Hey that’s fine. And do that But if you want to see damage assessments done by other organizations, you can do that as well. And the way that we have pub safe structured and will continue to structure pub safe is. We are a community with the ultimate goal of saving lives and property in reducing pain and suffering of people animals Right. And in order to get there sometimes we have to let our egos go and we’ve got to join forces in the least share information so we can work together and be more efficient in the overall response.
you know to our communities. So we make that information available online. recently the red cross is teamed up with I believe FEMA. To great the, disaster hub where information like this is going to be a centralized in addition to pub safe. you know they’re doing something a little bit different and we’re actually going to go to.
Going to contribute. some of the information that we collect over there provided you as a user, check the box and say Hey this is okay for you to share with them. you know because privacy is always up to you and what gets shared doesn’t get shared is up to you and we don’t sell your information We don’t track you for no reason you know things of that nature. all of our tracking has done because we have a specific of work that you need to get We need to alert others. that are near you.
in case somebody needs help and things of that nature So everything is purpose-driven and it’s not about the marketing. So
we will share some of that information over there provided yourselves It’s okay. Which will then go into a different pool. Of information that is available. So very interesting stuff going on with this. this form here you’ll see, we actually use.
You know the pup safe member credentials. If you’re a pub safe member you’ve got the pub safe app. That’s great. you can really tie information to your user profile. If you’re tied to an organization then the things that you do will feed back to the organization.
And if you’re not a member of the pups community that’s okay too I will ask you from other some other information that we want you to get the mobile app because the more people that are on the mobile app the better the response is going to be overall. But then you can go in here and you can fill out this disaster forum, just like everybody else. And hopefully we’ve kept it super simple with simple dropdown. options that really. kind of make this something that can go into a database neatly.
And then some free form information. And then you know where’s the actual property and then give us some pictures right? Show it to us on the map So we know we’re getting really accurate GPS information and then start uploading some photos So the people that are going to be looking at this can really see and understand visually what you’re talking about in your damage assessment. It’s really somebody says oh my house is destroyed Then you go out and you find out it’s the aluminum carport That’s attached to the house. You know it’s really misleading You have to have the visual aids in order to really paint a clear picture. For the decision makers.
you know I mentioned inside of pub safe every organization that is using pub safe gets a custom link Right So in the accountant administration section, you’ll see we actually offer three different. custom links and these links are unique to a specific organization. And when these links are used that information is automatically brought into the web portal. There’s no double data entry There’s no Google cloud spreadsheets And you know all of that stuff that has been the plague of the NGOs for many many years. This information feeds straight into the web portal So you can have dispatchers and managers.
And coordinators all over the world. Logging into the pub safe portal and they’re all looking at the same information right? So down here we have that damage assessment form. We do also have one for volunteer registration which you can use on your website. And it looks like yours or uses your logo which you’ve uploaded through the post-sale portal.
And then when somebody fills that out they go straight into the puffs a portal where you can then manage their access and credentials and things like that. And then also same idea If you want to collect help requests through your website and through your social media, you could post that help request on Facebook. And when somebody says Hey I need help It actually will show up directly into the web portal under the dispatching menu. And then you can assign that out to people within your organization. If pups They’ve collected this information We actually just put it in the general pool and then you can pick it up and run with it
and assign your own people. you know the the mission of collecting a damage assessment or responding to her request. and then the last part of this is this is the partner disaster hub This is what the red cross is working on to centralize some information. the good part is that we’re, you know we’re way more nimble than government agencies and the red cross and other big companies We can move very very quickly to create and develop and implement a technology. But we want to share be part of the community So we’re going to work to pass information over to the disaster partner hub at some point in the future.
And hopefully. you know better the overall response because we’re using crowdsource real-time information for, You know, management decisions along the way you got any questions you know Hey please see this up in the comments and be sure to like and subscribe. you know to you know puff safe. get the mobile app. On Android and iOS you want to search for pub safe?
SOS. Or just use the QR codes which we’ll put up on the screen. And if you’ve got any questions you’ve got feedback super important to us, you know send us a message and say Hey you’d be really great if you guys did this or Hey we found a bug, you know let us know and we will get on it and get it straightened out for it We’ve got a lot of things on the development roadmap.
we can’t wait to get to, you know our goal right now is to get NGOs and government organizations and, corporate organizations onto the pub safe platform Because when your people traveled globally and respond to global disasters, they can be on the pub safe mobile app And you’re going to see where they are You’re going to be able to communicate one-on-one with them. You can do messaging to your entire organization whether you have two people or 20,000, you can go right on the map and. Send one message to everybody. You know that’s everything So lots of powerful power pools available to you. this this Visit us online@pubsafe.net.
And we’ll see you on the next video Thank you…