EQNZ - crisis response, open source style.
Channel: Linux.conf.au 2015 -- Auckland, New Zealand
Date: 2015-01-15

Brenda Wallace
http://lca2015.linux.org.au/schedule/30281/view_talk
On 22 February 2011, a M6.3 eathquake struck Christchurch. For those NZers further from Christchurch, the distant shock and fear for loved ones turned quickly into "What can we do?"

What unfolded was volunteers writing code, reading reports, collating data, researching, confirming information, communicating, fixing critical systems under sudden load with infrastructure broken around it. Our adhoc group used technology we could get instantly: Open Source. 

We adapted an existing code base from Boxing day tsunami response to our needs quickly - - and as hours turned into days and weeks and months, our response changed with the changing requests from people in Christchurch.

I will cover the projects we used - the platforms we used to commuicate - the arrangements made to get people into the work quickly, and how we got things done when the modern tech systems we take for granted were not available.