It is critical that organisations have accurate and timely information in emergency scenarios such as search and rescue operations or disaster response. Nowadays, rescue crews are using GPS technology in conjunction with mapping software that detail cliffs, caves, streams, and other difficult-to-find terrain. It aids in the coordination of the efforts of a big number of volunteers.
Due to extensive forest or natural boundaries such as cliffs blocking their route, GPS data suggested that rescuers were constantly revisiting the same regions. Authorities began placing digital pins on volunteers’ maps to serve as milestones, encouraging them to survey more land and improving the accuracy of the investigation. Hence a GPS tracker and the data it provide can immense impact on such life saving procedures and make bigger changes in current rescue missions relying on conventional methods.
WAYS GPS WORK IN RESCUE MISSIONS
There are three ways in which GPS tracking works in rescue operations. They are as follows:
1) One of the key motivations is to ensure the security of relief and recovery personnel, which is enhanced if mission supervisors can track their location.
2) It has proven effective in tracking and orchestrating missions, particularly in high density areas when several resources, such as rescue crews, boats, planes, vehicles, sleds, and so on, must be synchronized, or when commencing the relief phase after identifying the missing person.
3) It aids in the implementation of a repository of historical information in response to requests from operation commanders for auditing and reporting after activities are completed; often for documenting and feedback.
BENEFITS OF GPS IN DISASTER RESCUE OPERATIONS
When there’s no navigation data available, GPS offers valuable data on a location to trace disaster-affected areas.Considering the magnitude of the damage that can occur, emergency workers may find it hard to procure entrance to isolated places or regions that have been blocked off as a consequence of the catastrophe. GPS as a technological tool would immensely aid this operation since it would help the users of the device to monitor what is happening in an impacted area without endangering their lives as they can conduct the procedure without them being physically present at the location.
By saving millions of lives and rebuilding necessary facilities, GPS services allow humanitarian assistance to ever-disaster-affected areas in a more effective manner. GPS solutions like these can help with flood forecasting and quake warning surveillance. Because emergency responders have access to locational information and the quickest path to the impacted locations, rescue operations are more likely to be effective.
