The narrowing divide between the rest of the world and Haiti

Betanews urges its readers everywhere to contribute to the effort to restore vital services to Haiti, by contributing to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund today.

I'm of two minds as I watch the heart-wrenching disaster unfold in Haiti. On the one hand, technology has been pressed into service in innovative ways to connect victims with their faraway families, to marshal resources from aid-providing nations and organizations, and to make it easier for you and me to help out by texting contributions from our mobile phones. Rescuers are Twittering, albeit haltingly, from the front lines, while Facebook pages are serving as virtual bulletin boards -- all signs that social media continues to come of age as a force for good in a less-than-fair world.

As heartening as it is to see technology used for such crucial benefit, however, the utter collapse of the nation's physical and technological infrastructure -- already tenuous before the earth shook -- has laid bare the limitations of our modern tools of communication. While this country of 9 million was already in dire straits long before the earthquake virtually flattened its capital city last week, this latest disaster has pushed the nearly failed state even closer to the brink. Bandwidth and access are either gone completely, or so constrained that they may as well be offline. Power, water, landline phones, and cellular services -- essentially anything that requires an overhead wire, underground piping, or a tower -- are down until further notice.

Granted, rescuers and victims alike are so focused on survival that often the last thing they'll be thinking about is finding a mobile phone so they can update their Facebook page. But the dearth of connectivity in the quake's aftermath only serves to make a sad situation that much sadder.

Chaos can visit us, too

More ominously for those of us helpfully thumb-texting our contributions from our smartphones, the crisis in Haiti has reinforced just how close the rest of us are to similarly dire straits. Despite our First World, technologically advanced way of life, were we stripped of our basic infrastructure, we too would easily devolve into anarchy inside of three days.

On the surface, it seems laughable to draw any sort of parallel between a sophisticated, vibrant, self-sustaining society like ours and that of an island nation that's been unable to pull itself up by its bootstraps for much of the last century. As gangs of looters -- likely boosted by at least some of the escapees from the collapsed prison just outside of town -- began to roam the streets of Port-au-Prince about three days after the quake hit, it reinforced just how close to anarchy most large cities can be even on a normal day. It's why aid agencies counsel even those of us in supposedly urbanized regions to always have a 72-hour supply of essentials on hand. The thinking goes, if basic services go dark, it'll take at least that long for rescue and aid workers to deliver anything approaching meaningful levels of help. And until then, we're on our own.

So as we sit glued to our screens, watching the numbers grow and the situation darken, we may want to remind ourselves that the same thing can happen to us. If the so-called "Big One" ever strikes San Francisco or Los Angeles, there's no guarantee that these cities wouldn't find themselves grappling with many of the same overwhelming hardships currently facing Port-au-Prince. Desperation, after all, doesn't have its own nationality, language, or culture; and construction standards and national will notwithstanding, a shattered American city is just as likely to slide into the abyss as any other before outsiders can reach in and save it from itself.

Time for some hard, personal questions

As much as we find ourselves feeling compassion for Haiti, we need to look at our own needs as well and ask ourselves the same hard questions that often get asked only when disaster strikes: Namely, if some sudden and catastrophic event destroyed all water, power, and connectivity services, what would we do to keep ourselves and our families safe? How would we continue to function as individuals, as communities, and as a society at-large, if the physical and technological infrastructure that underpins our supposedly advanced economy is irrevocably shattered? Even if our connections are simply knocked out of commission for a few days or weeks, would we have what it takes to keep going?

I'm probably too much of an optimist for my own good, but I believe that buried deeply within every tragedy is at least a sliver of hope. If Haiti's pain is to have some kind of benefit -- to itself and to others -- then it will be a realization that we cannot continue to presume that the services that maintain everyday life will be there tomorrow. And if they aren't, we need to know what we need to do, both personally and professionally, to keep ourselves functional and relevant. Assuming they'll be there, or that some higher power will swoop in to save the day if they're not, is hopelessly naïve.

Enter the dusty DRP

Companies have been working on disaster recovery plans for time immemorial, confident that these often binder-sized documents and related tools and processes are all they need to stay in the game if chunks of the company get taken out. Whether the source is Mother Nature, a band of terrorists, or a disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-employee intent on bringing the company down with him, IT departments with a clue have devoted significant resources toward building, testing and updating these plans, then hoping they're never needed.

Watching Haiti descend below its already-tragic baseline should provide the ideal catalyst for companies of any size and in any sector to dust off the DRP and ask if they're doing enough to protect their interests in case the worst happens. Haiti's experience should challenge companies to question whether the growing cloud-based movement is a good or a bad thing in the event of total urban meltdown. It should open the eyes of all IT and business types to the reality that such a meltdown "can't happen here." It can and it will.

And whatever form it takes, when the time comes, organizations that fail to draw parallels between their own reality and the awful images being broadcast from the disaster zone may yet find themselves on television for all the wrong reasons.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

Betanews urges its readers everywhere to contribute to the effort to restore vital services to Haiti, by contributing to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund today.