Category: Disaster Response

K12 leaders need tangible solutions and tactics for improving their school’s or district’s cyber-resilience in the coming school year, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is committed to supporting schools and districts as they enhance the cybersecurity of their networks. Recently, AWS joined the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Education—among other leaders in the government and education community—to commit to improving the cybersecurity resilience of K12 education. As part of this commitment, AWS created the K12 Cyber Grant Program, offering up to $20 million in AWS Promotional Credits to both new and existing K12 customers.

For public safety agencies, secure collaboration and situational awareness are essential to preparedness and response. First responders need secure, uninterrupted communication to help them get oriented quickly and support complex coordination efforts. This post highlights how Amazon Web Services (AWS) secure communication service AWS Wickr integrates with the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK) to enhance the efficiency of emergency response with a user-friendly, map-based solution that expands the common operating picture and strengthens cross-team collaboration.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) developed Aether as a reusable framework for sharing data and analytics with sponsors and stakeholders. Aether is a mature cloud-centered framework designed using Amazon Web Services (AWS) serverless services to provide a cost-effective and reliable environment for a dozen projects currently deployed with the framework. Read this post to learn more about how Aether’s serverless-first approach is enabling disaster response and risk management.

Since wildfires can double in size and intensity every three to five minutes, early detection and reduced response times are essential. Cloud technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), can help with this. Learn a high-level architecture to create a solution with AWS that uses AI to identify and classify wildfire smoke imagery and then rapidly alert and inform first responders about the location and condition of a fire incident.

The Latin America and Caribbean region is the second most disaster-prone region in the world behind Asia and the Pacific Rim, with floods being the most common disaster in the region. There have been extraordinary levels of flooding around the world—but in Panama, flooding has become particularly challenging. The AWS Disaster Preparedness and Response Team and AWS Partner Grupo TX saw an opportunity to leverage the cloud to better understand and prepare for flooding and ultimately save lives.

While the 2023 hurricane season kicks off June 1, the reality is that AWS is working to help organizations and communities respond to hurricanes long before a storm forms. Throughout the year, AWS Disaster Response develops and tests new innovations that utilize cloud technology to enable more efficient disaster response capabilities for our customers and relief organizations.

On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida. At the request of standby organizations Help.NGO and Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC), the AWS Disaster Preparedness and Response team assisted with response operations across a variety of functions in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

The First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research and technology group, is committed to making climate risk information accessible, simple to understand, and actionable for individuals, governments, and industry. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), AWS invited Dr. Ed Kearns, the chief data officer of First Street Foundation, to share how AWS technologies and open data are supporting their mission to provide accurate and up-to-date information on climate related risks.

Today, AWS announced Continuity of Government IT on AWS (CGIT), a comprehensive cloud-based solution guide that enables governments to protect their digital assets and services during disruptions of any kind. Governments can use CGIT to retain the integrity of critical datasets, back up applications, and transfer services to run in the cloud, reducing the risk of compromise and enabling continuity of government.

Natural disasters are devastating, often resulting in loss of life, massive property damage, and damage to the critical infrastructure that powers emergency services. This can prompt public sector organizations to consider building more resilient infrastructure. Such was the case for the 911 system in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, an agency that dispatches for 21 public safety agencies including law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services, and averages over 325 calls for service per day. After a major flood in 2016 knocked out their 911 system, they worked with AWS Partner TailorBuilt Solutions, LLC. to use AWS to become resilient against disaster, reducing service interruptions and improving response times.