Disaster and emergency communications prior to computersInternet a review.docVIP

Available online /content/10/1/207 Review Disaster and emergency communications prior to computers/ Internet: a review John W Farnham Clinical Specialist, Respiratory Care Services, University of Tennessee Medical Center, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA Corresponding author: John W Farnham, bfarnham@ Published: 14 December 2005 Critical Care 2006, 10:207 (doi:10.1186/cc3944) This article is online at /content/10/1/207 ? 2005 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract rooted in the motivation to avoid, or at least mitigate, the effects of various disasters. The modern ability to chat casually or to be entertained by communication technology is but an offshoot of the development of that technology which first permitted priority communication about more urgent matters. When communications are needed the most desperately and most urgently, the difficulty of effecting the desired communications increases exponentially. Recent natural disasters in different parts of the world have provided eloquent testament to this. The history of disaster or emergency communications can provide us with a foundation for understanding the problems encountered today, and can offer us insight into how we might improve the systems and of Acknowledging some of the earlier aspects of disaster or emergency communications can be interesting and engaging, and it can enable us to understand the fundamental need to communicate about emergent events. Although much of this review is oriented to history in the USA, there were parallel activities occurring in all countries in which the new technology of radio existed. Hopefully, my geocentrism in this review in an international medium can be understood and pardoned in light of that fact. processes for communications. The first applications communication technology that allowed messages to be sent more rapidly than the fastest form of transportation