United Nations Activation for Samoa Cyclone

Another message from Standby Task Force:

"Hello all,

Here are the details:

We have received a request from Samoa (via OCHA Pacific) to Support Mapping of Impact in Samoa

BBC Story of Cyclone Evan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20722395  Power is going to be major issue ("Tanugamanono power plant is completely destroyed and we might not have power for at least two weeks")

Request: Support mapping of impact in Samoa
This is a rather urgent request given that the Samoa NEOC is over loaded at the moment and this could provide very quick data while crews are still trying to clear roads before assessment teams can start to consider getting out.

A crowdmap has already been set up: https://alerts.crowdmap.com/reports/submit [note that since the power is out, the government websites are down]

Humanity Road will be doing the Media Monitoring and inputting reports into the crowdmap.  SBTF is activating the following teams in order to geolocate, approve and verify the reports they have created.

- GEOLOCATION
- REPORTS
- VERIFICATION

We will be using our standard workflow to do this deployment: sbtf%20workflow.tiff.

Training info for particular teams (admittedly, this needs updating): http://standbytaskforce.ning.com/page/training-1

Please see your team coordinators (listed on the Ning page for each team) if you have specific questions.

99% of the work will be coordinated on Skype.  Add the following people with the message: "SBTF UN Samoa deployment" in order to be added:

Melissa Elliott (lead - add first and if no response, move down the list - we are working with multiple time zones):  mellomely

Jus Mackinnon: fidget01

Svend-Jonas: derjonas4

Brendan O'Hanrahan: kkoxenstierna

A bit of background:
Mostly the damage isn't serious but minor - more inconvenience than life threatening. A couple of casualties, moderate injuries, lot of structural and property damage. Some infrastructural damage
Power out everywhere.

Water shortage is probably going to be an issue from tomorrow and food thereafter due to significant crop damage.

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This will be a rapid deployment.  Although we haven't been given a specific time frame, our sense is that we'll be in and out within a couple days.

NOTE: We need to see more SBTF members showing up for deployments.  Please add your name to the signup sheet if you are participating. https://docs.google.com/a/standbytaskforce.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auj3SmmHNUgkdGpJODFBXzU0bVY0QUVzTWo4bzFiWkE#gid=0

Many thanks!

Melissa"