REACT Team 6006 is pleased to announce the launch of our new Live Situational Awareness platform, an online resource designed to bring useful emergency, environmental and operational information together in one place.
The platform forms part of Team 6006’s continuing effort to strengthen preparedness, communications and public-service capabilities through the practical use of technology.
For emergency communicators, having a radio is only part of the picture. Effective response also depends on understanding what is happening, where it is happening, what conditions are developing, and what information may be relevant to an incident.
Our Live Situational Awareness platform was developed with that principle in mind.
One View of a Changing Situation
The system provides an interactive map and information dashboard through which users can view several categories of information relevant to Trinidad and Tobago and the wider region.
Current capabilities include monitoring and displaying:
- Earthquake activity
- Volcanic activity
- Active incidents
- Public reports
- Known and historical flood-risk areas
- Aircraft activity through ADS-B tracking
- Weather information
- Day and night conditions
The platform also incorporates weather information including the official Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service forecast, together with clearly identified supplementary weather-model guidance.
Rather than requiring someone to move between several unrelated websites and information sources, the goal is to provide a useful common picture from which developing conditions can be more quickly understood.
Why Situational Awareness Matters
During an emergency, information can arrive from many directions.
A radio operator may receive a field report while weather conditions are changing. An earthquake may be recorded while teams are trying to determine which communities could have been affected. Heavy rainfall may be occurring near areas already known to experience flooding. Aircraft activity may also become relevant during major incidents, search operations or disaster response.
No single data point tells the entire story.
Situational awareness comes from combining reliable pieces of information and placing them into context.
For REACT, this complements one of our traditional strengths: communications.
Technology does not replace the radio operator, the field volunteer, local knowledge or information received directly from people on the ground. Instead, it can help those people make better sense of the information available to them.
Supporting, Not Replacing, Official Information
The REACT Live platform is a situational-awareness and preparedness resource. It is not an emergency dispatch service and it does not replace warnings, instructions or advisories issued by the Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service, emergency services, government agencies or other competent authorities.
Where official information is available, our aim is to identify it clearly and distinguish it from supplementary data and modelling.
Likewise, the platform should never be used as the sole source of information for decisions involving personal safety.
In an emergency, members of the public should contact the appropriate emergency service and follow instructions issued by the relevant authorities.
This principle is already part of Team 6006's wider approach to public information: our technology is intended to support preparedness and awareness, not create another unofficial authority during an emergency.
Building Practical Capability
The launch also represents something broader for Team 6006.
REACT has a long history built around radio communications, community service and volunteers using the tools available to help others. Modern communications now give us opportunities to extend those principles.
Radio remains an important resilient communications technology, particularly when conventional telecommunications are unavailable, overloaded or unsuitable. Team 6006 continues to develop its radio skills, operating procedures and emergency communications capability.
At the same time, useful technologies such as digital mapping, automated data collection, weather information, software-defined radio and aircraft tracking can improve the information available to operators.
The objective is not technology for technology's sake.
The objective is to give volunteers better information, presented more clearly, so that they can communicate and coordinate more effectively when it matters.
A Platform We Intend to Grow
The launch of REACT Live is the beginning rather than the end of the project.
The platform has been designed so that additional useful sources and capabilities can be incorporated as they become available and as we identify genuine operational needs.
Any future additions will continue to be considered around the same basic questions:
Does the information improve situational awareness?
Is the source reliable enough to be useful?
Can the system remain understandable during a stressful situation?
And, most importantly, does it help REACT members and the wider community become better prepared?
Those questions matter far more than simply adding another blinking icon to a map.
See It Live
The REACT Team 6006 Live Situational Awareness platform is now available through the Team 6006 website.
We encourage members, volunteers and interested members of the public to explore the system and become familiar with the information available before an emergency occurs.
Because preparedness works considerably better before the radio starts getting busy.
REACT Team 6006
Public Service Through Communications