#  Design and Disaster Response 

 





January 22, 2018

 

 

“THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” When Hawaii residents received the all-caps emergency alert on their phones that warned them of an impending ballistic missile strike, terror rippled across the state. People reached out to loved ones and dove for cover wherever possible—bath tubs, malls, storm drains. A horrifying 38 minutes later, government officials finally announced their mistake: the ballistic missile alert was false.

The culprit? [Bad interface design](https://kottke.org/18/01/bad-design-in-action-the-false-hawaiian-ballistic-missile-alert). A state official clicked the wrong link from the list—which includes drill and emergency alerts next to each other—and accidentally triggered the Emergency System Alert during what should have been a routine internal test. This recent situation in Hawaii illuminates what happens when designers, software vendors, and lawmakers do not invest in the user experience design needed to help disaster response systems function.

How we design the world around us can also influence how we adapt to disaster: When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012 and floodwater surged through New York City, residents finally had to acknowledge the ocean a few blocks beyond the city’s skyscrapers. In the hurricane’s aftermath—which took 100 lives and 50 billion dollars in damage—policymakers and scientists grappled with the fact that climate change exacerbated the sea level rise, and, in turn, amplified the destruction and displacement from Hurricane Sandy. While some have proposed dams and other structures to prevent future damage, other experts encourage looking to New York’s past for solutions. [This episode of 99% Invisible explores how cultivating oysters](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/oyster-tecture/)—once native to the Hudson River—can naturally buffer against future storm surges.

Curious to learn more about sustainable disaster response from a public health perspective? [Explore this report from our repository](http://repository.gheli.harvard.edu/repository/11036/) that digs deeper.



 

 

 



 

 

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