Week 1-3 : Investigate

• 
  
  Why is communication so important during an emergency? - During an emergency or a natural disaster, there is bound to be a number of casualties. In order to save them, you have to get help immediately which you can get through various ways of communication. If you can't get hold of help in time, a vast number of people can die. Communication is also important if you want other people to know about the disaster. There can be an earthquake when no one in the world can know about it.
  
  What forms of communication have been used during recent disasters e.g Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami? - One of the most obvious ways of commmunication they used was the television. Almost every news channel across the world was transmitting information about the disaster, and immediately the whole world was alerted. Another form of communication they used was radio, probably walkie-talkies to communicate within the disaster zone and mobile phones or ordinary phones to call for help.
  What essential information needs to be communicated during a disaster or emergency? - First of all you need to tell other people where the disaster is situated. It's essential that other people know where the place is other wise the help you would need would not be able to reach you. You might also want to explain how the people are injured. This might help in a helper's point of view because what if a guy is injured and the device you need to help him with you might have forgotten. You can also tell them an estimate of the number of casualties there are so that the helper's know what they are going to be up against.
  
  What information can be created before the emergency? What information needs to be communicated during the emergency? - The information created before the actual emergency, if right, can spare many people their lives. for example, if people aren't warned that there is going to be a tornado, they wont be prepared whereas if they were warned, they would flee from that area, sure their house would get destroyed but at least they're alive. The information that can be created before an emergency can be things like the current place and path of a 'hurricane' or 'tornado', how fast it's going, where it's going to hit, when it's going to hit and how severe it is. The information communicated during an emergency might be things like if they are ok so far or not, how many people they see injured and probably what the emergency is like and when it's going to end.
  
  What hardware and software is required to be able to communicate online? - Well you'll need both for communicating online. When people say I'm going to talk with you online, they usually think MSN or Yahoo, and yes they are ways that you can communicate online. You would need hardware like a laptop, computer or a mobile device that supports those messengers. You can also talk with Skype, on a laptop or computer. You can also use iChat on a laptop of computer and communicate with mobile phones either by calling them, texting them or video calling them. For all that you need the phone's OS.