How to save a life – with an app and a map

Do you know cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)? If you do, you know that minutes can mean the difference between life and death. According to PulsePoint.org, the American Heart Association is recommending that communities engage in  utilizing social media and app technologies to help alert CPR responders to emergencies near location.

A person’s ability to survive a cardiac arrest doubles if not triples the faster someone, anyone, can begin effective CPR after a person collapses, according to PulsePoint.org. GIS technology and social media like PulsePoint – Respond have been able to bring rescuers to a victim to begin critical, life-saving  CPR while EMS is en-route.

The app PulsePoint – Respond works in conjunction with participating local dispatch centers and alerts registered users in the event of a cardiac arrest in a public venue near their location. The app then maps your location to that of the victim and will also show the location of registered AEDs nearby.

Maps – do they work in a blog?

Well, I think it safe to say that one map is not for all people nor is one map for all mediums. Take, for example, this AT&T World Internet Topology map below

Static, incredibly detailed, but not for the faint of bandwidth. In fact, with a pretty decent internet connection, it took just over 2 minutes to load the pdf at 100% on my computer and in the chip below, you see how much detail they’ve thrown into it.

I think it could be argued that maybe a map such as this should be more of a web-based sort of map so the user could interact as much or as little as desired. As far as within a blog post, I think what I’ve done here with static images is probably about as far as this map would travel. This is best viewed in its entirety outside of a blog post.

Now the National Geographic, they do maps right. They’ve even got a great interactive web map that puts data at your fingertips. This map, or really, series of maps, is best with this web interface as it allows the user to turn on multiple layers of data. Should this data be static, it would require the person to look at the maps one at a time and then try to draw correlations. While this web-based map is awesome in its own right, it’s not really made to be within a blog and would likely only distract the reader from the topic, unless that topic is about this map.

When looking for a second web-based map that could work in a blog, I came across  this interactive map of air-pollution at The Atlantic. This is a short and sweet interactive map that has a very concise subject and is easy to use. This simple web map is best for a blog as it will enhance the topic of the blog (assuming it’s about air-pollution) instead of sucking you in to explore more items (National Geographic) and it won’t blow up your machine or phone trying to use the map, like with the static AT&T map.

For grins, I found this additional web map title the “United Steaks of America” by Slate. Once again, without the pop-ups explaining the meaning behind the sometimes less than identifiable icons (had to click on Montana cause I thought I was looking at chicken nuggets – silly me!) this map would be less than useful. But I think that it’d fit well within a blog – once again, a simple map with a single purpose and easy to use.

Finally, a static map this great for a blog post is the Washington Post’s map “Where the world’s people live, by economic status” (first item in the article). Once again, short, sweet and too the point that doesn’t take away from a blog post, but should enhance it.

Water, water everywhere

South Carolina’s monstrous rain has hit levels that are being described as 1,000 year flood level. According to USA Today, “A “1-in-1,000 year event” means that there’s a 1 in 1,000 (or 0.1% chance) of it happening in any given year in a given location, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.”

They go on to mention that there have been six of these 1 in 1,000 year events since 2010. When I looked at the flooding frequency of the soils around Columbia, SC and overlaid it with the 100 year flood areas (did not see a 500 or 1,000 year flood analysis at my disposal), I can see where some areas that often flood aren’t part of the 100 year flood area but I believe its just missing the data.

It would have been nice to examine the 1,000 year flood projections and compare with actual flood levels. Also, I do wonder if the 1,000 year flood mark needs to be re-evaluated…cause 6 in 5 years seems a bit more than a 0.1% chance to me.