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The following includes some of the topics we discussed.  Its weakest
point is whether suitable databases would be useful in an
emergency.
.cb Mobilizing Data Bases in National Emergencies

.cb by John McCarthy, Stanford University

	These ideas arose in a conversation with Ithiel Pool.
concerning what might be done with computer and communication
technology in a national emergency including even a nuclear war.
The conversation started with a discussion of replacing travel
by communication, and there are many ways of doing that.  However,
much of the development that will make this increasingly possible,
such as the increasing number of computer based offices, is
proceding at a pace that is unlikely to be much affected by
planning for an emergency.

	The discussion did turn up one area where action now at
reasonable cost could make a large difference in an emergency.
The idea is to make information required for dealing with an
emergency available in data bases accessible anywhere in the
country from existing computer terminals.  Moreover, local organizations
could provide information about what facilities were destroyed
or damaged that could be used for central decision making.
  We did not discuss
much what information should be included, but here are a few
examples.  The location, form and quantity of food stocks is of
little interest to anyone outside the food distribution industry
in normal times.  In an emergency, many people outside the industry
might need it.  Another example is the location of earth moving
equipment and people and firms qualified to operate it.
Hospitals could provide information on how many patients and
doctors they had and the current availability of beds, equipment
and medical supplies.

	One form of preparedness is for FEMA (The Federal Emergency
Management Administration) to maintain a computer accessible
data base in which such information is kept.  This database should
be available through the ordinary telephone network from any
terminal in the country whose user knows the telephone numbers,
accessing procedure and has appropriate passwords.  The
database could be used in preparedness exercises from terminals in
local government and business offices that are ordinarily used
for other purposes.

	A study is required to determine what information is wanted
and how it might be collected and kept up-to-date.

	There are already hundreds of thousands of computer terminals
in the country that could be used to access the data base.
Hoever, many of them terminals do not have access to the
telephone network, because providing them with modems and telephone
connections is not required by their normal applications.  However,
the additional cost of such a connection is less than α$100 and
has other uses.  Therefore, it probably wouldn't require more than
minor Government encouragement to persuade most terminal owners
to equip them for such use.  The modem is usually available as an
extra cost option by the manufacturer of the terminal.
Two character sets, the standard ASCII and the IBM EBCDIC are in
widespread use as are several communication speeds.  The FEMA system
could easily be equipped to handle all the common variants.

	In an emergency,many
thousands of inquiries and reports per hour might be required.
FEMA probably cannot afford to maintain enough lines
and enough data handling capability for the emergency.  Moreover,
the database would have to be distributed to avoid overloading the
long distance telephone system.

	However, there are hundreds if not thousands of database
systems in the country with tens of thousands of connected
terminals that could be mobilized in an emergency with suitable
advanced planning.  Insurance companies, airlines, car rental
agencies, and local governments have database systems that could be
loaded with emergency data and programs.  The loading could be
accomplished from the FEMA database, but the process would require
development and some debugging.  Perhaps the debugging could be done
once for each commercially available system.

	The police database systems can play a special role, because
they are accessible from police cars, and because the police will
have special responsibilities in emergencies.  Moreover, in a war
emergency, the police will have more important things to do than
to check whether there are outstanding traffic warrants against
people stopped for illegal U-turns.  Much time can be saved by
deciding in advance what kinds of information would be useful to
include in them in an emergency and by practicing loading the
information and interrogating it.

	Developing an emergency database mobilization plan requires
considerable study.  Probably there needs to be a preliminary
conference including people from Federal, state and local governments,
the companies that supply database systems, the telephone companies,
and academics interested in problems of computer science, database
design and emergency planning.