Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Situational Awareness of Vulnerable Populations during crisis or Evacuation or (SAVE) project aims to improve situational awareness in four stages by geo-locating vulnerable populations and identifying their special needs, geo-locating available physical and human resources to aid the vulnerable population, facilitate the coordination of providing the needed aid to the vulnerable populations for the given situation, and facilitate the monitoring of aid being provided to track appropriate metrics. Disaster preparedness as a whole has been overlooked and SAVE will be the best fit for the community and globally as well. This project will add full EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) capabilities which will make it an ideal choice for any EOC in the world. The goal is to identify the vulnerable populations and create a map-based database of these people and their individual vulnerability. Under-represented stakeholders such as Indigenous peoples, youth, homeless, mentally ill, frail and elderly are the considered groups in this proposal. These groups of stakeholders are often represented by several community agencies that are focused on their specific needs and providing support to aid them. This project integrated the "client" data from multiple sources to identify the vulnerable individual's location and needs in times of emergency. Resources sent to these populations include various types of transportation (depending on the needs of the patient and the type of crisis) such as water rescue, heavy snow rescue, wheelchairs, stretchers etc. in addition to various types of equipment such as generators, bariatric lift devices, and heaters/air conditioners etc. Information such as Emergency First Responders (EFR) and local volunteers who can provide a service or equipment (i.e. driving for evacuation or the volunteer owns a snow machine) will be sent to the appropriate location in order to aid these individuals in a state of emergency. The SAVE project will increase Canada's awareness in the event of an emergency and assist EOC in their alertness level and exercises; and will improve response protocol of emergency services to save lives.