Impact Study-Coordinating Disaster Relief

100 Hamilton Ave, Suite 300 [email protected] Palo Alto, California 94301 +1 650 847 8677 COORDINATING DISASTER RELIEF PALANTIR & TEAM RUBICON AFTER HURRICANE SANDY THE PROBLEM After any natural disaster, there is a critical period of time between the disaster itself and the arrival of state-supported aid. Hurricane Sandy struck the Eastern Seaboard in October 2012. Team Rubicon, a disaster response organization composed of military veterans, filled this gap by serving as the first national non-profit organization to deploy into affected areas. Using Palantir Gotham, Team Rubicon deployed Veteran Emergency Response Teams (VERTs) to provide necessary supplies, clear transportation routes, and coordinate over 10,000 spontaneous volunteers. OUR SOLUTION Palantir engineers embedded onsite at Team Rubicon’s command center, partnering with team “The Palantir software leaders to develop an application that enabled volunteers to submit requests for assistance acts as a force multiplier. through web-enabled mobile devices. Within days, volunteers on the ground were using iPads The software addresses and smart phones to file requests for water, medical supplies, and home repairs that were a common problem in aggregated and analyzed as part of the broader operation. Volunteers also used the devices to dispatching crews for disaster relief: lack of real- capture photos of storm damage that were entered into Palantir as media objects and used to time communication.” inform response planning. -Ford Sypher, Team Rubicon Regional Director Back at the command center, analysts used Palantir to maintain situational awareness across all response activities. Coordinators tracked volunteer progress and dispatched additional support as needed. Palantir integrated data sources provided by other organizations, including information on fuel availability, power grids, and available medical clinics. Volunteers on the ground accessed this information in Palantir and relayed the information to affected individuals. Using Palantir’s Map application, dispatchers could visualize where volunteers were located in relation to damaged houses and redirect volunteer groups to areas of highest demand and need. IMPACT & RESULTS In a single day, our Using Palantir, analysts Team Rubicon used Palantir engineers developed a plug- at the command center in the field to coordinate in for volunteers to collect monitored efforts and more than 10,000 requests for assistance in dispatched volunteers to spontaneous volunteers real time using phones and areas of greatest need. for relief efforts. iPads.