Guest Post by: Rakesh Bharania

Rakesh Bharania is an engineer with Cisco Tactical Operations (http://t.co/bYsKdQG). The opinions in this article do not represent Cisco)

My team and I recently returned from a deployment in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy where we worked to support public safety and disaster relief NGOs in the states of New York and New Jersey.  This storm, regardless of what you want to call it (“Superstorm” seemed to be a popular moniker in the media, since the storm technically wasn’t a hurricane when it made landfall) seemed to usher in a whole new wave of technology in disaster response, and I think it’s worth trying to capture a few observations while the memories are still fresh and the after-action-reports are yet to be written.  So, a standard disclaimer applies:  this is really my own opinion, and not those of my teammates, or my employer.

But let’s…