Therein lies the secret behind the proliferation of Zello, which has become the preferred mode of communication for organizations such as the Cajun Navy, an informal group of Louisiana boat owners who participated in this week's search-and-rescue missions in Southeastern Texas.
The app allows flood victims and rescuers to communicate instantly. It also allows both groups to post voice messages to specific channels that have been set up to aid people seeking assistance, such as "Texas search and rescue" and "Harvey Animal Rescue" and the "CajunNavy," which has nearly 25,000 users.
Over the past week, Moore said, Zello usage has increased 20-fold. The number of user sessions increased 600 percent over the last week, with the amount of time users in the Houston area were on the app increasing to 22 mins, Moore said.
The app is another powerful example of how social media is filling the humanitarian holes that local government is unable to plug, turning ordinary people into heroes and empowering desperate flood victims to reclaim their fate from the rising floodwaters. Flood victims have also turned to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to reach private rescuers when public officials have been overwhelmed. But as messages on those platforms proliferated and became unwieldy to manage, the Cajun Navy began asking people to connect with rescuers using Zello exclusively.
The app relies on cellphone data plans or WiFi, Moore said, but was designed to operate in areas where signals can be weak, such as those served by outdated telecom technology, known as 2G.
"That's why it's so popular in disaster areas," Moore said.
Read more:
http://www.dailyherald.com/business/20170902/how-the-walkie-talkie-app-zello-helped-rescuers-find-harvey-survivors
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