As devastating as the recent flooding in Queensland was, it’s amazing to think just how important a role technology played in managing the disaster this year – something that wouldn’t have been possible even five years ago. Telstra have a great example on their Exchange site which shows how NextG was used to share real time information about remote flooding areas during the Queensland disaster.
At the Leichhardt Highway Wyaga Creek Crossing, a remote area of Queensland 30km north of Goondiwindi, there’s a box from a company called RMTek that was remotely monitoring water levels. The box took high-res still images of the crossing every few seconds, and then shared that information with the traffic management company Boylan in real time using a NextG connection.
As the Telstra site points out, even five years ago this sort of remote management wouldn’t have been possible, not only because the network wasn’t up to scratch, but either were digital cameras, or the software needed to implement a solution like this.
I know that ultimately this is a piece of Telstra PR, but watching that time lapse video and thinking about the devastation flooding has caused to so much of the country recently, you can’t help but wonder where technology is going to take us in another five years, and whether or not we might be able to prevent such disasters altogether some day. Let’s hope so…
[via Telstra Exchange – Thanks Craig!]