Darren Connaghan, Argyll Environmental Ltd recently posted to the Philippines with MapAction.

For the past nine years Darren Connaghan, a GIS Consultant at Argyll Environmental Ltd., part of Landmark Information Group within the Daily Mail General Trust, has played an active role in the charity MapAction, which specialises in providing mapping for humanitarian emergencies and disasters. Darren and MapAction were needed in late 2013, when Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines causing huge amounts of suffering and loss of life. Below, Darren shares his story of his time in the Philippines, providing a first-hand account not only of how desperately challenging it can be to get help where it is most needed in the immediate aftermath of a humanitarian disaster, but also how essential modern mapping technology is in terms of responding to the clean-up operation.

“I remember watching the news the morning the disaster struck, on 8 November 2013, although as MapAction already had a team pre-deployed, I was aware of the scale of the disaster due to the MapAction Support Base structure the charity has in place. The images of devastation and destruction were horrendous and reminded me of my deployment to Haiti in 2010, it was going to be a tough and challenging deployment.”

Even before the Typhoon first hit land, MapAction had already mobilising its cohorts of volunteers, drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds and specialisms. Darren, because of his work for Argyll, is part of the data team whose responsibility was to manage the GIS data that is present in all reports generated for clients.

“I flew out on the 16 November and arrived in the country after 20 hours of travelling. I was in Manila for five days liasing as Team Leader with the UN country coordination team but then deployed forward to Tacloban which is on the Eastern side of the archipelago, to catch up with the team that had split due to the various demands upon us. The UN organised a shuttle bus service between the RDC (Reception Departure Centre) at the airport and the UN OSOCC (On Site Operations Co-ordination Centre) for all incoming aid workers. During the journey, a normally chatty bunch descended into silence as the destruction was in all directions, only a few brick buildings still standing. On arrival at the OSOCC, I immediately joined the MapAction forward team, received a briefing from the team leader and started work on a task to produce a map product showing camp locations and numbers of occupants.

“We realised almost immediately that the situation was far graver than what we’d seen on the news. The weather was horrendous, hindering all forms of transport and communication; two tools which are vital to first responders in the wake of a disaster.”

Darren was staying in a tented space within a partially destroyed athletics stadium but it was sobering to think that it was a hundred times better than what people were experiencing outside, in the aftermath of the Typhoon. The UN OSOCC was one minute walk from the tented area. The ongoing challenge for Darren and the team was to decide how they could put their limited resources to the best effect.

“Our main role in the relief effort was to provide mapping and analysis of the incoming data as well as printing maps for relief workers. During our time in the Philippines we generated and printed well over a 1000 maps and trained numerous workers on how to analyse and use mapping data to help improve the relief effort. We were based in a coordination centre, which was located in the partially damaged local athletics stadium. Despite the considerable destruction, what stood out for me was the desire of the local population to get back to normal as quickly as possible. The road clean-up was in full swing and soon enough the market stalls and street sellers began to return to the area.

“Food was simple with ration packs being the highlight of the day. After nearly 7 days in the field and over two weeks since the Typhoon hit, we were very fortunate that we found a local street seller selling a bottle of beer – a one litre bottle of Red Lion. Sharing that among nine people, strangers only a few days previously, demonstrated the camaraderie that front line disaster humanitarian workers share.

“The team worked extremely hard in Tacloban, providing the UN with much needed mapping and data assistance. We also supported the UN with administrative tasks such as printing briefing documents, IT support and other non-MapAction related work.”

Everyone pitched in where needed. Darren and the team were regularly working 13 hour days, with Darren joking that “the accommodation also came with a built in alarm clock – the daily helicopter landing and taking off at 5am”.

After being in the Philippines for 13 days, Darren returned back to the UK, although even this was not without its difficulties.

“Transport in and around disaster affected areas is always going to be difficult and, when we arrived at the airport, we were only to be informed that our plane had departed two hours earlier than planned. However, the welfare of the volunteers is a high priority and our UK travel coordinator pulled out all the stops to get us home in time for work on Monday morning!”

Darren Connaghan BSc MSc, GIS Manager, Argyll Environmental Ltd.

BSc Cartography and Computer Studies, Oxford Polytechnic 1992
MSc geographical Information Systems, University of Greenwich 1995

Darren is a Geographical Information Systems consultant with over 15 years’ experience working throughout the world for some of the largest Corporate (Shell) and NGOs (United Nations) in the world. Darren is an active member of the only Humanitarian Mapping charity (www.mapaction.org) in the world, having deployed to Pakistan (2005 earthquake), Kenya (2006 flooding), Sri Lanka (2008 UXO clearance), Haiti (2010 earthquake) and Philippines (2012 flooding) to name a few, to support the humanitarian response.