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Communication networks play a fundamental role in the response to a
massive catastrophe, like an earthquake or a large-scale terrorist
attack to a major urban area. In such situations, command centres
must be able to rely on a fully operational communication network,
for example to learn about on-going situations and allocate and
guide the rescue teams. Communication is bidirectional: once in the
field, these teams will feed the command centre with a more accurate
view of the situation, contributing to the efficient allocation of
the resources. Failures in this network, even if localised to some
of the regions affected by the catastrophe, can have costs both
monetary and in human lives. In this position paper, we propose the
creation of a redundant, best-effort, emergency communication
network that could serve to mitigate localised failures using
off-the-shelf widespread technology. We give an overview of an
architecture for a backup network, highlight the possible advantage
of such an architecture to disaster management and discuss
challenges that need to be overcome in realizing it.
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