Game Theory in Hurricane Support
This semester, I am studying from home in Gulf Coast Florida. About 2 weeks ago, we were hit by Hurricane Sally. The entire week before and after Sally directly passed our area, heavy rain and wind pounded our window day and night. The night the hurricane actually hit, our phones vibrated multiple times throughout the night, with flash flood warnings and tornado warnings. News channels on TV monitored Sally throughout the night, continuously showing how the hurricane is moving on a map of our area. We live on the second floor of an apartment, and I could feel the building slightly shaking from the winds. The wind slashing at our windows was so loud that I was not able to sleep at all that night. Power kept going in and out, and wifi went out the day after the storm passed. Our nearby Walmart suffered a long power outage, which resulted in them getting rid of all their refrigerated goods. Trees were snapped, leaves and branches scattered all over the road, sometimes landing on a house, damaging the roof. The hurricane passed but left many people unable to return home because of the damage to their houses (broken roof, water in the house, trees blocking the door, etc).
After experiencing such a deadly hurricane for the first time in my life, I finally understood how after every natural disaster, there were so many people in need of help. This article examines how natural disaster responses from nonprofit organizations can be made smoother through game theory: https://theconversation.com/response-to-natural-disasters-like-harvey-could-be-helped-with-game-theory-83125. It was written after Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, and used data from Hurricane Katrina for their study. They studied games played by NGOs when dealing with competing to get funding and trying to send appropriate relief items to areas in need. They examined 2 scenarios:
- When the NGOs were free from satisfying common minimum and maximum amounts of the relief item demands at points of need (a Nash Equilibrium model);
- When the NGOs had to make sure they delivered the minimum needed supplies at each demand point for the victims but did not exceed the maximum amounts set by a higher-level organization.
With scenario 1, NGOs can actually try to choose the easy way of sending out relief items, which could lead to some areas not receiving the needed items. Therefore scenario 2 constraints are needed to guarantee efficient allocation of items to everyone in need. The results of the study showed that it is crucial for NGOs to cooperate and coordinate with each other to yield the best results for everyone (NGOs and victims of natural disasters).
Natural disasters could happen any time anywhere and if game theory can help with the aftermath, it should be studied and used more widely.