Disaster App?

With all the different applications around, wouldn't it be nice to have one in case of a disaster especially in light of recent mudslides in Washington? Help is on the way.  Amro Al-Akkad, who is an engineer at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology working with his colleague, Leonardo Ramirez found that people who have smartphones with Wi-Fi hot spot apps could use that app to change the name of their Wi-Fi hot spot and insert a 27 character SOS type message and a rescue worker with a cellphone with a Wi-Fi seeker app could pick it up at least 100 meters or 300 feet away. It’s been tested and was successful in finding two “trapped” people in a large scale simulated terrorist attack setting.  The app will be shown off at a computer conference this month in Toronto. There are hopes that this app will be considered for incorporation into Android or iOS operating systems since no one really expects to be in a disaster and having it readily available would certainly be one more useful tool in attempting to rescue folks, especially folks, like me, with smartphones.