Improving Disaster Management The Role of IT in Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (2007) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Potential to Enhance Disaster Management: Key IT-Based Capabilities
2 The Potential to Enhance Disaster Management: Key IT-Based Capabilities
Pages 34-67
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From page 34... ...
Dawes, Thomas Birkland, Giri Kumar Tayi, and Carrie A Schneider, Information, Technology, and Coordination: Lessons from the World Trade Center Response, Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York, 2004; available at http:// www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/wtc_lessons/wtc_lessons.pdf.
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From page 35... ...
This paper reviews the application of IT to disaster management from 1970 through the middle 1990s. It identifies a considerable body of literature showing the evolution of the use of IT in disaster management from its beginnings to becoming "an indispensable component of disaster operations worldwide." 5John Pine, "Research Needs to Support the Emergency Manager of the Future," Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 1(1)
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From page 36... ...
36 IMPROVING DISASTER MANAGEMENT TABLE 2.1 Key IT-Based Capabilities for Disaster Management and Related Promising Technologies Promising Technologies Key Capability Near Term More robust, interoperable, and Cellular priority-sensitive communications Wireless networking Redundant and resilient infrastructure Internet/IP-based networking Improved situational awareness Radio-frequency identification for resource and a common operating picture tracking and logistics Improved decision support and Online resource directories resource tracking and allocation Commercial collaboration software and file sharing Greater organizational agility for Computer-mediated exercises disaster management Portable unmanned aerial vehicles and robots Better engagement of the public Automated, multimodal public notification and resource contact systems Multimodal public reporting capabilities Validated online information sources Reverse 911 capability (i.e., two-way emergency reporting) Enhanced infrastructure survivability Mobile power generators and continuity of societal functions Redundant radio systems Dynamic stockpiled supply management
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From page 37... ...
Distributed, scalable, survivable data logging Dynamic capability profiling and credentialing Collective sensemaking Volunteer mobilization systems Automated public reporting tools Distributed, dynamic private resource Optimized data formatting for differing directories presentation devices Enhanced two-way communication with public Network redundancy Risk management tools with uncertainty Renewable power sources modeling Embedded sensors for nondestructive Resilient "smart" materials and structures asset evaluation for infrastructure survivability
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From page 38... ...
Mobile communication demand is especially acute. New users from external public safety jurisdictions enter the disaster region.
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From page 39... ...
And public safety radios are designed to much more stringent operational standards than mobile phones. Yet, both commercial and public safety communications infrastructures have suffered breakdowns in recent disasters.
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From page 40... ...
4. 8Presentation of Mark Koro, Qualcomm, to the committee on December 12, 2005, on Qualcomm's deployment of mobile cellular on wheels, including mobile switches on wheels, during Hurricane Katrina.
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From page 41... ...
The 9/11 Commission, for example, cited first responder voice communications interoperability as a considerable issue in the response to the attacks and concluded that the highest-priority remedy was assignment of additional radio-frequency spectrum as a way of achieving interoperability. It recommended that Congress enact legislation providing for the "expedited and increased assignment of radio spectrum for public safety purposes."11 The 9/11 Public Discourse project report-card-like "Final Report on 9/11 Commission Recommendations" gave an "F" to progress on providing adequate radio spectrum for first responders, citing lack of progress freeing up the analog television broadcast spectrum and reserving some of it for public 9Public Safety and Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC)
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From page 42... ...
. Much of the public attention has been focused on voice communications, but within the public safety community, data communications interoperability is an increasingly critical component and central part of any communications system.
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From page 43... ...
• Technical communications interoperability does not address the challenges of data interoperation among organizations. Disaster response often requires ac cess to information held by multiple independent organizations.
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From page 44... ...
Thus, simply making communications and systems technically capable to interact may create more problems than it solves, unless the deeper meaning of interoperation is understood and addressed. IMPROVED SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND A COMMON OPERATING PICTURE Situational awareness capabilities, like communications capabilities, have received considerable attention recently, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
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From page 45... ...
, people can learn to be more efficient at building mental models, allowing them to form meaningful groupings of information and thereby extend what they can manage in short-term memory. However, the volume and complexity of information re quired for situation awareness creates situation awareness bottlenecks leading to memory failures with serious consequences.
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From page 46... ...
Unfortunately, many systems overuse knowledge of human salience, creating distractions that hinder the creation of proper mental models of situation awareness. People are unable to distinguish between false alarms and the real thing and begin to ignore or filter such input.
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From page 47... ...
Longer-term research is needed to develop large-scale embedded sensor networks, automatic calibration of data confidence, automatic information fusion and data mining of diverse resources, routing of information to users based on semantics, filtering of false alarms, and effective presentation of information to users. Another relevant area is augmented cognition.
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From page 48... ...
IMPROVED DECISION SUPPORT AND RESOURCE TRACKING AND ALLOCATION Whereas situational awareness focuses on providing operators and decision makers with information relevant to their tasks and goals, decision support focuses on assisting them in formulating prospective actions, primarily by helping them understand and assess characteristics and consequences of alternative courses of action. Decision support is about explicitly recording candidate course(s)
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From page 49... ...
But the inherent chaos that arises in a disaster creates unique problems for realizing these gains in disaster management practice. Closely linked to decision support is the topic of logistics management.
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The problem of decision support for disaster management is that it is inherently an out-of-bounds, unstable situation. (See Box 2.3 for a discus BOX 2.3 The Limits of Commercial Logistics Operational Models for Disaster Management A frequently expressed frustration with recent disaster management efforts concerns the inefficiency of logistics operations deploying resources (e.g., ice, water, trailers, medical supplies, generators)
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From page 51... ...
, 4. Complexity introduced by information uncertainty (managing the risk that actions will be rendered inappropriate because they were based on incomplete or inaccurate information)
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From page 52... ...
. Problem notification and consequent situational awareness tend to be sequential and therefore subject to propagation delay during which parties can get out of synchronization, rather than having immediate and shared situational awareness.
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From page 53... ...
Instrumentation and data collection are critical elements for learning from one disaster to amend management practices of future events. Data collected during response and recovery operations can also be used in post-disaster analyses to feed future mitigation efforts.
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From page 54... ...
This means that it is becoming technically feasible to run situation analysis systems for disasters that continuously operate on "best available understanding" -- filling in missing information with simulations, models, and forecasts when necessary, replacing them with sensor data, situation reports, and incoming supply requests when available. Advances in computing power, as well as the development of new algorithms, also create the prospect of adaptive planning, scheduling, and resource allocation processes that continually fine-tune logistical support plans to the evolving situation.
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From page 55... ...
The 9/11 disaster expanded in scope and scale in a matter of hours even as the primary emergency operations center was lost within the World Trade Center complex. The National Response Plan and National Incident Management System provide frameworks for dynamic organizations to be formed, but do not address the diversity of technology in different organizations, the lack of rapport, or the ability of organizations to quickly integrate operations.
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From page 56... ...
Improved IT infrastructure for credentialing and identification checks -- who they are, whether they have the capabilities they say they have -- could improve the efficiency of response and recovery operations, such as dispatching medical workers, repair technicians, and other appropriate people into a disaster area. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, much damage to information and communications 19Several areas of potential opportunity to improve disaster management practice using simulation technology are drawn from a briefing to the committee by Alok Chaturvedi, director of Purdue University Homeland Security Institute.
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From page 57... ...
Similar problems involving physical access were cited during the response to 9/11.21 Recent credentialing efforts for emergency responders, including databases to keep track of volunteers, have been advancing and expanding to include telecommunications specialists, utilities workers, and other private-sector disaster response workers. Authentication and credentialing constitute a complex topic, involving many technical and non-technical issues.22 A few example areas of where further IT research might bear fruit include voice print analysis in the network, fingerprint sensor on the push-to-talk radio buttons,23 RFID tags (badges)
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From page 58... ...
toward distributed processing of continual messaging-streams fed by pervasive sensors providing realtime situational awareness data, with different users detecting trends and transitions according to their local requirements. There could be a corresponding shift from specialized management systems that are activated for disasters and deactivated afterward to an "always-on" state of activation that varies more in scale than in nature as events occur.
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From page 59... ...
Organizations have a hierarchical comfort zone that has driven them to the former response, but disasters are also accompanied by the rapid development of emergent multiorganizational networks.25 These networks form the locus for collective sensemaking and organizational learning under conditions where ambiguity and uncertainty are an inherent part of the environment.26 Information technology could support emergent networks by helping them deal more effectively with unpredictable information sources, lowering barriers to information flow, making organizational boundaries more permeable, and easing coordination between diverse and distributed actors. For example, a number of emergent groups, existing in entirely virtual space and formed using the Internet and technology such as blogs and wikis, performed important services during Hurricane Katrina.
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From page 60... ...
The potential to improve the use of IT in both areas is substantial, although the second will also require considerable shifts in culture among public safety and emergency management professionals. Alerting and Warning Systems Improving warning systems for various types of disasters has received considerable attention, especially in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.28 Effective warnings save lives, reduce damage, and speed recovery.
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From page 61... ...
and All-Hazard Warnings describes a number of government efforts to develop a digital warning system, including the ongoing pilot projects of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection directorate at DHS, and the Association of Public Television Stations to develop an integrated public alert and warning system.29 A Presidential Executive Order of June 26, 2006, aims to establish an integrated alert and warning system and to "establish or adopt, as appropriate, common alerting and warning protocols."30 Revamping the Emer 29Linda Moore and Shawn Reese, Emergency Communications: The Emergency Alert System (EAS) and All-Hazard Warnings, Congressional Research Service (CRS)
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31See Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , "Review of the Emergency Alert System, First Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," FCC 05-191, Washington, D.C., November 2005; and FCC, Recommendations of the Independent Panel Reviewing the Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Communications Networks, FCC 06-83, Washington, D.C., June 2006.
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From page 63... ...
Civilians -- people on the street -- are nearly always the very first people on the scene of disaster, especially in situations with little or no warning. Collectively they have a richer view of at least a small portion of a disaster situation than is available from within an emergency operations center.
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From page 64... ...
Furthermore, they can offer critical redundant IT resources as traditional sources are impacted by a disaster. IT mechanisms that interface disaster response agency information systems to interactive public communications channels (e.g., Internet, wireless communication)
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Hurricane Katrina is an obvious example, having displaced much of an entire metropolitan region, with residents being dispersed across the country. But smaller-scale disasters also disrupt societal functions.
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From page 66... ...
Solving these problems requires different jurisdictions -- cities, counties, states -- to work closely with each other and with federal agencies. The restoration of New Orleans, for example, is widely understood to require a concerted rebuilding across government agencies, public safety organizations, businesses, and public utilities.
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From page 67... ...
As in other areas, power supply independent of the electric grid is a critical issue that must be addressed to extend sensor capabilities.
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