The Future of Emergency Management

I have seen the future of emergency management and it is in Rio de Janeiro. There is a New York Times article today about an IBM project that lays out the blueprint for every emergency management office in the country. It is called Mission Control Built for Cities (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/ibm-takes-smarter-cities-concept-to-rio-de-janeiro.html?pagewanted=1.) Rio is a huge metropolis that covers hundreds of square miles. To run the city more efficiently each day they have brought all of the "data collection sensors, video cameras and GPS devices" of the various departments of the the city into a single Operations Center room. From this Center technicians and representatives of the various city departments monitor and direct the City's resources.

They created four categories of occurrences: events, incidents, emergencies and crises. An event might be a loud party report to law enforcement. People assaulting one another at the party would become an incident.  If the fighting spread to the neighborhood the event would escalated to an emergency and finally if someone was killed during the riot then the incident would be classified as a crisis. Each of these levels would require different responses by the city's resources and the various departments would be coordinated through this Center. The center is able to receive Twitters with pictures from the public of incidents even before they are reported and it able to send out updates from their own Twitter account. Finally since all of the various agencies are in one place the center collates the data from the various departments uses it to begin to model City's activities and then use the City's resources more efficiently.

What does this have to do with emergency management? Everything! Emergency management needs to carve out an everyday role within the community. It must be seen as the coordinator not just during disasters but everyday by other departments as well as the public. The role of city wide coordinator is the ideal role. You are not "in charge" of the other departments you are simply doing what you would do during a disaster. You are helping to maximize the communities resources. Every technological tool in that Operations Center would be needed during a disaster. The more you use the technology the better you will become at using the technology. The more different departments work together the better they will work together during a disaster. The combination of daily use of the technology and the benefits of daily coordination of various departments with Emergency Management in the role of coordinator will create a community wide team that will work together efficiently day to day and during disaster. This is our future and it not only helps emergency management but it helps the entire city to run more efficiently. 

Social Media and Disasters

Seventy-two percent of Americans belong to some sort of social network. These numbers must drive emergency management organizations at every level to develop plans and to become involved in social networking sites and services. Craig Fugate the head of FEMA said recently that he was able to determine the severity of the Jopin Tornado because of pictures he received over Twitter of the hospital and the surrounding neighborhood. Yet there are some caveats to that statistic.


In a recent Sachs/Mason-Dixon Poll 45% of those questioned stated that they would use social media for both gathering and sharing critical information during and after a natural disaster. Those 18 to 34 were much more likely to use social networks during a disaster with 63% stating they would use them during a disaster. While these numbers are impressive more than 50% of those responding to the poll stated they would continue to rely on home and cell phones. And less than 50% of those over 60 are members of social networks.

So these numbers point to more involvement for emergency management in social media it also points to a more sophisticated public information and communication plan for a jurisdiction. There must be a mix of the use of social media and of  the local news media to get any word out to the public. By using both social media and the local news outlets the likelihood of the word reaching all of the needed audience is dramatically increased. So any communication plan must address both social networking and news outlets.

The other side of the social networking coin though is the anecdote is used at the beginning of the blog. Properly used the public is a invaluable source of information in the first hours and days of a response. If the systems are in place to track the calls for assistance and to evaluate the photos coming from the public can be a huge help in the initial assessment and response. This type of capability requires planning, organization and a social media presence in the community.

So while you many not be able to depend on social media alone to keep your citizens informed is it a critical part of any communications plan for a disaster. More importantly it is turning into an invaluable resource of information for your response. If the head of FEMA can gain situational awareness from social media then the local emergency management can certainly use it as a part of his or her disaster response plan.