The Questions the Japanese Tsunami Raises

Stunning picture of before and after the Japanese tsunami. The scale of the destruction brings up a real question for emergency managers. Are there some disasters that are to big to recover from? Not everywhere but in some areas city's will never come back from certain disasters. What is emergency managements roles in these types of disasters? Can we recognize them as they occur or will we recognize them only afterwards with some distances and perspective? I think we in the profession need to begin to have answers to these questions because they will affect how we will respond to such a disaster. Japan opens a new and vital question for all of us.

 Before and After the Tsunami

Emergency Management: New Master's Degree Program Offered

"The U.S. Department of Labor rates emergency management as one of the fastest-growing field in the next five to ten years.  They say that because of the increase in the storms we are having-and those are because of entering a weather cycle that they think will last another 20, 25 years-so they see this as a growth industry."



Emergency Management: New Master's Degree Program Offered

Crowdmap and Crowd Sourcing in a Disaster

Crowdmap is a free program that allows you to begin to use the social media in your community. It is brought to you by the people who originally saw the use of social media with their Ushahidi program used extensively in Haiti right after the quake to identify where the worst damage and injured were located. Initially they used a physical map and pins now they have developed a program that automatically locates the origin of the call.

Crowdmap uses a map and immediately to mark where a call originated . You are able to begin to rapidly visualize where damage and clusters of people with injuries are located in your community. This information will allow you to use your resources more efficiently. This crowd sourcing of information is a powerful new tool to more rapidly size up a community after a disaster. It not only gives you dynamic map but it will track by time the reports and allows your to analyze the data as it is accumulated.

Crowd sourcing is a power new tool that takes advantage of the use of social media by your community's population. It is a powerful tool that should become standard operating procedure for any Office of Emergency Management.

DARPA Hold a Social Media Contest for Emergency Management

DARPA is holding a $40,000 dollar contest on the use of Social Media during a disaster. The purpose of the CLIQR Quest Challenge competition is to find critical resources that responders might need during a disaster. This is using Social Media as a crowd source rather than a powerful way to communicate with the public during times of disaster. Crowd Sourcing can not only be used to identify resources but to identify areas that need assistance rapidly. Social Media was used in Haiti and Chile after their devastating earthquakes to identify the areas with the most damage and where resources were needed, it was so accurate that the Marine Corp and the Coast Guard used it to identify where to deploy their assets. It was used before the earthquake in Japan to warn millions of people of the earthquake. The Japanese government used the fact that earthquakes produce P waves that travel faster than the quake itself and can give up to a minutes warning. Using the P wave of the earthquake the Japanese sent thousands of text messages to millions of people in the effected areas giving them up to thirty seconds warning to take cover. Then after the quake it was used to identify the areas where help was needed the most. Social Media has many uses in emergency management and is going to prove to be a vital one as it use becomes more widespread.

Disasters first response emergency services social medial | Homeland Security News Wire

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. 

Storm Spotter App

During the recent outbreak I used the Storm Spotter App for my iPad. It worked flawlessly constantly updates the Watches and Warnings. With single tap on a list of the Watches and Warning you are immediately taken to the geographic area of the notification. Even when there was as many as nineteen different Tornado Warnings I was able to keep up with the rapidly changing situation with little effort. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storm-spotter/id329385154?mt=8

Essential Elements of Information during a Disaster

Milton Fire Rescue and Law Enforcement Agencies The link is an excellent learning/training tool. It is the radio traffic of the law enforcement and fire departments just before and after the tornado struck. The messages, their timing and the information that can be gleaned from there is an excellent example of the confusion and fragmentary nature of the information that an emergency manager will receive after such an event. How should you prepare to pull together the information? There will be other information sources in addition to the radio traffic you hear how do you sort it and begin to get a picture of your community and what has been done?

A list of Essential Elements of Information would be an ideal tool for your EOC. EEI's specific to each ESF and for the community as a whole would be a good first step. This list should be specific to your community and developed long before a disaster strikes. It should be a check list with a simple grading system to allow for a quick size up. It could be as simple as green, yellow and red. Green would mean the asset or facility was up and running and in service. A yellow would mean that it was damaged but still capable of performing most of it's duties. A red would mean it either destroyed and out of service. Everything should be considered a red until information proving otherwise was obtained. This simple system would go a long way to preparing a community for a sudden disaster.