Help Research and Support the Response to Hurricane Irma

We need your help! If you have a few minutes, please read below.  

As Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, hundreds, maybe thousands of organizations are preparing to descend upon the state to support the survivors. It is an effort that takes many different types of people from many different organizations. But who are these groups?  How do they find each other?  

These questions are the impetus for the Response Roster Project, an effort I am supporting with G&H International Services, Inc. We want to understand response efforts from the perspective of both the official and unofficial response. Who are the unsung heroes and responders taking time to help in any way they can?

This project provides some critical understanding about how these various groups, projects and initiatives can be better supported and integrated in the future. It is impossible to support the survivors of disasters such as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma without the support of neighbors, non-profits (e.g., Humanity Road), and other groups that form as needs arise (e.g., Cajun Navy).

The Project

Today, we officially launch the Response Roster Project. It as an operational research tool designed to understand who is responding and how they are finding each other. This project is unique in that it has a real-time operational component that allows the public as well as responders to:

1. Submit any type of organization that is helping survivors of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in any way; and
2. Search and find each other during response and recovery efforts.   

This catalogue will be actively curated throughout the response and recovery to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. When the dust settles, this information will be used to understand how self-organized groups can be better supported in future disasters.

How You Can Help

Helping will take just a few minutes of your time.  Specifically, we need help finding the various groups, projects and initiatives that are supporting response and recovery efforts. You can submit your findings using a simple form found at:

No time to submit? Please help spread the word! If you have any questions about the project, please contact us

• https://responseroster.com/about/
• https://twitter.com/ResponseRoster

Evaluating Preparedness at Different Levels of Analysis

I recently conducted an academic/practice-based research project that provided a better understanding of preparedness evaluation. One interesting thing to come out of this research was a capabilities-based exercise framework for a Federal regulatory agency that links capabilities to design concepts to evaluation criteria. I will post an overview of this research once it is officially published. 

Another interesting aspect of the research confirmed how preparedness evaluation is still a complicated and difficult process that doesn't always yield the best results. We still have many more questions than answers when trying to link evaluation to our learning and preparedness objectives. For example, how do you understand how much "more" prepared you are between exercises and disasters? Current assessment processes tends to be ad hoc and very subjective.

HSEEP, noble in intent and still a benefit, lays the ground work for evaluating preparedness. However, it stops short of a well-aligned and pragmatic process that helps us learn from each exercise or disaster response while also tracking cumulative learning over time. Many of the issues and gaps mentioned above are still experienced in the after action and corrective action processes following exercises and disasters.

It is often mystifying how we develop and track our findings. For example, are these findings really the most important? Are they the right set of findings? How do we capture andarticulate very real complexity issues such as network or interaction effects? Are we investing in certain performance capabilities when we should be rethinking how the system is designed in the first place?  

There are no simple answers to these questions, but below are a few different dimensions of capabilities to think about when evaluating your exercises or disaster responses. These dimensions can also be considered "levels of analysis" in research parlance. However, don't be confused by "levels"; there is no hierarchical relationship between them. 

Individual

Individual ability is the backbone of a good disaster response. While I share that people should not be singled out for poor performance, understanding responders' overall knowledge, skills and abilities is an important level of analysis that needs to be captured. You should be asking: In order to have performed better during the exercise or response, what knowledge, skills or abilities should the responders had prior to the event? You may also separate individuals into different groups by role level such as senior leadership, management/coordination, tactical; or by function such as medical, fire, mass care, etc. The goal in this level of analysis is to improve individual abilities. 

Team/Organizational

To put it bluntly, well-organized groupings of people make things happen. They are organized by specialty or by organization and bring resources and capabilities that are much needed in a response. Understanding team or organizational capabilities helps to identify critical response gaps that are needed in future disasters. You should be asking: What were the organizational or team capabilities that contributed to the success or failure of the exercise or disaster response? Why/How? Were there any that weren't used?  Redundant? Ill-planned or -defined? This level of analysis is important for ensuring your "group" is ready to respond with the capabilities needed in the future. However, you must also think critically about other capabilities that may also be needed in the future and for which there is no precedent. 

System

The system is the least understood, but in my opinion, most important level of analysis. The difference between this and the team/organizational level of analysis is best captured in the following statement: Just because you got the job done doesn't mean getting to that point was easy, efficient or effective. This level of analysis addresses the complexity of a multi-agency response and requires a different set of questions to investigate.

For example, when you look back at all the different entities that supported the response, how did it go?  Where did breakdowns occur? How was the coordination and information sharing across people and organizations? If you are tackling these questions, you are on the right track. I would add that you should also think about the impact of information asymmetry, how the network as a whole performed and the cascading effects of different decisions or actions. Understanding this level helps you question the efficacy of your response system so that you may improve preparedness at a more fundamental/global level.     

I anticipate many of you will intuitively understand the levels of analysis that I just articulated. You may have even experienced these issues first hand as I have over my many years developing and evaluating exercises. This post is meant to help frame your thinking, but unfortunately it won't provide a definitive answer on anything.

However, I look forward to your thoughts and opinions on this!  What have been your experiences with preparedness evaluation?  What do you find most problematic? Have you identified any best practices?

What Should Researchers Know About First Responders?

I have been invited to speak next Thursday on a panel at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Academic Research Symposium.  The title of the panel is "Social Media Research for First Responders and Analysts" and it's goal is "...to help researchers understand what operational capability gaps need to be filled."

In hopes of informing my panel talk, I want to ask you what should researchers know about the operational needs of first responders?  Especially as it relates to social media!

I am excited about this workshop because it starts to put practitioners with academics in hopes of aligning the priorities of both worlds.  In fact, a new term is emerging called the "pracademic."  The pracademic has experience as both a practitioner and an academic and chooses to work to align the worlds so that academic research can be as applicable as possible.  Patrick Meier captures this well as "scholar-practioner" in Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs.

Some prior practioner-based gap analysis work has already been done on this by DHS's Virtual Social Media Working Group (of which I am a member).  In June of this year, the VSMWG released Lessons Learned: Social Media and Hurricane Sandy.  The report highlighted many of the success and learning points regarding social media.  On page 29, it highlights a number of technology, process, and policy gaps requiring further attention.  The major themes included:

• Big Data
• Compliance and Requirements
• Funding
• Standards, Training, and Guidance
• Policy and Process
• Partnerships
• Technology, Tools, and Features

I will undoubtedly speak to these gaps, but other feedback and thoughts would be helpful and greatly appreciated!

Online Disaster Communities...What/where are they?

A number of disaster related online communities and portals related have popped up in recent years.  I am researching and compiling a list of all social network, portals, blog, and news resources related to disaster management, business continuity, and homeland security.  I hope to publish this online in the next month for free. Please comment on your favorite online community.  Please include the target audience as I will be organizing the list by end users.

For example, here is a short list of communities that I have already identified:

• DisasterNet
• MyResilientCommunity
• National Terror Alert
• Comprehensive Emergency Management Network

Reply by leaving a comment below or directly at info@disaster-net.com.  Thanks for your support!