Dan Bill final Colorado Poster

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    OKLAHOMA EMERGENCY MANAGERS’ TECHNICAL NEEDS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS. Daniel Marks, William Donner, Cory Abbey, Jessica Rothrock, and Desiree Grainger This work is supported primarily by the Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation under NSF award number 0313747. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation. Methodology DRC researchers collected data through the use of in-depth interviews and focused groups with representatives from specific operational communities within Oklahoma’s emergency management system. Interviewees (N=29) consist of local, county, and state emergency managers; scientists and forecasters from the National Weather Service (NWS); amateur radio (HAM) operators; fire and police personnel; and representatives of a number of other governmental and non-governmental positions within communities. Introduction Social scientists from the Disaster Research Center (DRC) at the University of Delaware, the Center for Applied Social Research (CISA) at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, and CASA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst are currently completing a component of a study intended to explore the technical and policy needs associated with the emergency management role. The broader study aims to integrate a wide range of end-users into CASA’s proposed technology design. The material presented in this poster is designed to convey initial findings related to the needs of end-users, and, based on their personal experiences, how they would change policies within the new DCAS paradigm. Policy Recommendations Allocation “Joysticking” One of the of the major questions that will arise when the new radar are implemented is who will have control over allocation. Emergency managers interviewed unanimously argued against allowing local control over allocation. Most suggested that the final decision on how radar resources should be allocated should be the responsibility of the National Weather Service. On what basis should sensing resources be distributed in the new system? Most emergency managers felt that the ultimate goals of any improvements to radar technology should be to reduce risks to human lives and property loss. Many emergency managers feel indicated that the demographic characteristics of a given area should be given priority. Included among those characteristics named are: Population and housing density, land use (agriculture, industry, etc.). However, some emergency managers did not agree with this assessment or “priority criteria.” They felt that such a criterion would exclude smaller towns or regions in the event of an event generating competing resource demands. Future Research and Publications Bill Donner presented “Four Non-Technological Problems in Emergency Manager” at the 2004 Hazards Workshop, a multi-disciplinary conference attended by natural and social scientists. He plans to publish this as a paper in a disaster-related journal and is revising an additional paper based on these data for publication entitled “Critical Theory, Science, and Severe Weather Warnings: A Conceptual Analysis of Lead Time.” He is also using the data for his dissertation. Bill Donner, Dan Marks, and Jenniffer Santos are currently developing CASA research briefs dealing with formal and informal emergency management structures and their impacts on the warning process, the media market and how it shapes emergency manager decision making and public response, and how we can integrate end-users into technology in an effective and sociologically- relevant manner. They intend to present this information at the next meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and subsequently seek to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. DRC DISASTER RESEARCH CENTER It is ultimately an issue of training: how much training do emergency managers have with radar data, a factor immanently ultimately tied to the organization of local communities and the ways in which emergency manager roles fit into those structures. For instance, an overwhelming majority of local communities in Oklahoma have unpaid, volunteer emergency managers with multiple professional and personal responsibilities, who, according to one emergency manager “change with the season.” These factors limit both an emergency manager’s access to and retention of such training. So, again, following Pielke, while the content—the accurate weather prediction, that is—may be excellent, the form in which it is conveyed may not be accessible to the community for lack of commensurate training. Radar imaging with better spatial and temporal resolution Although some interviewees felt content with the current state of spatial and temporal radar resolution, they nevertheless favored the possibility of increasing both. No clear consensus emerged in regards to whether emergency managers would prefer increased spatial resolution or temporal resolution in CASA’s proposed technology. About half felt that they would benefit more from increased spatial resolution, while the other half favored an increase in temporal resolution. According to one emergency manager whether someone prefers better resolution or more frequent updates is contingent on that individual’s specific needs (i.e. higher spatial resolution for weather detection or higher spatial resolution for weather tracking). Thus, an individual concerned with spotting tornado formation might prefer better spatial resolution, while someone who is tracking an already spotted tornado may prefer greater temporal resolution. Direct Communications Since it is well known in the social science literature that the media constructs risk (Stallings 1990), it is not surprising that emergency managers have called for a more direct means of communications between the weather community and the public. Social scientists argue that the media does not merely present information to the public (in this case, information generated from predictions), but actively shapes the manner in which that information is presented in a competitive information market. In doing so, the original message is maligned. Emergency managers shared similar concerns regarding the media, prompting one emergency manager, when asked to tell us how he uses the media, replied that he, “turns the TV off.” This is not to say, of course, that the media isn’t useful in some instances. Many emergency managers with few resources rely heavily on the media. Nevertheless, we run into a conflict between form and content: In this case, the content (prediction) may be excellent, but the form in which the content is conveyed, through the media (a competitive form) renders the original content problematic. Emergency managers thus recommend direct communications between NWS and the public through NOAA weather radios. Further, to perhaps limit their own need for the media, emergency managers utilize amateur radio operators within the community. Theoretical Approach Since Fritz (1961), disasters have increasingly become viewed not merely as natural or environmental events, but rather as social problems that can only be fully understood with the help of social science. Human ecological theory (Duncan, Schnore, and Rossi 1959) synthesizes this sociological conception of disasters within a broader framework (Bidwell and Kasarda 1998; Bates and Pelanda 1994), therefore allowing sociologists to view disasters from the simultaneous perspectives of population, organization, environment, and technology (POET). Thus, a “disaster” is the product of a number of different interactions between these elements. If we were to view disasters as merely the result of society’s technological (in the case of this work: radars, communications technologies, etc.) effectiveness or ineffectiveness of responding to its surrounding environment, we would only be aware of a very small part of a much larger and more critical dimension of disasters. This perspective ignores how factors such as economic inequality (Peacock, Morrow, and Gladwin 2000), race (Mitchem 2003), and education (Balluz 2000) mediate the ways in which technology is capable of reaching individuals on the one hand and impacting their behavior on the other. As Pielke (2000) argues, we must not only focus on the prediction of weather information, but also the ways in which information generated from predictions is successfully communicated, and if the information thus communicated is used in an effective manner. The following analysis focuses on the second condition and third conditions, communication and use, and attempts to demonstrate that we cannot save lives and protect property by focusing on the improvement of prediction capabilities and the technological dimensions of communications. Some technical needs The following explores some technological needs of emergency managers and places them within the framework of non-technological needs—those needs, as specified by POET, which may limit communicative effectiveness or utility of information generated by predictions. Pielke (69) again provides a useful way to evaluate this information from a sociological viewpoint; we should ask ourselves a) “[w]hat information is needed by the decision maker?” and b) “[w]hat content or form of communication leads to the desired response?” The following list is a partial analysis of some key issues. Faster internet access Since CASA technology will in most cases require access to the internet, end-users must have access to the internet, in addition to having internet access at high speeds/high bandwidth. However, this does not take into account that, although the content (prediction) of the information may be completely accurate, the form in which it is being conveyed is incompatible with end-user capabilities. Thus, the predictions generated by CASA, must a) be conveyed through multiple channels for those without internet access, and b) conveyed in as low a bandwidth as possible in order to accommodate emergency managers from rural communities or volunteer positions who may not have the funding for such resources. In this case, the problem of internet access necessarily becomes a problem of the ways in which populations are distributed (rural/urban) and the economic and political structures of communities. Non-existent information, information that is difficult to download, or information that is very slow to download is not useful for response or preparation. Lightning data Interviewees often cited the need for better and more reliable lightning data—however, this was not only due to the immediate threat of being struck by lightening. Rather, it was also in part due to the existence of flammable objects, such as local oil fields, that would if struck not only pose a significant risk to life, but also have significant negative impacts on local (and perhaps global) society and economy. In this way, we have to address the particular information needs of communities based on local infrastructure, resources, and economy. Training The ability to use and understand radar data, again, is more than a technological need in itself. We may be able to develop “user-friendly” technologies, but only after we know specifically what is meant by “user-friendly.” Again, we must address Pielke’s argument that it is necessary to understand specific end-user needs and the manner in which (the form and content) in which those needs are addressed. A good example of this is the level of meteorological training and exposure to technology emergency managers have in the first place. (cont’d)