activated the civil defense sirens at 5: 45 P.M. to warn
citizens of impending danger from the fire and hazardous materials. On the night of the derailment, city
officials closed entrances to the city from all major
highways and cancelled major public events.
NIMS suggests that the Incident Command Post
(ICP) perform an EOC-like function in small-scale
incidents [ 4]. In this response, the on-site management teams assumed the overall management support
and supervision role (the many-second coordination
cycle) and the individual divisions responded at the
operational level (the mini-second coordination
cycle). Table 3 shows the application of our framework to this real incident.
CONCLUSION
Coordination in the context of emergency response
is an understudied research issue. It is an important
problem, as it impacts life and property in the
affected area. We have proposed a framework to analyze coordination patterns along the emergency
response life cycle. This framework may be further
utilized by researchers and practitioners to: depict
emergency coordination practices along focal
dimensions elaborated in the framework; understand the overarching requirements for coordination
design and implementation; and identify coordination ineffectiveness and analyze the alternatives for
optimal solutions. This article has also applied the
framework to a real-life emergency incident as a
proof of concept of its relevance and usability. The
case application demonstrates not only the applicability of the framework during disasters but also
serves as a reminder template of the number of
things to consider while countering emergencies and
disasters.
It is important to point out that a number of new
technologies have emerged in recent years to enable
better emergency response coordination. Example
solutions include wireless mesh networks (CalMesh;
calmesh.calit2.net), sensor networks (ASPECT;
www.epa.gov/naturalevents/flyinglab.htm), knowledge
management systems (RKBP; www.rkb.mipt.org), geographic information systems (CATS; cats.saic.com),
communication standards (CAP; www.incident.com/
cap), incident forecast and analysis programs (SLOSH;
www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/nhp/ slosh_link.shtm),
peer-to-peer communication platforms (Microsoft
Groove; www.groove.net), collaborative work systems
(E-Team; www.eteam.com), and command and control systems (DisasterLAN; www.disasterlan.com).
These technology elements address parts of the puzzle
and have to be leveraged to improve coordination.
However, the discussion of these technologies in the
context of emergency response management and
coordination systems is beyond the scope of this article will be taken up in future research. c
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RUI CHEN ( ruichen@buffalo.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate of
Management Science and Systems at the State University of New York
at Buffalo.
RAJ SHARMAN ( rsharman@buffalo.edu) is an assistant professor of
Management Science and Systems at the State University of New York
at Buffalo.
H. RAGHAV RAO ( mgmtrao@buffalo.edu) is a professor of
Management Science and Systems and adjunct professor of Computer
Science and Engineering at the State University of New York at
Buffalo.
SHAMBHU J. UPADHYAYA ( shambhu@cse.buffalo.edu) is an
associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the State
University of New York at Buffalo.
This research has been funded by NSF under grant 0705292. Many emergency
response coordinators from FEMA and State of New York (especially Western New
York) provided valuable insights toward the development of this article (for details see
www.som.buffalo.edu/isinterface/ack.html).
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