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 ( [e-mail]) is a Ph.D. candidate of Management Science and Systems at the State University of New York at Buffalo. RAJ SHARMAN ( [e-mail]) is an assistant professor of Management Science and Systems at the State University of New York at Buffalo. H. RAGHAV RAO ( [e-mail]) 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 ( [e-mail]) 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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