DISASTER MANAGEMENT & THE INTERNET

By Avagene Moore

Hazards threaten every community and visual images of disaster, destruction and disruption through the mass media make disasters a reality for everyone. However, effective dissemination of disaster information, warnings, and best practices to enhance disaster preparedness and prevention for nations, communities, businesses and individual citizens is sorely lacking.

The Internet is a proven mechanism for communication and commerce as envisioned by its earliest proponents. Information technology continues to alter the way we work, learn, communicate, network and make the necessary changes to improve our professional and personal lives and our communities. The Internet is effective for educating and sharing information related to disaster management and other global issues as we collectively do a better job of communicating, collaborating and networking.

The EIIP Experience
The Emergency Information Infrastructure Project/Partnership (EIIP), an educational nonprofit, was established for the purpose of networking, sharing and informing regardless of time and space. With a six-year track record, the EIIP accomplishes its goals primarily through the EIIP Virtual Forum (http://www.emforum.org) while teaching and encouraging utilization of electronic communications. The EIIP audience is emergency management and allied professionals - academia, business/industry, government, and volunteer organizations/NGOs - anyone with an interest in disaster / emergency management. The EIIP provides online services to assist global progress in the accomplishment of sustainable development and disaster prevention/reduction goals.

The EIIP operates on the premise of basics first, learning as we go, and bringing others with us in the process. The problems of networking and sharing information with our audience, the broad-based emergency management community, are quite simple.

Access is still a problem but more emergency management practitioners and first responders are coming online each year.

In some cases, the desire to participate and learn via the Net is lacking regardless of the value.

Additionally, interactive sessions with academia, business/industry, government and volunteer organizations demonstrate there is a lack of communication and sharing across the spectrum of parties with disaster or emergency management interests at the most basic communications level --- we do not talk to each other!

Multiply that by the governmental, political and language differences around the world to get some idea of the lack of communication and what might be accomplished if we shared information. We desperately need to foster communication among all disciplines, at all levels and between jurisdictions and countries.

The EIIP strongly believes that the Internet is a global tool for sharing information and overcoming some of the basic communication gaps related to disaster preparedness and prevention. The EIIP offers the following facts to support this position:

1. Internet Users are Increasing Daily
According to InternetWorldState.com (July 31, 2003), the world total for Internet users was over 670 million. (1) Internet demographics show the number of users shifting away from the States. Michael Pastore states only one-quarter of the global Internet population will reside in the US by 2005 in his article, Global Internet Population Moves Away from US. (2)

2. Interaction via the Internet Works
The Internet provides interaction through email, mail lists, discussion groups and live online dialogues. Live chats are nothing new but recent advances in chat software make them far more attractive for real-time discussions; in some cases, online discussions with audio are quite successfully and video conferencing will eventually be more than “talking heads.”

Virtual conferences may use one or more of the interactive modes discussed above. For example:

The Organization of American States (OAS) Unit of Sustainable Development and Environment hosted a Virtual Conference on the Hemispheric Plan for Disaster Reduction of the Education Sector a few years ago. OAS conducted live discussions though the EIIP Virtual Forum in two sessions to get input in English and Spanish. At the same time, they maintained contact and momentum with a large group of constituents via a Mail List devoted to their specific interests.

The Global Disaster Information Network conducted portions of their workshop from Ankara, Turkey during their 2000 GDIN Conference. A global audience interacted with presenters located in Turkey, Japan and the United States via the EIIP server.

During September 2003, the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted an online conference on “A Draft Framework to Guide and Monitor Disaster Risk Reduction.” (http://www.unisdr.org/dialogue/basicdocument.htm)

This fall, a Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) Symposium, Toward an International System Model in Emergency Management, was another excellent example of virtual sharing of information and the current networking capability at our fingertips as well as the speed, flexibility and global outreach of this medium. http://www.riskinstitute.org/symposium_papers.asp

3. Professional Skills Increase
Learning to network electronically, share information, and take advantage of online educational opportunities builds competency and confidence. New tools and technologies require courage, commitment and time. With the present power of communication and information at our finger tips and the promise of more and better things to come, perhaps the ability to communicate online will be the most important skill of this century!

4. Opportunities to Explore and Experiment Abound
New ideas and concepts – trials and errors – expand the virtual experience. For example, the EIIP conducted an online hazardous materials functional exercise, WEBEX, as the EIIP’s contribution to the Volunteer Fire and Rescue Expo (VFRE). All planning meetings, recruitment of players, and training for the big event were done online with cyberspace volunteers. Thirty-five people from FEMA, Boeing, local governments and the private sector from the U.S. and Canada communicated and conducted an exercise in five virtual rooms on the Virtual Forum site. The Master Controller, respective Room Controllers and Evaluators ran the scenario for approximately two hours. WEBEX was a great experience and experiment with very realistic and typical exercise results.

5. There is a Need for Expert Information at the Grass-Roots Level
The EIIP experience over the past year alone demonstrates the need for information in the field. The EIIP Virtual Forum generates transcripts of each session - the most popular attraction on the site. Web statistics reveal an average of 200 to 400 downloads of each transcript within the first month of availability. Over the past year, the four transcripts that drew the most attention in numbers of downloads over a two-month period were:

1/22/03, “Dirty Bombs”- LA County Terrorism Exercise, Ian White, LA Co EM - 1,100
6/25/03, The Pre-Positioned Equipment Program, Frank LePage, DHS / ODP - 822
11/27/02, Update on EMAP, Emily DeMers, NEMA - 634
3/05/03, Terrorism Timeline (1988-2001), Claire Rubin, Claire Rubin & Associates - 589

The topics of sustained interest since 9/11/01 are the NFPA 1600 Standard, the NEMA Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP), WEBEX and WEBEX II, terrorism topics, and the list of EIIP Partners. Over the past few months, any content or news items related to the National Response Plan (NRP) and the National Incident Management System (NIMS) also attracted great interest.

Conclusion
Disasters are hard taskmasters. The global community shares the same risks, threats and problems. Today’s telecommunications and satellite images make each disaster a visual reality in our living rooms. Because the news media coverage is good and rapid, we may feel the collective disaster frequency and magnitude are worse than in the past and we are not very effective in doing anything other than picking up the pieces. While we all agree something must be done about the costs of disasters in human and financial terms, we may feel some frustration at the world’s preparedness and disaster reduction efforts overall. No doubt, communications have increased tremendously to link the human race as never before. However, the world needs adequate, effective, proactive information and education about best practices to sell disaster preparedness and prevention as a concept that benefits everyone and better prepares communities and families when disasters strike.

No other tool reaches as diverse an audience or covers so much of the planet in such a short period of time as the Internet. No other tool levels the playing field quite as well regardless of where we live and work. The Internet reaches a web of interdependent people and the communities they call home. Where else can a user communicate with those with common interests and issues? How could anything be more affordable or convenient to enable a seeker to gather the latest information, discuss a problem with known experts, and share one’s own experiences? And all from the user’s desktop at one’s own time and convenience.



About the Author
Avagene Moore is an emergency management professional with 28 years history, having served as coordinator of the emergency preparedness program in her home county in Tennessee for 16 years, and 12 years as a contractor in the field. Avagene is a 28-year member of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM). She is a Past President of the organization as well as the American Society of Professional Emergency Planners (ASPEP) and is well known by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), other Federal agencies and national organizations through speaking engagements, published articles and papers, and testimony before various congressional committees on behalf of IAEM and the emergency management profession. Avagene is President of the Emergency Information Infrastructure Project (EIIP). Her work includes recruiting Partners from the global emergency/disaster management community, selecting timely topics and subject matter experts for scheduled sessions in the Virtual Forum, and overseeing the maintenance and enhancement of the Partnership’s focal point on the Internet, the EIIP Virtual Forum web site.