An Overview of a Demographic Study of United States Emergency Managers

Abstract

R ESPONSE TO WEATHER WARNINGS.The National Weather Service (NWS) is responsible for issuing public warnings for all hazardous weather events across the United States. Advances in technology and basic scientific research over the years have allowed for significant improvements in this assignment. But while the NWS continues to focus much of its strategic planning toward improved warnings, most of those associated with the process are aware that there are a number of steps beyond increased accuracy to make their warnings effective. These include assuring that the target audience hears their message, understands it, believes it, and responds to it properly. One useful means of addressing these issues involves working directly with community response organizations, whose job it is to direct and allocate emergency services during catastrophic events.Often, the primary responsibility for identifying risks and managing vulnerabilities within a community is entrusted to a local emergency manager. With an emergency management system in place, disaster response can be more coordinated, flexible, and professional. However, one crucial factor in effectively managing emergencies is collaboration with organizational partners, and breakdowns in collaboration can adversely impact outcomes. In recent weather-related incidents, communications between the NWS and emergency managers have become confused. For example, in the case of the 2008 Windsor, Colorado, tornado, NWS forecasters tried to convey the urgency of a developing situation, while emergency managers awaited confirmation that a damaging event was actually underway. In that situation, it appears that emergency managers didn't entirely understand how strongly forecasters felt about the potential threat, and NWS forecasters didn't understand why emergency managers were not implementing emergency response immediately.The premise of the present study is that NWS forecasters can benefit from knowing more about their emergency management counterparts, including a general overview of the nature of that community, along with characteristics that might influence collaboration. To this end, a nationwide survey was conducted to learn more about the diversity of individual emergency managers and of the communities they serve. THE SURVEY AND ITS RESULTS.More than 3,500 invitations were e-mailed, yielding 1,062 (30.3%) completed responses from across the country. Most of the 35 questions comprising the survey were presented in a Likert-scale format. A few required more complex answers. 1 There were five categories of questions addressing such topics as personal demographics, education and experience, salary and agency funding, community settings, emergency situations, and response to a hypothetical tornado situation.Means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated for basic demographics and are presented in Table 1a. 2 There were numerous correlations. An overview of results for the various categories follows. 1 A pdf version of the survey questions can ...

How emergency managers (mis?)interpret forecasts

“…The group matches the latter sample with respect to gender (overwhelmingly male) and closely resembles it in relation to other dimensions; that is, the EMs in this study sample are similar to the group in Weaver et al (2013), but they are slightly older, less experienced, and not as likely to hold a graduate or professional degree, as well as having experienced floods more recently. Weaver et al (2013) have a similar underrepresentation of EMs from the South, although it is less sharp (33 versus 45 per cent). As for the community setting, the proportion of respondents in this study who come from rural areas was similar to that in Weaver et al (2013): 46 per cent.…”

“…The sample appears generally representative of the EM population. Table 1 presents a range of demographic and professional characteristics of the sample, as compared to those from a survey of more than 1,000 EMs conducted recently by Weaver et al (2013). The group matches the latter sample with respect to gender (overwhelmingly male) and closely resembles it in relation to other dimensions; that is, the EMs in this study sample are similar to the group in Weaver et al (2013), but they are slightly older, less experienced, and not as likely to hold a graduate or professional degree, as well as having experienced floods more recently.…”

“…Table 1 presents a range of demographic and professional characteristics of the sample, as compared to those from a survey of more than 1,000 EMs conducted recently by Weaver et al (2013). As for the community setting, the proportion of respondents in this study who come from rural areas was similar to that in Weaver et al (2013): 46 per cent. The respondents in the current survey also appear comparable to groups of EMs assessed by Peerbolte and Collins (2013) and Jensen and Youngs (2015), who report samples similarly dominated by older, educated, experienced males.…”

“…Table 1 presents a range of demographic and professional characteristics of the sample, as compared to those from a survey of more than 1,000 EMs conducted recently by Weaver et al (2013). The sample appears generally representative of the EM population.…”

A retrospective streamflow ensemble forecast for an extreme hydrologic event: a case study of Hurricane Irene and on the Hudson River basin

“…In the United States, for example, floods are recognized as the main natural disaster with USD 7.96 billion in flood-related damages per year and 82 fatalities per year, averaged over the past 30 years (NWS, 2014). It is reported that 78 % of emergencies are weather related (Weaver et al, 2014;Hoss and Fischbeck, 2016).…”