Emergency Management Decision-Making during Severe Weather

Baumgart, Leigh A.; Bass, Ellen J.; Philips, Brenda; Kloesel, Kevin A.

doi:10.1177/154193120605000336

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Some commanding firefighters consult colleagues upstream of a storm track to gain ground-truth evidence of impacts that have occurred there and try to extrapolate this to their own region to anticipate potential impacts. These findings are in line with other studies on collaborative crosschecking and confirmation-seeking in emergency management (Baumgart et al 2006;Demeritt et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Kox

Lüder

Gerhold

2018

Int J Disaster Risk Sci

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Communicating meteorological uncertainty allows earlier provision of information on possible future events. The desired benefit is to enable the end-user to start with preparatory protective actions at an earlier time based on the end-user's own risk assessment and decision threshold. The presented results of an interview study, conducted with 27 members of German civil protection authorities, show that developments in meteorology and weather forecasting do not necessarily fit the current practices of German emergency services. These practices are mostly carried out based on alarms and ground truth in a superficial reactive manner, rather than on anticipation based on prognoses or forecasts. Emergency managers cope with uncertainty by collecting, comparing, and blending different information about an uncertain event and its uncertain outcomes within the situation assessment to validate the information. Emergency managers struggle most with an increase of emergency calls and missions due to the impacts of severe weather. Because of the additional expenditures, the weather event makes it even harder for them to fulfill their core duties. These findings support the need for impact-based warnings.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Kox

Lüder

Gerhold

2018

Int J Disaster Risk Sci

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“…There are few studies about the joint decision-making processes of forecasters and emergency managers during severe weather events (e.g., see Baumgart et al 2008). Due to a lack of standardization and the complex nature of interagency cooperation, much time is wasted at the beginning on liaison and coordination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weather factors in the short-term forecasting of daily ambulance calls

Wong

Lai

2013

Int J Biometeorol

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The daily ambulance demand for Hong Kong is rising, and it has been shown that weather factors (temperature and humidity) play a role in the demand for ambulance services. This study aimed at developing short-term forecasting models of daily ambulance calls using the 7-day weather forecast data as predictors. We employed the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) method to analyze over 1.3 million cases of emergency attendance in May 2006 through April 2009 and the 7-day weather forecast data for the same period. Our results showed that the ARIMA model could offer reasonably accurate forecasts of daily ambulance calls at 1-7 days ahead of time and with improved accuracy by including weather factors. Specifically, the inclusion of average temperature alone in our ARIMA model improved the predictability of the 1-day forecast when compared to that of a simple ARIMA model (8.8% decrease in the root mean square error, RMSE=53 vs 58). The improvement in the 7-day forecast with average temperature as a predictor was more pronounced, with a 10% drop in prediction error (RMSE=62 vs 69). These findings suggested that weather forecast data can improve the 1- to 7-day forecasts of daily ambulance demand. As weather forecast data are readily accessible from Hong Kong Observatory's official website, there is virtually no cost to including them in the ARIMA models, which yield better prediction for forward planning and deployment of ambulance manpower.

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“…Much has been written on severe weather information use and decision‐making by EMs (Morris et al , ; Morss and Ralph, ; Baumgart et al , ; Call, ) and the public (Broad et al , ; Morss et al , ), yet there is little that exists on other emergency support functions or on institutions. An exception is Baumgart et al () who present a conceptual framework that incorporates three systems, environmental, information, and perceptual and cognitive, through which information flows and upon which decisions are based. The number of ESFs comprising the EM community that may be involved in an event magnifies the complex relationships within this framework, as has been shown in a previous work (Montz et al , ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winter weather decision-making: North Carolina school closures, 2010-2011

et al. 2014

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ABSTRACT:The use of weather forecasts for emergency management decision-making requires that those making decisions have access to information they can understand and can put into operation in a timely manner. This can create a gap between what emergency management decision-makers need and what is available. Using school decision-making under conditions of severe winter weather in North Carolina as a case study, this project traces decision-making processes and use of weather information to identify the nature of these gaps and to test prototypes that might fill those gaps. A mixed methods approach including focus groups, interviews and surveys provided an evaluation of the critical decisions and specific information needs of this group of decision-makers. All these methods collect information from a variety of sources, including on-line forecasts, conversations with other school districts and riding the roads to check conditions. The findings suggest that some of the needed forecast information is available, but is either misinterpreted or school officials were not aware of its existence. Location-specific and time-sensitive information is crucial. By delving into the decision-making processes, including needs and networks, and by developing prototypes to address the needs, the results provide a step in the direction of enhancing the infusion of weather and climate information into severe weather decision processes.

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Emergency Management Decision-Making during Severe Weather

Cited by 13 publications

References 2 publications

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Anticipation and Response: Emergency Services in Severe Weather Situations in Germany

Weather factors in the short-term forecasting of daily ambulance calls

Winter weather decision-making: North Carolina school closures, 2010-2011

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