Resilient Response in an Age of Change: Emergency Response Organizations’ Resilience in Times of Disaster

Abstract

Impacts from major storms, floods, hurricanes, and heavy precipitation events disturb the lives of millions of people around the world every year, causing billions of dollars of damages and economic losses. As the number and destructiveness of natural disasters increase, the study of resilience offers possible solutions for minimizing loss of life and damage from disasters. Resiliency of communities and organizations in the face of global climate change is attracting increasing attention as a way to slow or reverse the increasing costliness and disruption of natural disasters. Despite the growing interest in resilience, no research focuses on the particular resilience challenges facing emergency response organizations (EROs), police, fire, emergency medical service, emergency management agencies, and departments of public work, which communities rely on for critical life-safety services during and after disasters. The first portion of this study uses the Delphi method to build a list of expertderived factors contributing to emergency response organization (ERO) resilience, including ranking and rating the factors to develop an expert consensus-based set of factors composing the ERO Resiliency Framework. This framework supports decision ACKNOWLEDGMENT This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of so many people, and its existence is due to their financial, academic, and personal support. Most importantly I wish to thank my advisor, Dr. Rob Thompson, for his guidance, mentorship, and patience in letting me take an unconventional approach to my degree with many adventures along the way. My path may have wandered away from academia, but it has led to my dream career. Thank you for all your help getting to where I am today.