The Past as the Future of Emergency Preparedness and Management

Abstract

Emergency preparedness, planning, and response suffer from shortcomings that impede the potential for effectiveness. In this article, we provide an overview of Emergency Preparedness and Management that is based upon our research, including insights into the shortcomings of current practices, a discussion of relevant theories (e.g., High Reliability Organizations, muddling through) and recommendations to promote more effective planning, management, and response. Our recommendations include system support for the principles of High Reliability Organizations and muddling through, rethinking risk analysis to have a longer-term view and reflect more than just monetary loss, creating ways to better inform and involve the public, and encouraging collaboration and collective intelligence through such means as a dynamic Delphi voting system.

Preparedness: Unpacking and clarifying the concept

“…Warning and evacuation, two major subactivities of preparedness known as population protection, are social in nature. Here, social capital, perceptions and culture function as major assets or barriers for effective preparedness in the sense that some societal traits enhance preparedness while others render such work more challenging (Baker, ; May, ; Turoff et al., ).…”

“…Previous experience is paramount for effective preparedness but only where it is combined with learning (Gillespie & Streeter, ; Turoff et al., ). Accumulation of experience and capacity can also be achieved through training, simulation exercises and expanding scientific understanding of the preparedness process (Njå, ).…”

“…Warning and evacuation, two major subactivities of preparedness known as population protection, are social in nature. Here, social capital, perceptions and culture function as major assets or barriers for effective preparedness in the sense that some societal traits enhance preparedness while others render such work more challenging (Baker, 2014b;May, 1989;Turoff et al, 2009). Crisis scholars such as Ruitenberg (2004), Kruke (2015), Perry and Lindell (2003b), Scanlon, Helsloot, and Groenendaal (2014), and Quarantelli (1999) highlight the importance of including and drawing on the capacities of the local population in preparedness work.…”

Disasters can happen to anybody: The case of Korea

“…Unlike Korea, the federal government in the United States has directly or indirectly played its own role in managing infrastructures under the guidance of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), even though the US NIPP has still faced many thorny issues (Turoff et al 2009;Turoff et al 2015). Collaboration is not easy to accomplish.…”

Determining performance criteria of railway market: a case study

“…In another words, networking and location effects in clusters have been found to develop the innovativeness of firms in these clusters (Tseng and Cheng, 2009). Although, researches show that clusters usually support SMEs in adopting and diffusing incremental innovation, they do not sustain innovation (Turoff et al, 2009). Bessant and others (2010) found out that after some time, that companies in clusters are more vulnerable to discontinuous changes.…”