Emergency Management Decision Making during Severe Weather.

Quantitative anlaysis

Simulation,  questionnaires,

A 45 km  45 km test bed of four radars has been installed in southwest Oklahoma and has been in operation since March 2006At the time of this study, 20 EMs worked in the testbed region. Eight of these EMs volunteered to participate in the study. Three OK-FIRST-trained EMs to the north of the region also volunteered.A severe weather decision-making questionnaire, consisting of 50 questions, was divided into five sections. Four sections involved the weather phases described in the initial descriptive decision-making model (Table 2) and one was for demographics. The weather phase sections probed weather product usage during a typical severe thunderstorm event for 13 information sources available to OK-FIRST program participants (first column in Table 1)A custom tool was developed to present timecoordinated radar images, NWS text products, and Geographical Information System (GIS) data from archived weather events in simulated real timeThe post-scenario questionnaire collected additional information regarding the weather assessments made and associated decisions that were (or may have been) made during the scenario. Participants responded with free-form text to address the use of different radar products, the value of GIS data, opinions on radar data display implications, and what decisions were reached during the scenario.The 11 volunteers participated in one of three scheduled sessions. For observation, at least one analyst was paired with each participant.

Simulation and questionnaires were used to capture the decision-making process of emergency managers during severe weather events. These data were combined with insights from emergency manager instructors, National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters, and experienced emergency managers to develop a descriptive decision-making model of weather information usage, weather assessments, and decisions made during severe weather.In addition to collecting responses from both the severe weather decision-making questionnaire and the post-scenario questionnaire, audio recordings from the simulated weather scenario were transcribed and coded.

Not all information that is currently available to EMs during severe weather was provided during the scenarios.Results of this study cannot be completely generalized to operational settings because some aspects of an EM’s responsibilities during severe weather were excluded from the scenarios

This decision-making model can be used to develop better decision support tools, improve training, and to understand how innovative weather information could potentially affect emergency managers’ role of protecting the public.

After signing a consent form and receiving an introduction, participants completed the simulated weather scenario and the postscenario questionnaire.

capture the decision-making process of emergency managers during severe weather events