Emergency Management

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Research from the Department of Emergency Management. The department website may be found at https://www.ndsu.edu/emgt/

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Browsing Emergency Management by browse.metadata.department "Emergency Management and Disaster Science"

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    Organizational Characteristics of A Disaster Call Center ;\ Study of Information Management
    (North Dakota State University, 2011) Khatchadourian, Marc Adrian
    This study examines how information was managed in a call center during the response to a major flood event on the Red River in the upper Midwest. The event affected the cities of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. This study involved two rounds of data collection: first, complete participant observation in the call center, and second, in-depth qualitative interviews of call center workers. It also includes a I 9-clay reconstruction of the flood event based on newspaper articks during the incident. The results of this study arc examined within the context of complex systems theory and other theoretical concepts within the scope of information management in emergency management response systems. This study discusses the impact ol'rolc familiarity and the assumption of collective intelligence on the disaster call center's ability to manage infornrntion during the flood response operations.
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    Pursuit and Achievement of Emergency Management Program Accreditation
    (North Dakota State University, 2022) Ferreira, Marcelo
    While accreditation of emergency management programs has been available for more than two decades, very few emergency management programs are accredited, particularly at the local level. This study examined what may facilitate or hinder the pursuit and achievement of Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) accreditation by emergency management program leaders (EMs) in programs located in a United States city with a population over 300,000 (n=69). The multidisciplinary accreditation body of literature has not matured to the point of offering a theoretical or statistical model which could guide quantitative work on the topic. Additionally, accreditation is understudied in the context of emergency management. A qualitative approach to the research was most appropriate for these reasons. In-depth interviews with thirty EMs were conducted using the Responsive Interviewing Model (Rubin & Rubin, 2012) to gather rich data related to the research questions and analyze it. The study results in a series of key findings and recommendations related to practice and research. Findings related emergency management, suggest: a) perceptions of EMs are the most important facilitator or barrier of formal pursuit of accreditation, b) emulating The Emergency Management Standard (2019) is critical to understanding the commencement of formal pursuit, c) local emergency management compliance with structuring mechanisms does not result in compliance with The Standard, and the relationship between them is not explicit or otherwise apparent, and d) while most EMs interviewed as part of this study knew of The Standard and EMAP, and valued it, awareness could be improved. Related to the accreditation body of knowledge, the results suggest: a) program leaders may have more influence than the body of accreditation work might lead one to believe, particularly in the absence of extrinsic forces, b) some facilitators and barriers to accreditation may be heavily influenced by more than one category, c) a period of emulation was required and pursuit was delayed until the program leader believed accreditation would be achieved once the formal process got underway, and d) the period leading to formal instigation was that the most important to both pursuit and achievement.
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    The Role of the County Emergency Manager in Disaster Mitigation
    (North Dakota State University, 2020) Savitt, Amanda
    Scholarship on disasters in the United States would suggest that emergency managers should play a role in hazard mitigation. Yet, little empirical research has investigated precisely what role or roles emergency managers actually do play during this phase. This study explored the role of county-level emergency managers in hazard mitigation and the factors that might influence those roles. Data for this study was collected through 42 in-depth, telephone interviews with county- level emergency managers in FEMA Regions III, V, and X, which includes the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Grounded theory was utilized in order to organize and analyze the data. The data suggests that emergency managers play several roles within mitigation: a generic role, a support role, an administrative role, a promoter role, a public educator role, and a planning role. These roles are explained by a number of factors, including conceptual confusion, response and preparedness orientation, financial resource factors, planning factors, additional resource factors, competition between mitigation and development, resistance to mitigation, and engagement in mitigation. It is also important to note that emergency managers spend only a small amount of their time in mitigation. The results of this study suggest that there is a gap between the theorized role and the actual role that emergency managers play within mitigation. Closing this gap will likely require additional resources for mitigation and county-level emergency management, as well as greater consistency in defining mitigation through policy and education.