Organizational Characteristics of A Disaster Call Center ;\ Study of Information Management
Abstract
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.