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Item Emergencies, Crises and Disasters in Hospitals(Disaster Research Center, 2002) Aguirre, B. E.; Kendra, James; Connell, RoryThis paper uses information from 76 participants in 13 focus groups in acute-care hospital organizations in California, Tennessee, and New York, to offer a model of rapid social change in hospitals. It find that hospitals, to ensure health service delivery in a variety of often rapidly changing and turbulent environments, engage in constant improvement and planning, programming, and collective mindfulness of current and future troubles. Hospitals do not differentiate operationally between emergencies, crises and disasters and do not have an objective set of criteria to invoke their disaster plan, but instead rely on staff's subjective evaluations of the actual and/or potential impact of hazards and/or other occasions on their operations; the likely effects of these occasions and conditions on the hospital's ability to continue to care for its patients optimally; the extent to which staff has confidence in its predictions; and the degree of preparedness and planning for these occasions. Community disasters are not necessarily hospital disasters, and the reverse is also the case. The implications of these findings for an institutional conceptualization of disasters are discussed.Item Household Residential Decision-making in the Wake of Disaster: Report of Results Prepared for Sea Bright Residents(Disaster Research Center, 2015-07) McNeil, Sue; Trainor, Joseph; Greer, Alex; Mininger, KelseyThis report presents the findings of a questionnaire mailed to Sea Bright residents during the summer of 2014 focusing on housing damage, decisions, and repair following Hurricane Sandy. Researchers at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware worked together with the Borough of Sea Bright to complete this study. As researchers, we were interested in exploring both the condition of the housing stock and the different elements that influenced how Sea Brighters decided where to live after Sandy. Little research exists to help explain how households decide where to live after a disaster. Getting better information about how people here made and are making these decisions is important both for this community and for communities that will face these kinds of disaster in the future. We hope that this information will lead to better policies and programs that improve the disaster recovery process.Item Household Residential Decision-making in the Wake of Disaster: Report of Results Prepared for Oakwood Beach Residents(Disaster Research Center, 2015-07) McNeil, Sue; Trainor, Joseph; Greer, Alex; Mininger, KelseyThis report presents the findings of a questionnaire mailed to Oakwood Beach residents during the summer of 2014 focusing on housing damage, decisions, and repair following Hurricane Sandy. Researchers from the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware worked to complete this study. As researchers, we were interested in exploring the different elements that influenced how residents decided where to live after Sandy. Little research exists to help explain how households decide where to live after a disaster. Getting better information about how people here made and are making these decisions is important both for this community and for communities that will face these kinds of disaster in the future. We hope that this information will lead to better policies and programs that improve the disaster recovery process.Item Reporting for Duty? A Synthesis of Research on Role Conflict, Strain, and Abandonment Among Emergency Responders during Disasters and Catastrophes(Disaster Research Center, 2011) Trainor, Joseph; Barsky, LaurenThe aim of the following report is to provide a systematic and scientific analysis of research on whether or not emergency responders will be willing to report for duty in the case of a catastrophic disaster. Through the report we focus on the prevalence of three of the key issues employees might face during a particularly serious event including: role conflict, role strain and role abandonment. In the discussion that follows, we summarize findings and conclusions from over one hundred reports, articles, documents, and analyses related to these issues. The research is not easy to decipher given the variety of different hazards, methodologies, and foci that researchers have. After careful consideration however; it is possible to draw several conclusions on which we provide more detail in the report‟s body.Item Assessing Community-scale Damage, Disruption, and Early Recovery in Post-earthquake Haiti(Disaster Research Center, 2010) Adams, Beverley; Amyx, Paul; Bevington, John; Brink, Susan; Chang, Stephanie; Davidson, Rachel; Eguchi, Ronald; Hill, Arleen; Honey, Matthew; Mills, Robin; Panjwani, Dilnoor; Pyatt, SarahThis report describes research on community-scale damage and disruption in Haiti after the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake. Data collection was undertaken with support from the National Science Foundation through RAPID grant no. CMMI-1034876. The project had three specific objectives: (1) to gather perishable data on physical damage and disruption, (2) to document and analyze post-earthquake disruption, including its relationship to damage, and (3) to test a new tool and measurement scale for documenting disruption.Item Uncovering Community Disruption Using Remote Sensing: An Assessment of Early Recovery in Post-earthquake Haiti(Disaster Research Center, 2010) Bevington, John; Pyatt, Sarah; Hill, Arleen; Honey, Matthew; Adams, Beverley; Davidson, Rachel; Brink, Susan; Chang, Stephanie; Panjwani, Dilnoor; Mills, Robin; Amyx, Paul; Eguchi, RonThis work is part of an exploratory study that seeks to describe the levels of community-scale building damage and socio-economic disruption following the January 2010 Haiti earthquake. Damage and disruption were analyzed for pre-event, post-event, and early recovery time periods in seven Haitian communities. Specifically here, remote sensing analysis related to early recovery and a remote sensing-based early recovery scale are presented. Damage datasets from the GEO-CAN post-disaster assessment were combined with analyses of fine resolution satellite imagery, captured 4 months after the earthquake, to quantify the early recovery status of damaged buildings. Disruption was established from community-level interviews conducted in May 2010. Preliminary results show little correlation between disruption and physical damage, although the integration of remote sensing, field data, interviews and community meetings was a successful approach for assessing disruption. Remote sensing was seen to be an effective tool in establishing levels of early recovery and supporting cross-community comparisons.Item Strengthening Flood Management Through US-Dutch Cooperation: Learning from a Large Scale Flood Exercise in the Netherlands - Part II: Findings(Disaster Research Center, 2009) Rosenthal, Uri; Engel, Karen; Zannoni, Marco; McNeil, Sue; Trainor, Joseph; Harrald, John R.; Shaw, GregIn the light of increasing cooperation between the United States (US) and the Netherlands, particularly between knowledge institutes, the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Water Management in the Netherlands requested COT Institute for Safety, Security, and Crisis Management (COT), to initiate research with a number of US disaster research institutes. COT took this challenge and developed the research project Learning from a large scale flood exercise in the Netherlands. The primary objective of this research project is to enhance knowledge in the Netherlands of strategies to effectively deal with (possible) floods by exchanging knowledge regarding key processes, best practices, and complexities of flood disaster management and identify areas, within this field, that necessitate additional research. Against this background representatives from two US institutions, Disaster Research Center (DRC) at University of Delaware and the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University, provided a US perspective. The objective of the exploratory project was to develop background knowledge for, participate as observers in, and derive lessons learned from the Dutch flood-exercise week “Waterproef”, organized by the Flood Management Taskforce (TMO, Taskforce Management Overstromingen) in November 2008. In this report we present the findings of the project.Item Strengthening Flood Management Through US-Dutch Cooperation: Learning from a Large Scale Flood Exercise in the Netherlands - Part II: Process Report(Disaster Research Center, 2009) Rosenthal, Uri; Engel, Karen; Zannoni, Marco; Ebbinkhuijsen, Sanne; McNeil, Sue; Trainor, JosephIn response to a request from the Directorate General of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Water Management in the Netherlands to COT a network of institutions with expertise in emergency management, risk and disasters was initiated in September 2008. Representatives from two US institutions, Disaster Research Center (DRC) at University of Delaware and the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University, provided a US perspective. The objective of the collaboration was to develop background knowledge for, participate as observers in, and derive lessons learned from the Dutch flood-exercise week “Waterproef”, organized by the Flood Management Taskforce (TMO, Taskforce Management Overstromingen) in November 2008. COT served as the coordinating institution. This report is part II of a larger report. Part I of the reports focuses on the outcome of the project. In part I the observations are presented based on papers, interviews, refection meetings and the expert meeting. Part II gives a brief overview of the various activities in this project. This includes a description of the activities during the Waterproef week (November 3-7) in addition to a number of observations that were discussed throughout different ‘reflection’ meetings. It must be noted here that the issues raised are not part of an evaluation. The issues raised are a number of observations that were discussed; the issues raised are first impressions. This second part of the report also includes the papers that were written during this project. Furthermore, we need to express that this report is confidential and should be treated as such.Item Working with HAZUS-MH(Disaster Research Center, 2009-09-01) Croope, Silvana V.This working paper serves as background research for the PhD dissertation titled “Managing Critical Civil Infrastructure Systems for Disaster Resilience: A Challenge.” The overall objective of this research is to develop a Decision Support System to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure. This involves the exploration of the potential impacts of natural disasters on infrastructure operation and management. This includes understanding the nature of operations and management, the data and tools to support decision making and an analysis of the consequences of failure or degraded operations and performance. This also includes the use of existing computational systems to develop a geographical context, civil infrastructure systems analysis, asset management systems, and insights into mitigation strategies to development the system. The model, referred to as the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Decision Support System (CIR ]DSS), used the concept of resilience to support infrastructure decision making using Systems Dynamics.Item A Brief Summary of Social Science Warning and Response Literature: A Report to COT Netherlands(Disaster Research Center, 2008) Trainor, Joseph; McNeil, SueFor more than five decades, researchers have explored the dynamics of warnings and warning response in the disaster context. This report is intended to briefly summarize findings related to this topic. The ultimate goal is to provide a basic understanding of how social science research related to warnings and evacuations might inform policy makers and emergency managers. Before we begin discussing the details of warning messages, the first and most important issue for readers to note is that the decision making processes of most evacuees and even non-evacuees are rational and calculated. Contrary to media depictions and other’s perceptions of the public that suggest animal-like, irrational, or antisocial behavior it is important that we begin this discussion knowing that people typically “rise to the occasion” during disasters. Although it would be wrong to suggest that people never make irrational decisions it is important that we begin this summary by recognizing that when we look at the broad patterns of human behavior documented through scientific/empirical studies, people who are experiencing a disaster far more often than not act in very rational and predictable ways. This finding above all others holds true in social science research. It is important to recognize this truth because it allows policy makers and emergency managers to move beyond the notion that the problem with warning and response is “getting people to be rational and do what we say” and instead allows us to move towards understanding “how can we change our approach so that it takes into account how people process warning information. While the difference may seem subtle, in practice it is quite important. The first sees overcoming irrationality as the problem while the second sees the institutional/organizational approach to warning as the problem.Item A Brief Summary of Search and Rescue Literature: A Report to COT Netherlands(Disaster Research Center, 2008) Trainor, Joseph; Aguirre, Benigno E.; McNeil, SueThe accumulated of research on search and rescue (SAR) allows us to identify repeating patterns that should be considered in the development of an effective plan for national emergency response: (1) SAR is not simply an organizational activity, it necessarily includes the social and collective behavior of volunteers; (2) Preexisting and emergent organizations, social statuses and social identities, such as neighborhood and work place relationships and family and neighborhood social identities, serve as a basis for the emergence of new SAR groups and constitute the fundamental concepts and categories that are needed to understand and improve SAR activities; (3) SAR activities do not emerge from a vacuum; as an example of the principle of continuity advocated by Quarantelli and Dynes (1977), there are always elements of the traditional social structure embedded within collective behavior entities, and their emergent division of labor, role structure, and activities are also dependent on prior social relationships and forms of social organization in the community or region; (4) Breakdown models of social organizational patterns in disaster are not useful to understand SAR. Television reports and misinformed reporters often misinterpret throngs of people moving seemingly at random at the sites destroyed by various hazards, and assume that the people were disoriented immediately after impact and had lost their ability to enact social roles. Despite these reports, scientific research shows the absence of widespread confusion, lack of coordination, and panic (Aguirre, 2005). The seeming disorganization and aimless movement of people is the result of their individual and collective acts as they try to accomplish multiple individual and collective goals under severe time constraints (c.f. Fritz & Mathewson, 1957). Creative problem-solving and rationality is a more accurate way of understanding their actions (Aroni & Durkin, n.d., p. 30). In short search and rescue (SAR) activities are part of the complex emergency response system that emerges in response to disasters.Item Annotated Bibliography on Fire Science(Disaster Research Center, 2007) Torres, Manuel; Barsky, Lauren; Aguirre, Benigno E.; Poteyeva, RitaThis annotated bibliography is a product of the Disaster Research Center’s ongoing study of search and rescue (S&R) activity in fires which uses the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data collected by the United States Fire Administration (USFA) to model fire injury and death. It was compiled as part of our examination of civilian death and injury due to structural fires. It focuses on such areas as structural collapse, civilian injury and mortality, firefighter injury and death, causes of fires, behaviors related to injury and death, and the process of search and rescue in fires. It presents a synthesis of several key areas of interest within the emerging discipline. While it is not an exhaustive bibliography representative of all areas of study, it provides an initial overview of several key areas and could serve as a starting point to research. Available findings from various studies could be compared to replicate and augment existing knowledge, as well to develop theories on the effects of the presence of S&R on morbidity and on the causes of civilian injury and mortality.Item Social Scientific Insights on Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies(Disaster Research Center, 2008) Trainor, Joseph; Aguirre, Benigno E.; Barnshaw, JohnIt is common for governmental agencies to plan for emergencies. It’s human nature that we want to reduce our exposure to the dangers around us. While risk reduction happens at many levels (e.g. individual, family, organizational, community, and state) government agencies play a key role in ensuring the safety and security of the citizenry. The Delaware Health and Social Services agency (DHSS) is no different. With a mission to: "improve the quality of life for Delaware's citizens by promoting health and well-being, fostering self-sufficiency, and protecting vulnerable populations," disaster response neatly falls into the agencies prevue. Equally important, the agency strives to be a self-correcting organization working to retool and keep pace with changing client needs and a changing service delivery environment. Such a vision requires informed decision-making. As a result the Division of Public Health’s Disaster preparedness section contracted the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware to produce a document that provides sound knowledge from evidence based assessments of planning and response to public health emergencies. The goal of this effort is to maximize the ability of DE officials to prevent, avoid, respond, and recover from major public health emergencies through a review of the evidence based research related to this topic. This report will cover a number of issues, but it focuses most directly on social science insights that can be of value to planning and response processes. Pursuing to contract specifications, this report consists of three parts. The first part presents some of the most important research themes in disaster science. The second part presents an annotated bibliography of public health and disaster. The third part provides answers to a series of questions Division of Public officials asked DRC to answer. The first two sections are based on research findings. In the final section we provide our expert opinions based on scientific knowledge, but not in every instance drawn exclusively from research findings.Item Disaster Decision Support Tool (DDST): An Additional Step Towards Community Resilience(Disaster Research Center, 2008) Santos-Hernandez, Jenniffer; Rodriguez, Havidan; Diaz, WalterThe Disaster Research Center (DRC) at the University of Delaware (UD), with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of Puerto-Rico-Mayagüez Sea Grant College Program (UPRSGCP), and in collaboration with the Center for Applied Social Research (CISA-UPRM), the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), the University of Delaware Research and Data Management Services (RDMS), and the Ceenter for Coastal Hazards (CCH-UPRM) are pilot testing a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based mapping tool. The Puerto Rico Disaster Decision Support Tool (DDST) is an Internet-based scalable mapping server for disaster planners, responders, and related officials at the municipal, emergency management, and state level. DDST offers access to a variety of geo-referenced information for all municipalities in Puerto Rico. The purpose of this manual is to provide an overview of the general capabilities of the DDST as a way to facilitate the use of the tool.Item Panic Bibliography(Disaster Research Center, 2007) DRC StaffThis DRC Miscellaneous Report is a bibliographic list of documents contained in the E. L. Quarantelli Resource Collection of the Disaster Research Center which pertain to the general subject area of panic. The list was printed from the Resource Collection electronic catalog on July 9, 2007. Where available, the list includes abstracts, tables of contents, and other relevant notes which may help the reader to determine the usefulness of any given resource. Although this is not a comprehensive list of all material related to panic, it may serve as a functional starting point for gathering literature on and for conducting further study of the topic.Item Research Priorities in Emergency Preparedness and Response for Public Health Systems: A Letter Report(National Academies Press, 2008) Altevogt, Bruce M.; Pope, Andrew M.; Hill, Martha N.; Shine, Kenneth I.The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Research Priorities in Emergency Preparedness and Response for Public Health Systems reports its conclusions and recommendations based on consideration of areas of interest specifically articulated in the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC's) "Advancing the Nation's Health: A Guide for Public Health Research Needs, 2006-2015." As requested,the report delineates a set of near-term research priorities for emergency preparedness and response in public health and related fields.Item Disaster Realities in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Revisiting the Looting Myth(Disaster Research Center, 2006) Barsky, Lauren; Trainor, Joseph; Torres, ManuelItem Social Science Research: Priority Areas for the National Plan for Research and Development(Disaster Research Center, 2005) Rodriguez, Havidan; Nigg, Joanne; Wachtendorf, TriciaItem The Disaster Research Center And Its Activities(Disaster Research Center, 1991) Quarantelli, E. L.Item Disaster Recovery: Comments On The Literature And A Mostly Annotated Bibliography*(Disaster Research Center, 1989) Quarantelli, E. L.
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