During disaster response operations, first responders are often confronted with unfamiliar and often hostile work environments such as large and distributed areas, unpredictable and dynamic work demand and work under high time pressure and stressful situations. Disaster response under such adverse conditions has often been inadequate (McKinsey, 2002; NCSEA, 2003). Various limitations of existing disaster response operations as cited in the literature are summarized in Figure 1. Many shortcomings of the existing disaster response operation result from the fact that first responders at individual, team, and organizational levels are unable to develop a depth of understanding of the situation that would allow them to make comprehensive decisions and respond in a holistically appropriate manner (Son and Pena-Mora, 2006). Responders operating in inhospitable and chaotic disaster environments need answers to questions like where am I? What do we know about the scene? What hazards exist? Where are other responders located? Where are the victims? (Betts et al., 2005). Without adequate answers to such questions and overall awareness of the Situation, disaster responders run the risk of becoming casualties themselves because they do not know enough about the incident scene when they arrive (NAP, 2006). However, current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimizing damage and returning the building to its normal function. Recent disaster events have shown that existing disaster response procedures that rely primarily on heuristics result in a response that is often too general and not adapted to the specific situation. “For instance, when a major incident, such as a significant earthquake, occurs, predetermined, static plans are usually brought into operation and any flexibility of response is limited by the ability and competence of those at the scene of the incident to gather relevant data and make appropriate judgments” (Aziz et al., 2004). The gap resulting from demands imposed by inter-dependent urban environments and existing independent and static approaches to disaster response, result in communication and collaboration problems, negative impact on work-flows, low productivity, economic and human losses. Similarly, when assessment of the disaster situation is carried out, it is generally done independently by a number of individual organizations. Often each agency limits its assessment to those observations of direct consequence to that particular organization without sharing or pooling such information. Thus, an overall picture of the scope, severity, and types of disruption and damage does not emerge early in the crisis, affecting the overall response process. Against this background, this paper argues that the theoretical construct of situation awareness (SA) (Endsley and Garland, 2000) can be effectively applied to existing disaster response operations to contrive how to improve them, and to better understand the process of responders’ reaction against complex and
dynamic situations.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the concept of situation awareness in current disaster response situations and its various sources.
During disaster response operations, first responders are often confronted with unfamiliar and often hostile work environments such as large and distributed areas, unpredictable and dynamic work demand and work under high time pressure and stressful situations. Disaster response under such adverse conditions has often been inadequate (McKinsey, 2002; NCSEA, 2003). Various limitations of existing disaster response operations as cited in the literature are summarized in Figure 1. Many shortcomings of the existing disaster response operation result from the fact that first responders at individual, team, and organizational levels are unable to develop a depth of understanding of the situation that would allow them to make comprehensive decisions and respond in a holistically appropriate manner (Son and Pena-Mora, 2006). Responders operating in inhospitable and chaotic disaster environments need answers to questions like where am I? What do we know about the scene? What hazards exist? Where are other responders located? Where are the victims? (Betts et al., 2005). Without adequate answers to such questions and overall awareness of the Situation, disaster responders run the risk of becoming casualties themselves because they do not know enough about the incident scene when they arrive (NAP, 2006). However, current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimizing damage and returning the building to its normal function. Recent disaster events have shown that existing disaster response procedures that rely primarily on heuristics result in a response that is often too general and not adapted to the specific situation. “For instance, when a major incident, such as a significant earthquake, occurs, predetermined, static plans are usually brought into operation and any flexibility of response is limited by the ability and competence of those at the scene of the incident to gather relevant data and make appropriate judgments” (Aziz et al., 2004). The gap resulting from demands imposed by inter-dependent urban environments and existing independent and static approaches to disaster response, result in communication and collaboration problems, negative impact on work-flows, low productivity, economic and human losses. Similarly, when assessment of the disaster situation is carried out, it is generally done independently by a number of individual organizations. Often each agency limits its assessment to those observations of direct consequence to that particular organization without sharing or pooling such information. Thus, an overall picture of the scope, severity, and types of disruption and damage does not emerge early in the crisis, affecting the overall response process. Against this background, this paper argues that the theoretical construct of situation awareness (SA) (Endsley and Garland, 2000) can be effectively applied to existing disaster response operations to contrive how to improve them, and to better understand the process of responders’ reaction against complex anddynamic situations.The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the concept of situation awareness in current disaster response situations and its various sources.
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