Emergency planning and management

Hospitals are complex facilities and effectively small communities, housing many different functions and people to cater for the medical and mental health needs of a range of patients and their well-being and recovery. There are many issues associated with the design of hospitals and fire safety is but one, albeit an important one

Abstract—Emergency situation required fast and accurate decision as every decision is very critical to save human lives. Naturally, during this situation humans made decision based on their past experiences by which their nerves and brain system will perceive the situation and mapped with their experiences to produce action. This naturalistic decision making approach has been one of the attention in emergency management research. In this paper a conceptual model of Intelligent Decision Support System for reservoir operation during ...

The economic and social impacts of natural disasters are increasing throughout the world, particularly in developing countries. Essential economic and social developments are repeatedly experiencing setbacks due to the effects of large scale, or series of smaller scale natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes and typhoons, and earthquakes. This is despite the increased knowledge about these events and better technology to mitigate their effects. More effort appears to have been devoted to research into the effects of flooding of domestic properties, despite the fact that businesses provide the basis for economic stability and growth (Tierney, 1995) (Dahlhamer and Tierney, 1998, Webb et al., 2000, Rodriguez et al., 2006).
Direct effects of flooding on business premises can range from mild to catastrophic. Where buildings are penetrated by flood water there is likely to be significant damage and commercial/industrial processes could be compromised. Particular concerns include loss of essential equipment (expedient replacement of which can frequently be impossible), loss of data, loss of operations in the period to remediation, and significantly the effect of failure to meet contracts or the needs of clients. This latter issue often resulting in long term lost business opportunities as clients engage alternative suppliers. Very often therefore the immediate cost of physical damage to business infrastructure (buildings, plant, machines and systems) can be small in relation to the broader damage sustained as a result of lost turn-over. Businesses can be made more resilient to indirect or direct flood damage (including through the use of flood protection measures or back-up utility systems), but economic appraisal of such measures can be difficult as there is little data or established methodology.
The focus of this chapter is on identifying the vulnerabilities that lead to damage to commercial and industrial activities and on using this information to examine what is needed to improve resilience to flooding events in the business sector. In detail, observed direct and indirect damages are analysed according to a forensic approach. Particular care is put on analysing indirect damage, as well as damage to infrastructure, as it is often the case that business activities suffer damages because of the disruption of essential services.
This chapter will aid an understanding of:
• the nature of forensic analysis when applied to flood events
• the data required for forensic analysis
• example of forensic analysis of flood event through and example of the procedure
• business vulnerability to natural disasters
• the use of forensic analysis for business continuity measures

On September 2013 an attack on the Westgate mall in Kenya led to a four day siege, resulting in 67 fatalities and 175 wounded. During the crisis, Twitter became a crucial channel of communication between the government, emergency responders and the public, facilitating the emergency management of the event. The objectives of this paper are to present the main activities, use patterns and lessons learned from the use of the social media in the crisis. Using TwitterMate, a system developed to collect, store and analyze tweets, the main hashtags generated by the crowd and specific Twitter accounts of individuals, emergency responders and NGOs, were followed throughout the four day siege. A total of 67,849 tweets were collected and analyzed. Four main categories of hashtags were identified: geographical locations, terror attack, social support and organizations. The abundance of Twitter accounts providing official information made it difficult to synchronize and follow the flow of information. Many organizations posted simultaneously, by their manager and by the organization itself. Creating situational awareness was facilitated by information tweeted by the public. Threat assessment was updated through the information posted on social media. Security breaches led to the relay of sensitive data. At times, misinformation was only corrected after two days. Social media offer an accessible, widely available means for a bi-directional flow of information between the public and the authorities. In the crisis, all emergency responders used and leveraged social media networks for communicating both with the public and among themselves. A standard operating procedure should be developed to enable multiple responders to monitor, synchronize and integrate their social media feeds during emergencies. This will lead to better utilization and optimization of social media resources during crises, providing clear guidelines for communications and a hierarchy for dispersing information to the public and among responding organizations.

В статье описываются текущие исследования по оптимизации взаимодействий челове- ка с компьютером для применения в сценариях планирования и поддержки решений при чрезвычайных ситуациях. Целью исследований является проверка возможности использова- ния недорогой системы слежения за движениями глаз с открытым программным обеспече- нием в процессах интерпретации геопространственных изображений. Описываемый в статье проект имеет также образовательный компонент

On September 2013 an attack on the Westgate mall in Kenya led to a four day siege, resulting in 67 fatalities and 175 wounded. During the crisis, Twitter became a crucial channel of communication between the government, emergency responders and the public, facilitating the emergency management of the event. The objectives of this paper are to present the main activities, use patterns and lessons learned from the use of the social media in the crisis. Using TwitterMate, a system developed to collect, store and analyze tweets, the main hashtags generated by the crowd and specific Twitter accounts of individuals, emergency responders and NGOs, were followed throughout the four day siege. A total of 67,849 tweets were collected and analyzed. Four main categories of hashtags were identified: geographical locations, terror attack, social support and organizations. The abundance of Twitter accounts providing official information made it difficult to synchronize and follow the flow of infor...

Cartography during emergencies takes an incredibly
strategic value of fundamental importance
for saving lives. But after is then forgotten without
implement what is classically defined benefit in
peacetime to be ready in time of war. The reflections
in this paper are derived from some of the
experiences accumulated in the field in urgent
technical rescue in emergency events that have
allowed us to highlight the important role that
geomatics plays in such situations.