May 2014 Online EditionIAEM Bulletin

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Advancing the Future of Disaster Technologyduring the Joint Interagency Field Exploration

By Mary Jo Flynn, MS, CEM, and Brandon Greenberg, MPA, CEM

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From the IAEM-USA Emerging Technology Caucus1

1 This article was provided and peer-reviewed by the IAEM-USA Emerg-ing Technology Caucus.

High impact and highvisibility disasters haverevealed the increasing

proliferation and widespread use ofmobile devices, social media,photos, videos, and other sensorydata and channels as informationsources. This information can behelpful in planning for, respondingto, and recovering from disastersand emergencies. However, theamount and speed of availableinformation, in addition to aninability to quickly identify, aggre-gate, verify, coordinate, andcontextualize information gleanedfrom social media, leaves data oftenunused and unactionable.

Quarterly JIFX AddressesComplex Challenges in

Homeland Defense

To address technology gapsacross a variety of disciplines(including information sharing), theDepartment of Homeland SecurityScience and Technology Directorate,in partnership with the Office of theSecretary of Defense and the NavalPostgraduate School, hosts the JointInteragency Field Exploration (JIFX).Each quarter, JIFX participantsutilize different methods of interac-tion, all of which focus on end-userinput, which reflects and address themost complex challenges identifiedby those directly engaged in home-land defense and security.

JIFX 2014-2, held Feb. 10-13 atCamp Roberts, California, offeredparticipants an opportunity to

participate inan experimentlooking at theusefulness ofsocial mediaand data toaddress agencymissionobjectives andpre-existinginformationrequirementsto achieveenhancedsituationalawareness anddecision support.

Exercise Participants

Taking part in the three-dayevent were members of the DHSVirtual Social Media Working Group,including individuals from Anaheim,Emergency Management; SanFrancisco Department of EmergencyManagement; Johnson County (Kan.)Sheriff; New York City Office ofEmergency Management; TheGeorge Washington University;Wright State University; HumanityRoad; U.S. Health & Human Ser-vices; U.S. Northern Command; theNational Guard; and many others.They tested how useful informationgleaned from social media sourcescould have been during HurricaneSandy, if it had been easily available.

Several technology companiesparticipated as well, offering theirtools for the purposes of testing howto identify, leverage, integrate, andvisualize social media and othertypes of data within an operationalenvironment.

Scenario

The scenario was based onactual data collected during Hurri-cane Sandy, and included several“moves” that spanned the pre-event, onset and response, andrecovery phases of the incident andincluded weather conditions, stormeffects on Critical Infrastructure andKey Resources (CIKR), ongoingresponse efforts, population actions,and social media.

Practitioners and technologistsworked together to identify whattype of information, if any, could beleveraged from additional sources toinform emergency response deci-sion-making during the event. Thegroup focused on specific informa-tion needs from within these variousareas, specifically focusing onmission requirements; applicablekeywords; potential thresholds toassist with prioritization of availableinformation; the essential elementsof the information needed; and

Participants in JIFX 2014-2, Feb. 10-13, 2014, Camp Roberts,California.

May 2014 Online EditionIAEM Bulletin

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Future of Disaster Technology

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technical specifics (e.g. detail,format, update frequency, visualiza-tion method, etc.).

As the exercise progressed,participants concluded that theavailable data, which had beenstripped of personally identifiableinformation (PII), was not detailedenough to produce a clear picture ofevents as they unfolded. Difficultiesarose as well. In the discussionsbetween the technologists and theparticipants (end-users) regardingthe specific objectives, requirementsand applications of the availabletechnologies, it became apparentthat there was a significant discon-nect in concept, meaning andterminology that must be addressedin order to support future technol-ogy development.

Since the exercise plan wasalready built around a stormscenario, the group decided toswitch to an actual incident – theNor’easter poised to hit Atlanta,Georgia, and the East Coast on Feb.12-13. The exercise was modified toallow all technologists to performwork in teams, while subject matterexperts provided information ondata needs for decision-making andappropriate visualizations. Subjectmatter experts provided a real-world link to actual impactedcommunities through HumanityRoad, which officially activated tosupport response to the event, andthrough other connections estab-lished during the exercise.

Lessons Learned

The transition to a live scenarioproved informative as technologistsattempted adjust their solutions tothe needs of emergency managersin real-time. One key finding wasthat technologies need to focus on

(1) anomaly and change-detection,and then (2) enable the decisionmakers to inquire further aboutother potential impacts or why sucha change or event is takingplace. Another key finding was thatwhile an automated search mayhelp to build situational awareness,full accounts are still best made bythe experts, who can contextualizeinformation better and faster thaninformation systems. Despitedecisions still being made by anindividual, the technologies demon-strated at the JIFX provided signifi-cantly greater insight into situ-ational awareness when integratedwith other data sources and tech-nologies.

Participants identified severaladditional lessons learned, including:

The need to identify informa-tion requirements, both individuallyand in “packages” (e.g. groups ofinformation that, together, satisfyvarious questions).

There is a need for bettercategorization and discoverability ofavailable data to ensure potentialresources are identified prior to anevent.

Mission objectives must be pre-identified and defined to align withtechnical requirements to ensuretechnology is leveraged effectively.

Establishment of baselinemonitoring capabilities will be usefulin determining the occurrence ofevents or anomaly detection.

While automation of analysiswill help in minimizing the time

required to identify useful informa-tion, manual input and/or consider-ation will help to ensure the veracityand applicability of found informa-tion.

Definition of relationshipsbetween multiple informationsources, including cascading effectsand additional information require-ments, will assist in furthercontextualizing information as itrelates to the operational environ-ment at hand.

Due to the volume of dataavailable, filtering queries as definedby pre-existing mission and informa-tion objectives may prove moreuseful than filtering all results.

Conclusion

The shift from scenario to liveevent clearly demonstrated a needfor real-time analysis of technologiesto accurately determine the useful-ness of tools. Additionally, theremoval of all PII presented achallenge to government agenciesneeding crucial life-saving informa-tion. Additional consideration isnecessary in order to best identifyhow to move forward in trendanalysis, ensuring information that isaccessible – whether limited byvarious policies and legal consider-ations – is used efficiently andeffectively.

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