It’s been nearly 11 years since the tragedy of 9/11 in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. In that time, remarkable work has been done relative to counter terrorism. But we’re still in the midst of evolution relative to the emergency planning and evacuation process. This is an area where significant growth is possible.
We know that computer-aided decision-support tools are core components of the emergency planning and management process today. We use that technology to gather and analyze data on damage assessment, meteorology, demography, and provide decision support for prevention/mitigation, response and recovery.
Complexities arise when attempting to link several streams of technology to achieve a realistic, usable and reliable decision-support tool. This is an issue that goes beyond the software specifically, and targets the data, and collaborative formats for data. One of the more interesting opportunities is to create collaborative relationships, notably in the areas of disaster readiness and evacuation planning. This may seem far off at present, but witin just a few years, we’ll be pre-modeling how evacuation and disaster preparedness will evolve in real time.
