I. Helsloot

EvacuAid: A Probabilistic Model to Determine the Expected Loss of Life for Different Mass Evacuation Strategies During Flood Threats

Evacuation of people in case of a threat is a possible risk management strategy. Evacuation has the potential to save lives, but it can be costly with respect to time, money, and credibility. The consequences of an evacuation strategy depend on a combination of the time available, citizen response, authority response, and capacity of the infrastructure. The literature that discusses evacuations in case of flood risk management focuses, in most cases, only on a best-case strategy as a preventive evacuation and excludes other possible strategies. This article introduces a probabilistic method, EvacuAid, to determine the benefits of different types of evacuation with regards to loss of life. The method is applied for a case study in the Netherlands for preventive and vertical evacuation due to flood risk. The results illustrate the impact of uncertainties in available time and actual conditions (e.g., the responses of citizens and authorities and the use of infrastructure). It is concluded that preparation for evacuation requires adaptive planning that takes preventive and vertical evacuation into account, based on a risk management approach.

Time needed to evacuate the Netherlands in the event of large-scale flooding: strategies and consequences

On 30 May 2008, the Government of the Netherlands informed the national parliament about the effectiveness of preventive evacuation of coastal and river areas in case of flooding. Analysis of a case study showed that it is impossible to evacuate coastal areas preventively within a 48-hour time span preceding a worst credible scenario flood caused by a storm surge. This fact illustrates the need for alternative evacuation strategies, such as vertical evacuation (evacuating to safe havens, inside the flood zone) or shelter-in-place (hiding), to reduce loss of life and the impact of the evacuation. This paper defines these strategies and demonstrates, by returning to the case study used by the Dutch government, that they require different measures, methods of approach, and crisis management processes. In addition, it addresses the need for flexible and scalable preparation so that after detecting and understanding the threat, authorities and citizens can make decisions about different evacuation strategies.

Twitter: An Underutilized Potential during Sudden Crises?

The widespread use of Twitter by citizens during sudden crises has convinced communications experts that governments should also actively use Twitter during crises. However, this position seems insufficiently empirically validated. In this article, we want to provide empirical building blocks for an informed approach to the use of Twitter by the government. To this end, we analyze the tweets posted by citizens and governments about the large‐scale fire in Moerdijk (2011), the Netherlands. The results show that by far, most tweets do not contain any new and relevant information for governments and that the tweets posted by governments got buried under an avalanche of citizen tweets. We may conclude that the Moerdijk case does not give rise to advocate a (more) active role of governments on Twitter during sudden crises.

A Critical Examination of the Assumptions Regarding Centralized Coordination in Large-Scale Emergency Situations

Abstract Scientists have extensively debated the effectiveness of different emergency response management models, with a particular focus on the “command and control” versus “coordination” models. This debate, which focuses on centralized coordination at the tactical and strategic levels, assumes that the activity of frontline units within and between response organizations must be aligned and that it is possible to exercise control over frontline units. In this article, we discuss these assumptions and argue that researchers overestimate the degree to which frontline units can and should be centrally coordinated during the acute phase of emergency situations. Instead, we provide a mechanism in which coordination naturally emerges from the task at hand when frontline units follow a few simple decision rules. In addition, two managerial intervention strategies are presented that only may work in specific situations when frontline units are likely to misinterpret the environment in which they operate.

Risk Management in Higher Education and Research in the Netherlands

This study examines risk in higher education and research on the basis of a classification into three domains. The practical utility of this division into three domains is that it makes it easier to see what risks are unique to higher education (custodianship of knowledge), what risks are dependent on developments in society (microcosm of society) and what risks faced by an educational establishment are no different from those facing any other organization (education as an organization). The results of a survey of the field (through questionnaires, meetings and interviews) show that higher education institutions still do not routinely have an integrated policy on safety, security and crisis management. Within individual institutions, there is little communication between the three. Institutions, staff and students have limited awareness of the range of risks to which they and their environment are exposed. At the same time, establishments tend not to share their experiences in this field with others. Even within individual institutions, there is often little involvement of staff and students in safety and security policy and its implementation.

On the Need for a Paradigm Shift in the Dutch Command and Information System for the Acute Phase of Disasters

By and large, scientists agreed on what should be the output of a good command and information system in the acute phase of a disaster. The public needs fast and accurate information and fast ‘meaning‐making’ if they are to be as self‐reliant as possible and to be in the best possible position to cope with the shock of the disaster. Operational units need decentralized command and sometimes fast strategic decision‐making. Despite this, classical command and information systems such as the three‐tier system required by law in the Netherlands fail to deliver in this regard. We sketch an analytical framework which when applied to the Dutch system predicts its failure. We also present a different command and information system, already used in the Drenthe Safety Region, which satisfies the analytical framework. Early experience with the Drenthe system shows the potential of the new system but also shows that no system is better than the people in it.

On the Need for Quantifying Corporate Crises and Other Man-Made Disasters

On 23 March 2005 an explosion and the resulting fire in a BP oil refinery in Texas took the lives of 15 people, injured 170 others and caused damage worth billions of dollars. The already classic evaluation of this man-made disaster by an independent review panel, the so called Baker Report, starts by stating in the first line that ‘process safety accidents can be prevented’ (Baker Report, 2007). Looking at our industrial history, which is lined with corporate crises of all sizes, the question springs to mind ‘how can we be so sure that corporate crisis can be prevented?’; and should that not be ‘how can we be best prepared to control the effects of such crisis?’ The history of this journal is an illustration of the considerable progress in scholarly understanding of the causes of crises and disasters during the last 40 years or so, and of techniques for their avoidance and management. An important difference between the studies of natural disasters and man-made diasters should be noted. Studies of natural disasters generally consider them amenable to statistical analyses, and an important body of work has been developed that quantifies their frequency and consequences. By contrast studies involving man-made disasters have tended to treat them as isolated, if not unique, events. Most analyses have been case studies drawing out the root causes of the event, or outlines of best practice in crisis avoidance and management. It should therefore be acknowledged that our scientific base is currently weak. Grand master of the trade, Quarantelli, does exactly that in his epilogue of the book ‘What is a Disaster: New Answers to Old Questions’ (Perry and Quarantelli, 2005). He turns away from the academic question at hand, which he himself raised, and instead comes up with a 10 point list of future research topics. Second on that list is ‘in depth studies where the database is very weak’. The Need for a Quantitative Base

The Intractable Citizen and the Single-Minded Risk Expert – Mechanisms Causing the Risk Regulation Reflex Pointed Out in the Dutch Risk and Responsibility Programme

Safety regulations are too often disproportional in the sense that their costs outweigh the benefits. Although this is well known, years of trying to reduce safety related regulatory pressure has not resulted in much success. Two important causes for this have not received much attention up to now. One of these is a faulty perception of how the general public regards risk. We argue that the intractable citizen’s behaviour needs better understanding. The second cause is the single-mindedness of risk experts which calls for specific instruments to be harnessed.

A Preliminary Examination of Command and Control by Incident Commanders of Dutch Fire Services during Real Incidents

In this paper, we attempt to get a better understanding of command and control practices of incident commanders from Dutch fire services (battalion chiefs, BCs) by examining the recordings made by helmet‐mounted cameras during 55 real incidents. The aim is to examine the degree to which the BCs issued orders to front‐line workers and the degree to which these orders were carried out appropriately. The results indicate that incident commanders were able to influence the work at the front line, but were generally not in control of what happened at the front line.

Toward more insight into the tension between policy and practice regarding the police network function of community police officers in The Netherlands

According to formal police policy in the Netherlands, the police should focus on their core business, i.e. criminal investigation and maintaining public order. According to the same policy community police officers should thus participate in local security networks with two tasks: first, gathering relevant information from the network for the core police tasks, and second, making sure that tasks deemed to be non-core policing tasks are left to other network actors. In this article we examine how community police officers implement this policy and the extent to which their network function actually contributes to the core police tasks. Based on five weeks of participative research conducted in the Netherlands, we observed that the network function did not contribute demonstrably to core police tasks, although it did contribute to quality of life and the local security in the neighbourhood. This can be partly explained by network theories that suggest that community police officers also have to ‘give’ in order to ‘get’ information and support. We conclude that neighbourhoods benefit from community police officers with a broad networking remit, at the same time moving away from the illusion that perceived non-primary policing tasks can thus be left to other parties.