Modeling and simulating command and control for disaster response

Abstract

Crisis management is critical in large-scale disaster situations. In a disaster situation, crisis management includes various operations, such as relaying relief resources to demanding places and organizations, providing basic support to evacuees, and starting recovery operations. These operations are not the purview of a single government organization but fall under the category of interorganizational cooperation. In spite of the importance of this cooperation, recent disasters (the Japanese tsunami, Hurricane Katrina) revealed inefficient and unorganized organizational dynamics. Hence, this case study models and simulates the intra- and inter-organizational dynamics of relief organizations in Hurricane Katrina. Particularly, we evaluate the model behavior from the network-centric operational perspective, which is a prevalent concept for developing agile organizations in crisis situations. Through the simulation, the network-centric operation measures clearly describe the limitations in interorganizational cooperation; for instance, the tardy resource delay even with the increasing number of cooperation links among organizations, the limited shared situation awareness, and the failure to synchronize action.