The
Disaster Research Center proposes to make a quick-response
field
reconnaissance
trip for a preliminary study of the emergency response
to
the
May 5, 2003 series of tornadoes in Missouri and
Oklahoma. We intend
to
study the warning system, the response of the emergency
management
and
hospital systems to the storms, and the effects
of Project Impact on
the
ability of cities to mitigate the effects of the
storms.
The
Methods that will be employed will be ethnographic
observation and
informal
interviews with key personnel in the hospitals,
the city
administrations
involved with mitigation, and the emergency management
communities
(police, fire, emergency management agency), as
well as the
collection
of documents and local mass media accounts of the
disasters.
The
research addresses important goals of the NSF. It
will allow us the rare
opportunity
to go back to cities that DRC has studied in the
past with NSF
funding,
to test previous findings on warning systems, hospitals,
the
responses
of the emergency management communities, and the
effectiveness
of FEMA’s Project Impact.
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