Emergency Management

Posted: January 6th, 2014

The Final Paper for this course will be based on a contemporary disaster event that will afford the class an opportunity to discuss at length many of the emergency management related technological issues and problems discussed throughout the term. In particular, students will be asked to consider and discuss the following key areas:

The technology in place prior to the disaster event (who, what, when, where, why)

How the technology was utlized both before, during, and after the event

Who were the decision-makers: how did they communicate and collaborate with various stakeholders?

The quality of decisions made by all levels of government and the private sector in light of the various technological systems and data available

The consequences of those decisions, both short and long-term, to both government and the private sector

Lessons learned: including what worked and didn’t work, why, and recommendations to avoid the same problems from occurring in the future

The case study that will be used for this assignment will be the New Orleans Picayune 5-part special report entitiled “Washing Away.” This report can be accessed at: http://www.nola.com/washingaway/index.html