Levels of Information Sharing
Decision makers within an emergency operations center wish to access and share information that ranges from highly sensitive data to very public data. However, physically being able to share information is not enough. Decision makers also need to have the context about what has “happened” to effectively navigate, review, and share highly dynamic status information. WebOSB allows users to have a better understanding of the context and content of status information by providing:
- Summary display of a list all of the status boards associated with a specific hazard within a single emergency operations center and across multiple emergency operations centers.
- Visual identification of which status boards within an emergency operations center have been updated—including a timestamp of when the last update occurred.
- Visual identification of which specific record(s) within an on open status board has been updated including a timestamp of when the last update occurred.
As we are all aware, a single emergency operations center may need to support many of the different type of hazards and emergency support functional annexes identified in the National Response Plan. Many status boards (such as radiological decontamination or hazardous material containment) are unique to a specific type of hazard. Status boards used to share information about specific emergency support functions are applicable across multiple hazards. WebOSB allows a local administrator to define the context for sharing status information within a single hazard or across multiple hazards. As a multi-jurisdictional system, WebOSB also provides the context for sharing status information between multiple emergency operations centers. Below are real-world examples of the different information sharing levels supported by WebOSB.
Containing Status Information in a Single Hazard
An emergency operations center may support many different types of hazards. For example the emergency operations center in Benton County, Washington needs to support the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP), potential radiological emergencies because of their proximity to the Northwest Power Supply System, terrorist actions because of their proximity to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site, as well as the more generic hazards such as fire, flood, and Hazmat. The CSEPP community and DOE may not want to share all of their status boards with the rest of the emergency management community. Some status boards are very specific and secure. Emergency responders working a fire or flood are not interested in seeing either of the chemical or radiological decontamination status boards that are specific to the CSEPP or radiological hazards. By default, WebOSB identifies each status board in a hazard-specific status board.
Sharing Design Across Hazards
It is often appropriate to share the design of a status board across multiple hazards. For example, the structure and layout of a preliminary damage assessment status board is applicable to fire, flood, CSEPP, and radiological hazards. The design should be shared to provide consistency for damage assessment teams—no matter what the hazard. However, the contents of each specific status board needs to be separated between hazards. Why? Different agencies will often share standards and forms across hazards, but the data needs to be kept separate. For example, consider damage assessment status boards. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program will manage and track flood related damage, the U.S. Army will be responsible for damages and adjudication of a CSEPP incident, and DOE will be the main point of contact for damages associated with a radiological related event. But the agencies do not want to keep all of the data in one pool. WebOSB provides a mechanism that easily allows a site to determine whether or not the structure and layout of a status board is available to other hazards within an emergency operations center.
Sharing Design and Data Across Hazards
Depending on the circumstances, it is also applicable to share both the design and content of status information across hazards. Two perfect examples of this situation is the need to share the status of shelters and schools within a jurisdiction. Schools or shelters are either open or closed. Many hazards may cause the emergency management decision makers to request a school to be closed (or a shelter to be opened). The current status of a school or shelter should be located in a single status board that is automatically shared and accessible between multiple hazards. WebOSB provides a mechanism that easily allows decision makers to identify status boards that need to share both their design and content across multiple hazards.
Sharing Hazard Information Across Emergency Operations Centers
It is obvious that a single emergency operations center will need to support multiple hazards and users. However, because of the potential for an incident to impact more that one jurisdiction and/or county, there is also a need to share status information across multiple emergency operations centers. Physical sharing of the design and content allows external emergency operations centers to automatically receive their own view-only copies of status information from other emergency operations centers. This enables users to log into their own local emergency operations center, yet still see all of the status information for a hazard that has been shared between the collaborative emergency operations centers. WebOSB provides a mechanism that allows a local administrator to identify whether a status board's design or design and content are made available to other external emergency operations centers.