Information Management Becomes the Key to Indiana’s Flood Response

by Alison Dunn

Shane Booker credits Indiana’s flood response to good information management. Booker, who works at the state’s Department of Homeland Security, says being able to manage and process the information – including status reports and resource requests – was critical in helping them respond to the disaster.

“One of the things that went well for us was being able to manage the information and process it,” Booker says. “That crisis information management system was key for us to understand the big picture and what goes on.”

When officials in Indiana first realized the heavy rains were going to trigger floods, they immediately jumped into action. They activated the state’s emergency operations center (EOC), which was immediately barraged with calls and e-mails asking for assistance.

The EOC then had to activate and mobilize the state’s urban search and rescue team, the Indiana Army National Guard and bring in resources from state agencies, state police and the National Guard. When the flash-flooding turned to river flooding, they activated two planners and a hazmat specialist to work with county emergency managers.

“I think things went extremely well,” Booker says. “This was the biggest disaster that we’ve had for a long time – if not ever – and we’re pretty proud we were able to do it.”

That, however, doesn’t mean there is no room for improvement. “We’re very aware that there are lots of things we need to change so we can better serve our county emergency management folks,” he adds. “The whole reason we’re here is to help coordinate the resources and give people the things they need. We definitely need to improve the way we do that.”

What lessons did they learn from the floods? Booker shares a few of the key lessons he’s learned.

Do an emergency alliance compact first. Booker says the floods helped them test their Emergency Management Alliance Compact (EMAC) with other state and federal agencies (including FEMA). He says they will continue to work on improving the compact to ensure every agency knows what role it will play. “There was some confusion as far as who was going to pay for helicopters, and a few command and control issues,” he says. “By settling these issues before a disaster strikes, no one has to use up precious time trying to figure out who is paying for what.”

Ask for help in advance. There’s more to the EMAC than just command and control issues. In fact, it can help ensure shared resources are in place to be mobilized if and when they’re needed. “We learned that EMAC is a system that works, and it works well, so we need to rely on that more readily,” Booker says. By having a compact in place, it makes sure you have the resources you need during the event.

Create an incident management team with the right communication tools. “We had an impromptu team we sent down to interact with the National Guard and the county emergency managers,” Booker says. “That worked fairly well, however, they didn’t have the communication tools they needed.” There was limited voice connectivity in some areas, and no ability to connect to data in the EOC. Booker says Indiana homeland security is currently in the process of putting together an incident management team that trains together regularly to help in times of need. They are also looking to purchase satellite systems to ensure the team has access to the same information as the EOC.