ESM Research

New York University’s Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response, and the Public Entity Risk Institute have published this report, which is available through the Homeland Security Digital Library (contact me if you are a University of Richmond student or faculty and need help with access). The report is a thorough reflection on readiness for crisis situations, and the extensive bibliography alone is worth perusing. I found it to be a well-documented study of the definition of leadership in a crisis situation.

Here’s a sample, from the introduction:

This report outlines organizational characteristics that enhance an organization’s ability to recover after a crisis. Some of these characteristics are implied in the definition of crisis readiness that is discussed in the second section of the report; others have been identified in specific studies of the environment, structure, leadership, and internal systems of crisis-readyorganizations, which are discussed in the third section. This report seeks to capture the essence of all these views in a single term, crisis readiness. This term embraces the many insights from the research literature as well as providing room for multidisciplinary insights. The notion is that crises come in many sizes and from many sources; therefore, readiness for external events is linked to readiness for internal events, and vice versa. As the third section suggests, some organizational characteristics emerge as significant predictors of crisis readiness while others drop in importance.
The fourth section presents findings from a survey of opinion leaders from the government, forprofit, and nonprofit sectors to compare crisis characteristics of organizations. The analysis of the survey is based on a relatively simple method for sorting through the long list of recommendations for action. It recognizes that organizations must make choices about where to invest. Having been told to do everything by way of crisis readiness, many organizations may decide to do little more than a bit of crisis planning, thereby leaving crisis readiness to others or creating a “tragedy of the commons,” in which no one prepares but instead relies on government. But government itself may have difficulty sorting through the growing array of best practices currently receiving notice in the field, and policy obstacles such as those posed by the Stafford Act may prevent government and organizations from developing preparedness plans that leverage resources effectively and allow for a truly prepared society. Hence, this study was designed explicitly to ask what matters at different levels of crisis readiness. The report concludes with recommendations on the pathway to preparedness for organizations.

Gustav proved an interesting test of emergency preparedness for the Gulf Coast region, and I thought this article on how colleges in the region were prepared for disasters (Inside Higher Ed: In Gustav’s Wake, Disaster Plans Are Tested) was a good, quick overview. Here’s the actual Emergency Plan for Loyola University of New Orleans:

Some of my favorite quotes:

“If Louisiana college leaders learned any lessons from Hurricane Katrina, the need to create remote command centers was surely among them.”

Given my interest in online and distance education, I was intrigued by this:

“A number of colleges in Louisiana — including Tulane, Loyola University, Nicholls State and Dillard — cited the use of distance learning technologies as one method by which they’re hoping to avoid the disruption of curriculum delivery by Gustav or future storms.”

And, finally:

“… Father Wildes [President of Loyola University of New Orleans] concedes that he never imagined that as a university president he’d spend as much time planning for disasters as he does now. From terrorist attacks to natural disasters to campus shootings, university presidents at institutions large and small are increasingly occupied by planning for worst case scenarios, he said.”