Planning for Disasters Partners
Newscast: “More than a million people in eleven states are already without power.”
Ambience: Ocean waves, storm.
When planning for a disaster like a hurricane or an earthquake, partnerships can play a important role. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
Zobel: I am interested in disaster operations management so, helping organizations that are involved with disaster relief or response or recovery, make the best use of their resources so that they can do the most good.
Chris Zobel is a Professor of Business Information Technology at Virginia Tech.
Zobel: Disaster relief has to do with an organization, such as the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, coming in after a disaster event, say, an earthquake, and delivering goods and services to the people that have been impacted by that disaster to try to help them get back on their feet. So, for example, the Red Cross will set up distribution centers in the local area where something has occurred, and they will ship in blankets and water and medicines and so forth, and they have to arrange to have those goods shipped in from somewhere else, but they really need to have communication with and coordination with that local government, because the local government knows where the people live and where the people most at risk are gonna be. They understand what the road system looks like, and that local knowledge is really critical for doing a good job of delivering those supplies. So, I think the local government is just as much of a partner as the Red Cross is, and the Red Cross really couldn’t do their job if they didn’t have that local representation to go that last step.
Newscast: “They’re expecting a storm surge of somewhere between four and eight feet in the next twelve or so.”
We’ll hear more on planning for disasters in future programs. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.