using highways for no-notice evacuations - FHWA Operations - U.S. ...

to assess the available information and make a decision about how torespond to the situation. They may be required to decide whether todeclare an evacuation before they have all the necessary information todo so as planned.Source: FEMA/Jocelyn Augustino.Also, emergency responders will have no or limited time to familiarizethemselves with the evacuation plan and consider its implementationafter a no-notice incident. If critical staff have insufficient training andhave not participated in exercises involving the plan, the plan’s effectivenesswill be greatly reduced. To increase the plan’s effectiveness,it is essential that transportation operations personnel be included inexercises and training with other first responders.Limited informationAfter a no-notice incident, emergency managers will most likely workwith limited information to assess the situation. There will be no timefor a thorough assessment to take place before decision makers have todecide if and how they will implement an evacuation.Emergency management and transportation officials will need to beprepared to act with imperfect situational awareness. This implies thatthey may not know the status of all components of the transportationnetwork, including whether any critical sections are inoperable. Officialsmay also not have a full and accurate inventory of the personneland resources available to support the evacuation effort. Decisions willmost likely rely heavily on the estimates determined during preplanning,using the limited real-time information received as a guide.While the situational awareness deficiency may improve over time,officials will be forced to make the best decisions they can based onwhatever information is available to them at the time.This issue highlights the importance of two aspects of informationmanagement. First, information that is prepared and analyzed inadvance becomes critical in a no-notice scenario; data such as populationestimates (daytime and nighttime), locations of those with specialneeds, demographics on the number and location of individuals dependingon transit, vulnerabilities in the transportation network, andresource inventories all help to improve the decision-making processduring the evacuation. Second, effective and resilient informationand communications systems and protocols will greatly improve the38USING HIGHWAYS FOR NO-NOTICE EVACUATIONS