What can you bring to the table during a hazard event?: Its more than exchanging business cards before a crisis

Abstract:

When a hazard event occurs, it creates an intersection of interests with a wide range of stakeholders with different roles, agendas, responsibilities, metrics of success, time scales, training, experience, comfort levels for uncertainty, and expectations to be involved. It is a cultural melting pot that affords little time for a rich and fruitful melded product to develop. I will argue and present that in my field of oil spills, there have been great strides to overcome this challenge by having these different groups meet and learn about each other.

While it is one thing to have “exchanged business cards” prior to a crisis, what do you do when the “response” is greeted with academic scientists who want to help?

I will argue that you can distill this other challenge to two simple points: (1) the responders need to communicate what they need, what resources they have, how fast they need answers, and what level of certainty they will accept and (2) academics need to understand that responders have little time for a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation on a potentially unproven approach, a long list of publications, and a discussion on H-factors. Simply, academic researchers need to provide a frank and brief description on what they can do, the logistics it demands, and a willingness to be part of a team that simply wants to “put out the fire”, save lives, and reduce damages with the potential for little reward from academia’s perspective.

It can take eight years to get tenure in academia, but a responder at a hazard event may only have eight hours to make a decision with whatever intelligence they have. And that’s the rub: wanting to help is just not enough. Academics have to show that you can make a timely difference for the response. In this talk, I will expand on this distinction and provide potential solutions.