the need for technology

I was asked recently to provide some brief thoughts about technology in the emergency management sphere. This is what I wrote back:

One thought is that technology has to be embraced by emergency managers and the jurisdictions that fund them. Data of all types is king, and we need systems that capture the data, sort it, display it and share it—not in just one jurisdiction, but across a region. A region being defined as multiple counties/cities that share a common population, business/industry footprint and common transportation system the residents use to transit from home to work while crossing multiple jurisdictional boundaries. While emergency management has not had a significant need for financial resources for technology, that is no longer true today. Past expenditures on tech for emergency management should not be a guide to the current need. 

Very targeted: Early in a disaster there is a dearth of information. They can be false reports as to what has happened and what is occurring. Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) are stood up to help assess what is happening and sort out the information and share it with other entities. As the incident develops , the fire hose of information gets turned on and then the challenge becomes sorting what is important and what is just background noise.  

This is when critical information can become lost in the hundreds of messages/emails/phone calls that are being transmitted. AI is a technology that should be able to capture the information and share it with the appropriate elements in an EOC and “externally” if appropriate. This key information is needed to be able to properly coordinate the activities of the disaster response/recovery and help get resources to those locations that need it the most.