Briefing Command Staff and Elected Officials

During an emergency activation, command staff and elected officials are under pressure to make decisions that have potentially life-or-death consequences. To do this effectively, they urgently need accurate and comprehensive information about the current operational activity and what the operational plan is moving forward; but in order for that information to be truly reliable, decision-makers must have visibility into real-time conditions that are continuing to evolve even as they work to determine their next steps. When dealing with the diverse and unpredictable nature of incidents that officials face today, command staff aren’t getting the support they need from the familiar system of preparing static briefs for dynamic situations.

Formerly, command staff and officials received static incident briefings at intervals throughout the course of an emergency activation, likely every few hours depending on the operational period. This involved support staff manually collecting and presenting data in a process that was slow and almost instantly out-of-date, forcing officials to make critical response decisions based on information that was, at best, inexact; and at worst, dangerously inaccurate. This system could lead to resources being sent where they were not needed, existing danger factors escalating without prompt attention, or new threats developing without being recognized. What command staff need in a crisis situation is the ability to zero in on exactly what is happening and where, which can only be achieved by accessing live, completely accurate data on-demand.

Arizona’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs manages emergencies, weather patterns, flood zones and much more through a real-time operations dashboard.  

Esri's offers an integrated, real-time solution to allow command staff and officials to do just that. Esri’s technology empowers decision-makers to review changing conditions and evolving events as they happen and make better-informed decisions, ultimately minimizing property damage and loss of life. Instead of the former paper-based system of manual data collection to support incident briefings, command staff and officials can quickly build a real-time briefing using the wealth of ready-to-use data in Esri’s Living Atlas and by accessing current operational data at any time during an incident; furthermore, Esri’s bundled solution enables support staff throughout the organization and partner agencies to access the same data in a secure way. This keeps all emergency management operations aligned and targeted on the same shared goals, using the same information to make mission critical decisions.