A client asked for help in finding out who to contact regarding providing assistance with reconstruction. Here are a few observations from looking online for the best available information on what is going on, who is doing what and who to talk to if you have valuable equipment, personnel and experience to offer.
1. There is no JIC. The Washington fires are involving at least two counties (Okanagan and Chelan) and numerous small towns including Pateros, Carlton, Brewster, Twisp and Winthrop. But there is no one single source of up-to-date and reliable information. Complicating that is there are a couple of different major fires with different names: Carleton Complex (or Carlton Complex as there is no consistency) and Chiwaukum Complex (try and remember that name, let alone how to spell it).
2. The best source was this blog site:http://carltoncomplex.blogspot.com/. But there are some issues: Who is behind it? The information only said that it is published by "Carlton Complex." How can we know if it is official (as it says) or reliable if you don't identify yourself? The site itself is very nicely presented and of the many I looked at, easiest to find what you are looking for (except if you are looking to offer services). I really like the listing of other sources with links, the Twitter feed on the front page, the integration with other social media, the map, the rolling updates from news media -- there's lots to like here. I also really like that you can sign up for email updates; I just signed up so can't say how they are doing with that but I think this is something that is often missed. I also really like the Spanish language emphasis, which is evident in several sites -- a reality given the percentage of Hispanic population in this area.
3. InciWeb doesn't cut it. InciWeb provided by the U.S. Forest Service has been a primary Web tool for the agency for fires, but I always hear of difficulties. I suspect the blog referred to above is run by the U.S. Forest Service and may be to replace InciWeb as there is counter-linking.
4. Washington EMD has good info, but it's far from complete. It has the FEMA emergency declaration (missing from others) but its primary function was providing a bunch of links. I wish it had said what the official, real, complete and valuable source would be.
5. NICC or NWCC -- you know, these are little things, but the lack of coordination shows up in these little things and adds greatly to confusion. A good source of information was the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) that provides a sit rep for all the fires: www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf (then the URL says nifc). So when I go to the Washington EMD site referenced above to get an NICC update, I click on the link that says NICC and it comes to this one: http://nwccinfo.blogspot.com/. Hmm, what's that? It's the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center -- dangerously similar to NICC, but it's NWCC, both have interagency in their names. I wonder if anyone considers how confusing all this can be?
5. Other sources: Okanagan County emergency management has some important public messages and additional info. If one can get past the horrible information design. The city of Pateros' website is down, perhaps due to power outages caused by the fire, but isn't redundancy important? What may be worse is Brewster. Both these towns are at the center of the fire, but one site is down and the other is, well, oblivious. The last content on the site was about a July 9 City Council meeting.
The Governor's Office has some good information, but again, it's mostly a series of links. I expected to see it being more political with some crowing about getting federal dollars and all that and while we see the governor looking at the devastation, it is informational and not overly political.
That's a quick review -- again a mixed bag. One thing that really struck me: It took some digging well beyond the initial hits on Google search to start getting good information. USA Today's promoting of the drone video of devastation and news stories about President Obama visiting (fundraising trip to Seattle) dominate the searches. This is a real concern.
I remember in an industrial incident a few years ago with lots of news coverage, the client was roundly criticized for buying a sponsored link. But that criticism was wrong. Official sources may want to consider taking this sort of action to help people find what they are looking for. But the best action they could take is to get the many and various agencies who are responding together and form a group to communicate in a complete, coordinated way. All should work together. There should be one official source. It should pull in any who have additional information to share and make them part of it. They could call it a Joint Information Center, a JIC for short. What a novel concept!
