Page - 27 - in Book of Full Papers - Symposium Hydro Engineering

aspect and provide guidance on how to develop inputs to our evacuation modeling tools. Additionally, they developed a facilitator guide that describes how to interview local emergency managers and gain an understanding of the existing evacuation potential in their area in the event of a major flood event. Fig. 2 Warning and Protective Action Initiation Timeline Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they developed a document titled “A Guide to Public Alerts & Warnings for Dam and Levee Emergencies” [1]. The guidebook’s purpose is to assist those involved with emergency management in issuing more timely and effective public alert and warning messages for flood emergencies. It is based on findings from decades of research on disaster warnings and presents best practices derived from these findings. While the guidebook is targeted toward dam and levee safety emergencies, it can be used to prepare a plan in such a way that allows successful implementation of emergency message communication for a wide range of emergency events. 2.2. LIMITATIONS OF EXISTING RESEARCH While the previous effort from Drs. Mileti and Sorensen was invaluable in providing a better understanding of the factors that influence the effectiveness of an evacuation, and established the basis for quantitative estimates for analyzing such an event, the research had gaps. Specifically, they pointed out that research is needed to fill the warning issuance data gap. Due to the scarcity of data on warning issuance times and delays, there is a distinct need to increase the number of data points to gain a better grasp of the problem. Similarly, they stated that warning diffusion and protective action initiation models could be improved by collecting more, recent, and relevant empirical data on which to base the models. 27