As part of a larger project aimed at better understanding emergency management decision processes and incorporating what is learned into prototype development for the emergency management community, the Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina and East Carolina University (ECU) undertook two surveys at a North Carolina Hurricane Workshop that approximately 70 emergency services personnel attended. One was a paper survey on product usage and the other a keypad survey with instant response on storm surge and flooding. Together, the surveys were aimed at documenting the kinds of storm surge and flooding information that are important to decision-making, the time frames over which information is needed, and use of and confidence in various tropical weather and flood forecast and warning products.

The results suggest that needs, uses, and confidence can vary rather dramatically between emergency support functions, between those with more emergency management experience and those with less, and between coastal and non-coastal locations. This was the case when considering critical time periods, primary weather concerns, ways they obtain weather information, and the confidence they have in that information, to name a few. These results reflect the diversity of the emergency management community, which needs to be recognized by those providing weather information to this community. They also illustrate the importance of understanding how much and what types of information those in the emergency management community seek and use. 7-29-2011-->