The Transition from an Information-Support System to a Decision-Support System for Public-Safety Agencies

In 1996, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) began to support the fire, police, and emergency management communities through a program known as OK-FIRST. At the time, the program provided real-time weather information (surface data and derived products from the Oklahoma Mesonet, radar data from 15 WSR-88D units through a NIDS redistribution contract, and warning and forecast products from the National Weather Service (NWS), all via a restricted web site. OK-FIRST participants could access this comprehensive information service only after completion of an intensive, week-long data interpretation course.

This year, the OK-FIRST system has undergone a upgrade through the implementation and improvement of the decision-support concepts introduced by ONALERT. ONALERT was a cooperative effort with the NWS to design a prototype system with a national scope and provided a threat-based arrangement of the information system. In addition to organizing data products according to specific environmental threats, the new OK-FIRST system further stratified the data products by their usefulness before a given event (i.e., predictive value) or during an event (i.e., diagnosis value). Further, specific illustrations have been provided with the data to aid in pattern recognition and interpretation of features like drylines, moisture tongues, hook echoes, mesocyclones, etc. These interpretation aids have been included in each threat area provided by OK-FIRST.

This manuscript describes the transition from a pure “information-support system” (which most web sites currently provide) towards a true “decision-support system”. The aim is to provide experience-based advice to other agencies and private-sector firms who are beginning to serve the public-safety community.