A case study of disaster decision‐making in the presence of anomalies and absence of recognition

Abstract

This paper provides an insight into the complexities of decision-making during an unprecedented disaster. We used the critical decision method to explore a series of decision points that were made for a low probability yet high consequence decision that was made by the commander of the Australian Urban Search and Rescue team deployed to Fukushima in 2011. The findings identified that in a situation with no similarities to previous experiences, the commander used a process of anomaly detection to trigger a situational assessment, following this with mental simulation and consultation of his actions. In this unparalleled case study, hazard-specific expertise also supported the decision-making process. The paper offers practitioners and academia an example of high consequence decision-making in a unique situation as well as the opportunity to reflect on the models of decision-making previously identified as useful in these operational environments.| 111 CURNIN et al.

Securing Operational Capability for Exceptional Circumstances: How Do Professional First Responders Respond to the Unexpected?

“…One interesting aspect here is expert intuition, by which an actor can recognize familiar, previously learned patterns from the emerging situation and hence make quick yet effective decisions [16,23,[56][57][58][59][60]. In this study, expert intuition was instrumental in detecting anomalies [15,22], whereupon the actors were able to make critical decisions to influence the dynamics of the situations [61][62][63][64].…”

“…It may be crucial for an actor to perceive the leverage points in a dynamic situation, to find the most important targets of intervention. Such systemic points that trigger or hold back non-linear dynamics can be very subtle, which is why their detection requires insightful interpretation-sensitivity in understanding the underlying systemic structures [22,36,37]. It is about the ability to identify where and how to intervene in a situation so that it does not result in serious consequences [38].…”

“…What kind of cognitive qualities explain abilities of this kind? We attempt to answer this question by delving into two different incidents, where frontline responders perceived an unexpected situation, managed its anomalies, and identified better solutions accordingly [22,23].…”

Codifying a crisis: Progressing from information sharing to distributed decision‐making

“…Rimstad and Sollid (2015) use the 2011 Norway terrorist attack to show that front‐line operations are characterized by rapid critical decisions, made primarily on the basis of pattern recognition (Cohen‐Hatton, Butler, & Honey, 2015; Groenendaal & Helsloot, 2018; Klein, 1993; Meso, Troutt, & Rudnicka, 2002). These front‐line processes can be highly chaotic and unpredictable, and may sometimes even be incomprehensible to actors operating at a distance (Barton, Sutcliffe, Vogus, & DeWitt, 2015; Boehm, 2018; Curnin, Brooks, & Owen, 2020; Nja & Rake, 2009).…”

Too late to act: when crises become tragic

“…Alternative decision strategies like intuitive decision-making fueled by emotions are then proposed to complement the analytical decision strategies (Curnin et al, 2020;Okoli and Watt, 2018;Parnell and Crandall, 2020;Kahneman et al, 1982). This point of view echoes one aspect of the tragedy where the hero bases his decisions on intuition that allows him to envision a possible outcome (de Romilly, 1998, Vernant andVidal-Naquet, 1982) We argue that by duplicating reality managers open up a range of alternatives in the hope of a possible escape.…”