DISRUPTIVE EMERGENT SYSTEMS IN DISASTER RESPONSE

Abstract

The 2017 hurricanes in the southern United States provided an impetus for wider social technology use than during previous disaster responses. Hurricane survivors rapidly turned to social media for help, while physically unaffected social media users crowdsourced emergent crisis mapping systems. Volunteers unaffiliated with first responder organizations conducted rescues based on those systems to form new response systems. These new, disruptive emergent systems displaced, supplemented, or filled gaps in the established, federally managed responses. This research examined disruptive emergent systems and associated effects on disaster responses. A total of thirteen disruptive emergent systems from four hurricane responses were analyzed. This research resulted in a set of eight features and an ontological visualization of disruptive emergent systems. The results show that disruptive emergent systems demonstrated supply responses to survivor demand. That is, these systems emerged through particular capability and organizational mechanism conditions to satisfy survivor demands. Cultural motivations provided the call to action for many of these disruptive emergent systems. These features can be used to understand disruptive emergent systems in the context of future disaster responses.