A Collaborative User-Producer Assessment of EarthquakeResponse Products

Open-File Report 2013–1103

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior

SALLY JEWELL, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

Suzette M. Kimball, Acting Director

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2013 

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth,

its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit 

http://www.usgs.gov or call 1–888–ASK–USGS

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visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod

Suggested citation:

Gomberg, J., and Jakobitz, A., 2013, A collaborative user-producer assessment of earthquake-response products: 

U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2013–1103, 13 p., http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1103/. 

Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply 

endorsement by the U.S. Government. 

Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials 

as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. 
iii

Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction.................................................................................................................................................................... 1

The Assessment Phase................................................................................................................................................. 3

Focus-Group Goals and Format ................................................................................................................................ 3

Focus Group Lessons................................................................................................................................................ 4

Users’ Geographic Scope....................................................................................................................................... 4

Notification ............................................................................................................................................................. 8

Situational Awareness............................................................................................................................................ 5

The Testing Phase......................................................................................................................................................... 6

Exercise-Version Products......................................................................................................................................... 6

Testing During the Evergreen Exercise.....................................................................................................................10

Conclusions..................................................................................................................................................................11

Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................................12

References Cited..........................................................................................................................................................12

Figures

1. ShakeMap Web page for the Evergreen Exercise..................................................................................................... 7

2. Example view of the online, zoomable ShakeMap viewer. ........................................................................................ 8

3. Earthquake Impact Web page. See text for explanation............................................................................................ 9

4. Screenshot of the first page of the online tutorial, “A Practical Guide to Earthquakes.”........................................... 10

Table

1. Earthquake Hazards Program response products..................................................................................................... 2 

Acronyms and Abbreviations Used

ANSS Advanced National Seismic System

EHP Earthquake Hazard Program 

ENS Earthquake Notification System

EMD Emergency Management Division 

EOC Emergency Operations Center 

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency 

GIS Geographic Information System

PAGER Prompt Assessment for Global Earthquake Response 

REOC Regional Emergency Operation Center 

SME Subject-matter expert 

USGS U.S. Geological Survey 
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A Collaborative User-Producer Assessment of 

Earthquake-Response Products

By Joan Gomberg and Allen Jakobitz

Abstract The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Washington State Emergency Management 

Division assessed how well USGS earthquake-response products met the needs of emergency managers 

at county and local levels. Focus-group responses guided development of new products for testing in a 

regional-scale earthquake exercise. The assessment showed that (1) emergency responders consider 

most USGS products unnecessary after the first few postearthquake hours because the products are 

predictors, and responders are quickly immersed in reality; (2) during crises a significant fraction of 

personnel engaged in emergency response are drawn from many sectors, increasing the breadth of 

education well beyond emergency management agencies; (3) many emergency personnel do not use 

maps; and (4) information exchange, archiving, and analyses involve mechanisms and technical 

capabilities that vary among agencies, so widely used products must be technically versatile and easy to 

use. 

Introduction The Earthquake Hazard Program (EHP) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has the statutory 

responsibility under Public Law 108-360 within the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program to 

“operate a national seismic system” and “work with officials of State and local governments to ensure 

that they are knowledgeable about the specific seismic risks in their areas.” As is sometimes the case 

with agencies or individuals focused on addressing immediate societal needs, EHP products have not 

always been developed with the goal of addressing verified needs. Moreover, needs and capabilities 

may change with time, warranting updates of assessments of products’ efficacies. Table 1 lists and 

describes the current EHP products meant to fulfill the USGS’s statutory responsibilities by providing 

the information needed for effective earthquake response. 

A key user group of EHP products is the emergency-management community at State and local 

levels. To date, the EHP has not yet assessed or systematically verified the fulfillment of user needs by 

directly polling these intended beneficiaries. Several examples highlight the importance of this direct 

polling. Wald and others (2011) note that alerting systems for other types of disasters were evaluated 

and found ineffective because they did not meet user needs to assess the likely impacts of the disaster; 

for example, alerting systems for pandemic diseases by World Health Organization and for terrorism by 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security were found ineffective. In their study of State and local 

emergency response to hurricanes, Lindell and others (2007) note the importance of developing 

response tools grounded in a clear understanding of responders’ needs. They state that “the 

development of these decision support systems will provide a critical foundation for evacuation 

decisions, but the development of such tools must be guided by a better understanding of the context in 

which these decisions are made at the state and local levels.” Herein, we describe results of the project 
2

Table 1. Earthquake Hazards Program response products. 

Product and URL (additional information) Description

Earthquake Notification System

https://sslearthquake.usgs.gov/ens

Sends automated, customizable 

notifications of earthquakes through email, 

pager, or cell phone

ShakeMap

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/

Automatically generated maps displaying 

instrumentally measured shaking intensities

Did You Feel It?

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/

Map of earthquake effects derived from 

citizen input via online Web forms

PAGER

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/pager/

Prompt Assessment of Global 

Earthquakes for Response rapidly 

compares the population exposed to 

various shaking intensities to estimate 

likely fatalities and economic losses

Realtime Earthquake Map

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/

Automatic maps and event information 

displayed online within minutes after 

earthquakes worldwide

CISN Display

http://www.cisn.org/software/cisndisplay.html

Stand-alone application that graphically 

alerts users, in near real-time, of 

earthquakes and related hazards 

information.

ShakeCast

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/software/shakecast/

An application for automated delivery 

of ShakeMaps and probable damage to 

specific user-selected facilities.

in which we sought to learn directly from emergency managers at the State, County, City and other local 

levels about their needs and how EHP products addressed those needs. 

Anecdotal evidence from EHP personnel in other regions and the institutions that make up the 

USGS-managed Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), the umbrella structure for earthquake 

monitoring in the United States, suggests that emergency management departments’ use of EHP 

products ranges from significant use to complete unawareness. Some of this evidence comes from 

USGS personnel serving as observers during earthquake exercises or from their direct conversations 

with emergency managers. A published report about the 2008 Great Southern California ShakeOut 

earthquake drill describes new EHP products generated specifically for the exercise (Jones and 

Benthien, 2011), but it makes no mention of existing EHP notification or response products that would 

be used in a real earthquake (table 1). The experience of a USGS earthquake subject-matter expert 

(SME) in southern California at the Regional Emergency Operation Center (REOC) at Los Alamitos, 

California, during the exercise corroborates this observation (K. Hudnut, oral commun., 2011). The 

SME noted that while a USGS ShakeMap was displayed in the background, it was not being actively 

used by emergency managers or the Geographic Information System (GIS) team. A similar experience

was noted during the 2011 National-level exercise at the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA) Region VI Regional Response Coordination Center in Denton, Texas, by the same USGS 

SME, although the GIS team tried to import and use the ShakeMap data. USGS personnel in the Pacific 

Northwest have observed and participated in earthquake exercises conducted locally by emergency 

management departments. Those experiences seemed to show that, despite having provided exercise 

versions of products, even the technically sophisticated departments did not use them. 
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This study attempts to answer the question “what is needed to improve usage of EHP products?” 

The Puget Sound region-wide 2012 Evergreen Earthquake Exercise Series presented an opportunity to 

address this question, to learn directly from State, County and local-level emergency managers and to 

test some new products developed collaboratively with guidance from emergency managers. The 

Evergreen Exercise focused on coordination among FEMA, the Washington State EMD and their State 

agency liaisons, seven Puget Sound-area County departments of emergency management and their local 

constituents. Results of our assessments will form the basis of recommendations for changes to EHP 

products that will enhance the effectiveness of both the EHP and emergency managers.

A goal of the project was to test the hypothesis that activities and products developed 

collaboratively, by users and providers, will more effectively meet user needs. Experiences of the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers provide support for this approach and are summarized in a paper describing 

changes in how the Corps addresses its mandate to facilitate disaster response and recovery (Hecker and 

others, 2000). For example, the report notes that “the Corps has learned the significant need for and 

value of ‘peacetime’ [that is, before a crisis] planning and partnering with our counterpart State and 

local agencies.” Our project team members include both providers from the USGS EHP office in the 

Pacific Northwest and users from the EMD. 

In the first project phase we attempted to directly assess the awareness and usage of EHP 

products by emergency managers by hosting focus-group listening sessions (Peek and Fothergill, 2009, 

and references therein). We used this information to identify and develop several new products for the 

Evergreen Exercise that we also attempted to evaluate during the exercise. These were developed and 

implemented collaboratively, by the USGS and Washington State EMD (referred to as USGS-EMD 

products). The final results of this project are being communicated to broader communities, within the 

USGS, and among emergency managers, with the goal of affecting long-lasting change. 

The Assessment Phase 

Focus-Group Goals and Format 

The use of focus groups for gathering input is well established (Peek and Fothergill 2009). The 

goal of the focus group sessions we conducted was to listen and learn from county emergency managers 

and their constituents. Participants included all of the counties playing in the Evergreen Exercise, State 

agency liaisons (employees responsible for emergency preparedness and response in the Washington 

State Departments of Corrections, Commerce, Transportation, General Administration, Labor and 

Industries, and the Red Cross), and several large private companies (Liberty Mutual Insurance and TMobile). One county chose to respond with only written answers to the discussion questions we 

provided. Each session was initiated with a request to the director or another employee of the county 

department of emergency management, who assumed responsibility for recruiting participants. In this 

way participants were more likely to be those with strong connections to the business of postearthquake 

emergency response than if we had recruited participants ourselves (Peek and Fothergill, 2009). 

Sessions were held at county emergency management facilities and involved between 3 participants (for 

the private-sector session) and 28 in the largest group and included men and women. Participants 

included County, City, and local (hospital consortia, private company, school system, and others) 

emergency management agency employees, firemen and police, public utility workers, emergency 

planners for medical facilities and schools, and others. Most participants had experience responding to 

a few small earthquakes and perhaps half the participants responded to the 2001 M6.8 Nisqually 

earthquake, which was the most recent damaging earthquake to affect the region. We provided a list of 

warm-up questions that had been circulated to all invitees before the group meeting and also used to 

guide discussion during each session. Both authors led most of the sessions, although in a few cases 
4

just one of us moderated. Each session lasted approximately 90 minutes, and participants generally 

were engaged and expressive. We took written notes during each session, summarized them, requested 

corrections from session participants, and shared final drafts with participants from all the sessions. 

Focus group questions were organized in the time sequence of a real earthquake occurrence, 

from notification, gathering situational awareness, and distributing information. This organization 

seemed like the most logical way to help participants organize their thoughts. We began with questions 

about notification that an earthquake had occurred. Examples of the most general questions include, 

“How would you be notified that an earthquake has happened? What information do you need to be 

able to respond?” Then we asked about information gathering such as, “How is information 

communicated, integrated, tracked, archived, and displayed? How do you assess what and where the 

impacts are most significant and then prioritize those needs?” These were followed by questions about 

distribution of information, for example, to whom and how? Finally, some general questions were 

posed such as, “What did your agency glean from the 2001 M6.8 Nisqually earthquake? What additional 

training would improve your response to earthquakes?” We concluded with an open discussion with 

participants addressing any comments or questions they had about products and services currently 

provided by the Washington EMD and USGS. 

We did not follow a strict protocol for gathering information and quantifying responses. While 

the same questions were used to guide each session, we intentionally allowed discussions to be 

participant-driven, so the level of detail and topics covered varied among the groups. The level of detail 

recorded also varied both within individual sessions and among them. For these reasons, we did not 

perform any formal analyses on the information gathered at the focus group sessions (such as those 

suggested in Merton 1987; Peek and Fothergill, 2009), and do not convey results quantitatively (for 

example, in terms of percentages of responses). Instead our inferences reflect our own qualitative 

assessments of common themes and significant lessons drawn from focus group input. 

Focus Group Lessons 

Users’ Geographic Scope 

Earthquake-hazard products must address a wide range of needs and capabilities. Needs and 

opinions expressed in focus groups varied significantly among the sessions, reflecting the characteristics 

of the responding county. The smaller, more geographically remote, and less resource-rich counties 

seemed more satisfied with the status quo and more focused exclusively on their own jurisdictions. At 

the other extreme, the two private companies’ interest was more focused on a single institution (their 

own facilities and operations) than the diversity of groups and needs attended to by emergency 

managers; however, the companies’ interests were global in geographic extent because of the 

distribution of their facilities and operations throughout the world. 

Notification

Participants indicated five different methods of notification that an earthquake was occurring. (1) 

Feeling the ground shake. In many cases this was the only method of notification deemed necessary, 

justified by the assertion that earthquakes too small or distant to be felt would not require immediate 

attention. (2) Receipt of reports of shaking from 911 call centers. (3) Electronic notifications, mostly 

from the USGS’s Earthquake Notification System (ENS; table 1). (4) Social media (particularly Twitter) 

were considered reliable and useful. Twitter users believed erroneous messages were naturally 

discovered and corrections dispensed, and notification tweets often arrived before television or radio 

broadcasts. No participants mentioned using the EHP Twitter notification service. (5) Smart-phone 

applications. With respect to technology, all participants told us that emergency notifications 
5

increasingly are received via cell- and smartphones and they encouraged tailoring and delivering 

earthquake information via these devices.

Situational Awareness

Situational awareness, “the engine that drives decision making” (Endsley and others, 2003), is 

key to effective emergency response (McManus and others, 2008). Situational awareness products need 

to convey information about the impacts of an earthquake in nontechnical terms, at spatial scales 

relevant to county and local-level response, and be delivered simply in standard formats. For emergency 

managers and the private companies, awareness following earthquakes requires tangible metrics of 

impact (Wald and others, 2011) conveyed in nontechnical language and graphics. One response within 

the EHP to the users’ need for situational awareness has been the development of an Earthquake Impact 

Scale (Wald and others, 2011) and the PAGER (Prompt Assessment for Global Earthquake Response) 

product for M>5.5 earthquakes (Earle and others, 2009), which provides estimates of the economic loss, 

fatalities, and population exposed to various potential damage levels. However, participants noted that 

the scale of PAGER information is too large to be useful at the county and local level, particularly for 

smaller earthquakes. Other available products meant to convey impact and distributed rapidly include 

USGS ShakeMap, the Did You Feel It? mapping tool, and ShakeCast (see table 1). Many counties and 

both companies we interviewed were unaware even of the existence of these products (particularly 

ShakeCast). With regard to the products and information they were aware of and did use, such as the 

USGS Web site, users noted that they often included overly technical, extraneous information. A 

suggested remedy was the availability of two sets of products, one designed for the general public and 

the other for more technical audiences such as engineers and scientists. 

Key earthquake parameters deemed essential for making response decisions include earthquake 

magnitude and epicenter given as the distance in miles relative to a known geographic landmark. Many 

people also wanted to know the earthquake depth, understanding that it might affect the severity of the 

effects. The current EHP products provide these parameters. Everyone felt knowledge of the level of 

impact of the earthquake in the geographical area where his or her particular facilities were located also 

was considered key. Many of the EHP products are meant to facilitate situational awareness (for 

example, ShakeMap, Did You Feel It?, PAGER, ShakeCast; see table 1). Participants noted that current 

EHP products did not always convey an easily understood picture of the impacts of earthquakes. 

 Focus-group participants revealed that situational awareness primarily comes from personal 

reports received from 911 call centers, fire and police departments, and what responders often call 

“windshield surveys,” in which they gather damage information by driving through impacted areas and 

report their observations back to a response center. Widely used situational-awareness information 

sources include National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radios, local and regional 

media, and various Web sites. Communication of situational-awareness information from the field to 

emergency operations centers appears to rely heavily on telephone calls. A number of agencies are 

developing mobile applications for acquisition and delivery of field information and for gathering 

crowd-sourced observations (from the general public using electronic media). Amateur radio operators 

provide an important backup means of communications in many communities. 

Emergency managers placed a high value on information verified by human observation to 

develop postearthquake situational awareness. They rely on on-site first-hand assessment of impacts 

when making decisions about if and how to respond. This was also true for the two companies, but to a 

lesser degree. The need for eyewitness verification differs from much of the scientific work underlying 

the understanding of earthquakes, which relies on inferences derived from instrumental measurements 

made remotely. Although derived from in-place measurements of actual ground shaking, map products 

like ShakeMap or Did You Feel It? were sometimes only considered overviews or corroboration of the 
6

event and its effects gleaned from other sources. The products are not used as a primary basis for 

decision-making, perhaps because the scale of USGS products is too large for use at the local level, 

because of challenges integrating the products with familiar mapping and awareness tools, or because 

the perception that a picture relying on a model or interpolation may not be sufficiently accurate. (The 

choice of scale in USGS earthquake-response products has been made based somewhat on technical 

limitations on the spatial resolution of the quantities being mapped, and do meet the needs of users other 

than county and local emergency managers—for example, agencies involved with national-scale 

response to major earthquakes globally.) Many responders were simply unaware that these map 

products existed. We suggest that a more formalized strategy to raising awareness about EHP products 

than currently exists would improve their usage significantly. 

No single mechanism of compiling, storing, and conveying information to those needing it could 

be identified as universally used. Most institutions use commercial electronic database and mapping 

systems, with some using these exclusively. Others have built in-house systems to organize, share and 

display observations using commercial applications like Microsoft’s Streets and Trips and 

SharePoint, Google’s GoogleEarth, or ESRI’s ArcGIS. WebEOC, a real-time Web-enabled crisis 

information management system developed commercially by ESi, is meant to be an official link among 

public sector emergency managers in Washington State (see http://www.esi911.com/esi). While used by 

many agencies, it always was just one of multiple communication tools. A commonly expressed desire 

was for a centralized, one-stop shop for all types of disaster information (like the Department of 

Homeland Security’s Virtual USA initiative; see 

http://www.firstresponder.gov/Pages/VirtualUSA.aspx), because the abundance of Web sites and other 

individual sources of information unique to specific types of emergencies often were overwhelming. 

Perhaps the most unanimous agreement about any issue raised pertained to the utility of 

receiving estimates of the probability of aftershocks. Emergency managers all stated that even if 

uncertain, probabilities would be useful for prioritizing and scheduling recovery activities. For 

example, after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, aftershock forecasts were used to make strategic 

decisions about replacement or de-commissioning of insulators and other spare parts at certain power 

substations. Emergency managers also noted that the general public would like to know about 

aftershock probabilities. 

The Testing Phase 

Exercise-Version Products

In the first phase of our project, we learned that some of the EHP products have not met some 

important needs. Guided by the insights gleaned from these sessions, the project team identified and 

developed products meant to address some of the unmet needs. We attempted to test their effectiveness 

during the Evergreen Exercise in June 2012. Herein we describe these new USGS-EMD products and 

the lessons learned during the Evergreen Exercise.

Working together as an USGS-EMD team on the focus-group phase of the project permitted us 

to reach out to and learn from current and potential users in more efficient and informative ways than if

either group had worked alone. For example, EMD personnel have much greater awareness than USGS 

personnel of the potential users in the emergency management communities, particularly at the local 

level. During product development, USGS and EMD project members repeatedly exchanged drafts and 

changes to materials, which readily revealed misconceptions about what constitutes understandable 

language and interesting or useful information, making it easy to identify specific paths to improve 

clarity. 
7

In the following list we summarize the needs identified in the assessment phase and the products 

designed specifically for use and efficacy testing during the Evergreen Exercise. 

• Simpler messaging and explanations are needed by some users, and this may be achieved by 

developing two styles of some products, one designed for nontechnical users and the other 

tailored for engineers and scientists. Accordingly, we developed a new, shorter (single-page) 

summary Web page written in more colloquial language about the ShakeMaps of the scenarios 

that guided the exercise (fig. 1). This Web page described what ShakeMaps are, the various types 

of ShakeMaps available, and links to tools for downloading them for import into other systems and 

to other more detailed or technical information. 

Figure 1. Image showing ShakeMap Web page for the Evergreen Exercise. The Web page was intended to 

provide exercise participants with a basic understanding of the ShakeMaps used to design the exercise 

scenario and with links to a ShakeMap map viewer (fig. 2) and to more detailed or technical information.

• Maps need to be at scales useful for county-level response and have layers of familiar geographic 

features and infrastructure relevant to response. We developed an expandable online map viewer, 

accessed using standard Web browsers (fig. 2). This viewer was built around ESRI’s ArcGIS Web

map service, and allowed users to superpose transparent ShakeMaps on a variety of base maps as 

well as layers containing various types of infrastructure. In addition, users could add facilities 

impacted by the scenario earthquakes to the maps they were viewing. 
8

Figure 2. Image showing an example view of the online, zoomable ShakeMap interface. This example shows the 

ShakeMap for the South Whidbey Island scenario earthquake (yellow to red shading) as a transparent layer on 

a base map with county boundaries, roads, parks, and other geographic features. Locations of closures, 

damaged structures, and operating facilities resulting from the scenario earthquake are shown by the various 

symbols. The rectangle in the center of the ShakeMap outlines the fault that broke during the earthquake. 

• The tangible impacts of an earthquake must be conveyed more simply and succinctly, employing a 

scale useful for decision-making at the regional and local levels. We produced a prototype 

Earthquake Impact Web page, which is a simplified, higher-resolution version of the USGS’s PAGER 

product (for example, showing losses by city and county; fig. 3). The ShakeMap serves as input to a 

rapidly executed economic loss estimation tool. The one-page Earthquake Impact document 

conveys impacts in terms of estimated population exposure to various shaking levels and dollar 

losses to specific counties and cities. 
9

Figure 3. Image showing an example view of the Earthquake Impact Web page. The prototype Web page is

modeled after the PAGER product (prompt assessment for global earthquake response) by the U.S. Geological 

Survey, but it is simplified and at a more regional scale. 

• Increased awareness of which products require active repeated educational outreach to intended 

users. While face-to-face meetings were considered useful, tutorials and seminars delivered 

electronically were considered most desirable because they required no travel and could be 

viewed at users’ convenience. Several months prior to the Evergreen Exercise we described EHP 

products in an hour-long webinar titled “A Practical Guide to Pacific Northwest Earthquakes,” 

which was attended by about 130 exercise participants. The material presented was developed 
10

into an online tutorial for individuals, viewable with any Web browser (fig. 4). The tutorial and the 

products described above were demonstrated at the final exercise planning meeting and 

advertised by sending emails to all county Emergency Operations Center (EOC) managers and via 

postings on the official exercise Web site and in the exercise training guide.

Figure 4. Screenshot of the first page of the online tutorial, “A Practical Guide to Earthquakes.” This tutorial was 

made available to all Evergreen Exercise participants prior to the exercise, with one of the two lessons 

dedicated to information about EHP products. It can be viewed using any standard Web browser.

Testing During the Evergreen Exercise 

To measure the effectiveness of our efforts to market our new USGS-EMD and existing EHP 

products, we posted observers at all of the participating county EOCs, at the Washington State EOC, 

and at FEMA Region X’s EOC during one of the two exercise days. We requested that these observers 

note if and which of the products were used, and what other tools and mechanisms of information 

exchange were most commonly employed and how effective they were. Observers were geologists or 

seismologists employed by the USGS or Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of 

Washington. We summarize observers’ common observations and inferences below. 

Observer reports all led to the same general conclusion: none of the USGS-EMD or EHP 

products were used, and in most cases, the products were completely ignored. We believe that the lack 

of use of the USGS-EMD and EHP products was their incompatibility with the design of the Evergreen 

Exercise, rather than problems with the products themselves. The first flaw in the exercise for testing 

purposes turned out to be the fact that the scenario started one day after the hypothetical earthquakes 
11

occurred. The exercise scenario was built around the simultaneous occurrence of five major earthquakes 

in the Puget Sound region, and exercise participants felt that after one day, information about the causes 

of the disaster was irrelevant to their task of recovery—sufficient situational awareness had already been 

gleaned such that products like ShakeMap were no longer useful. In other words, a clear inference is

that the USGS-EMD and EHP products are considered useful only in the very first hours after an 

earthquake. The second flaw was the lack of aftershocks in the exercise scenario, which, together with 

the late start, effectively eliminated all perceived need for earthquake information. According to the six 

observers, in only two EOCs were any questions about the earthquakes’ causes asked. Press releases 

were issued in most of the EOCs, but other than the first ones announcing the occurrence of the 

disasters, none contained any mention of earthquakes or connections between earthquakes and their 

impacts.

A third lesson pertains to awareness of USGS-EMD and EHP products and education about 

them. Most of the personnel staffing the EOCs were there on temporary assignment as liaisons from 

other widely varied entities. Some were serving at an EOC for the first time. How do we effectively 

educate such a diversity of transient participants? In the largest counties and at the Washington State 

EOCs, liaisons receive regular training between disasters, and these trainings may provide venues for 

product marketing. In addition, EOC managers educated about products may guide even temporary 

workers toward using them during real earthquake disasters.

Several other common threads were clear in observers’ reports. Observers all expressed surprise 

at the lack of reliance on maps. Instead, information was conveyed via spreadsheets, lists and other 

nongraphical means. In some EOCs maps showing locations of impacted infrastructure were displayed, 

but observer perception was that most EOC staff were not using them to do their work. A lesson for 

product developers may be to present information in a variety of formats and (or) to make maps easier 

to generate, display, and use. Another common thread among observer reports was the wide variety of 

procedures and methods used for information exchange, archiving, and analysis. Those methods 

involving computer and networking technologies presented significant challenges to smooth operations 

at most EOCs. While the State EMD serves as the central clearing house for operations and situational 

awareness, communications to and from the State EMD were in many cases infrequent and not easily 

executed. This lack of uniformity in approach and technical capabilities might suggest that to be widely 

useful, products must require minimal user technical expertise. 

Conclusions The USGS and Washington State EMD conducted a project to learn about the needs of countyand local-level emergency managers and how well USGS Earthquake Hazards Program (EHP) 

earthquake-response products met their needs. Focus group meetings held with emergency managers 

and their constituents in seven counties, with other State agencies’ emergency managers, and with two 

private companies, revealed that earthquake-response products have not met some important needs of 

emergency managers at the county and local levels. Particular reasons for this include: (1) many 

emergency managers and their constituents are unaware of most earthquake products; (2) the scale of 

map products is not suitable to local needs; (3) products need to convey impact on infrastructure and 

social systems more tangibly and clearly; (4) everyday language needs to be used, and technical 

information provided only when necessary; (5) emergency managers’ confidence in instrumental 

measurements needs to be raised to the same level as that which they have in eyewitness observations. 

New prototype products were developed by the USGS-EMD team that attempted to address the 

needs revealed in the focus groups. These new products were explained and marketed to participants in 

the regional 2012 Evergreen Earthquake Exercise, where they were to be tested by observing the 
12

exercise at the participating Emergency Operation Centers. The fact that the exercise started 24 hours 

after the hypothetical earthquakes and included no aftershocks made it poorly suited for the purposes of 

testing USGS-EMD or EHP products, but valuable lessons were learned nonetheless. (Future testing, 

modification, or adoption of the new products has not been determined.) One clear lesson was that 

emergency responders rely heavily on ground-truthed information about impacts rather than USGSEMD and EHP products, even during the first few hours following an earthquake. Another lesson 

pertained to education and marketing of products, a process that needs to extend beyond EMDs because 

during crises a significant fraction of personnel involved in the response come from many other sectors 

of the community. Fortunately, many county EMDs have established networks with their communities 

and working methods used to reach community members, so piggybacking on these can be an effective 

means of reaching a broad constituency. A surprising lesson was that information conveyed via formats 

other than maps should be considered, as many emergency personnel do not use maps. Finally, 

information exchange, archiving, and analysis involve a wide range of mechanisms and technical 

capabilities that vary significantly from one emergency management agency to another, implying that 

widely used products must be easily accessed and employed. 

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the focus group meeting participants for their time and input; John Schelling 

for his valuable suggestions; David Wald of the U.S. Geological Survey for calculations used in the 

earthquake impact prototype page; Renate Hartog, Brian Atwater, Tom Pratt, Jon Conolly, and 

Elizabeth Barnett for serving as thorough observers; Craig Weaver for his encouragement; Evergreen 

Exercise organizers for allowing us to complicate their planning; and the USGS Multi-Hazard Program 

for financial support. 

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