What Disaster Response Management Can Learn from Chaos Theory

Gustav A. Koehler California Research Bureau and Time Structures, Sacramento, California
Guenther G. Kress Department of Public Administration, California State University, San
Bernardino, California
Randi L. Miller Department of Sociology, California State University, San Bernardino, California
I. DISASTER CHARACTERISTICS THAT DISORDER ORGANIZATIONS
Major disasters have a low probability of occurring, but when they do, they can have
devastating consequences. Designing response structures for such events is a difcult task,
particularly when public resources are limited. Typically, the effort to organize a disaster
response structure involving multiple public, private, and nonprot agencies is hampered
by a number of unpredictable factors. One or more of the following factors may apply in
an emergency response situation.
The type of disaster that could occur at any time is unpredictable. Clearly, disasters
such as earthquakes and hazardous materials releases are inherently unpredictable. And
while hurricanes, tornadoes, civil disturbances, and oods are somewhat more predictable,
the exact time when, for example, casualties will occur or when medical transport is
needed remains unknown.
Where a disaster will occur is often unpredictable. The exact location of a disaster
cannot be predicted and the way it will geographically progress is unknown in advance.
For example, the path of a tornado or of a civil disturbance cannot be precisely predicted,
causing considerable variation in the number and severity of injuries.
How a disaster will unfold in geographic space over time is often unknown. The rate at which
disaster extends itself geographically over time can effect the generation oinjuries and deaths.
The type and distribution of injuries in space and time are often unknown. Particular
types of disasters have specic injury proles. For example, an earthquake produces lacerations and
crush injuries. A hazardous materials incident can produce inhalation injuries.
But the lack of knowledge of the space-time distribution of where the disaster occurred
and the rate at which it is proceeding makes it difcult to predict the prole of injuries
particularly if, for example, an earthquake and a hazardous materials release occur simultaneously.
Which elements of the emergency response system will be damaged, how they will
be damaged, and the resulting delay in their response are unpredictable. For example,
medical resources such as personnel, supplies, ambulances, hospital beds, and communica-
tion links can be overwhelmed, damaged, or distorted. Their location, distribution of re-
sponse units, and availability is often not congruent with the type, volume, and distribution
of injuries. Furthermore, the initial starting conditions of any one agency affect the way
its own structure emerges and how it relates to other agencies.
Self-organizing efforts by citizens, responders in the eld, and other emergency or-
ganizations at the state, federal, nonprot and private sector levels may create unexpected
communications paths and response structures. Following a disaster, people in the area
organize themselves to rescue neighbors and perform other immediate disaster response
activities. Responders, hospital staff, re personnel, and others will be repairing their
disrupted and damaged systems and creating new and often unplanned organizations for
delivering disaster relief services. Volunteer organizations and other private response
groups may suddenly appear and demand that their needs be immediately met.
Information about the entire emergent disaster response structure or even parts of the
response (including how it extends across the community, city, and operational area, as well as the
status and organization of the regional, state, and federal responses) is incomplete. A disaster
response structure is emergent because it did not fully exist prior to the disaster. The
response involves the birth of new units or the restructuring of old ones at the work group,
organizational, interorganizational, community, or regional level that are more or less adaptive to a
particular circumstance within the disaster (Comfort 1994; Drabek 1987; Koehler 1995). It is difcult
to identify what and where the new structures are or how old ones have changed as well as to
identify the form of intergroup and interagency connections.
Preexisting strains between organizations may be exacerbated. Preexisting strains
between organizations due to competition, organizational placement, routine underfunding
and understafng of disaster preparedness, and other factors may make interorganizational
coordination more difcult (Drabek 1989).
Because of initial starting conditions and varying resource demands, critical activity rates within
and between organizations drive each other and the overall response
in unpredictable and complex ways. A disaster response depends on tight and effective
coordination between many different public and private organizations. For example, citizen self
organizing rescue efforts, ambulance companies, law enforcement, hospitals,
pharmaceutical supply houses, surface and air transport, military forces, and federal, state,
and local government agencies may be included in any disaster response. The rate of
victim rescue affects how quickly transport vehicles must be identied and dispatched,
which, in turn, affects how many injured people are waiting for care in hospital emergency
departments, emergency department stafng, and so on (Koehler 1992). These factors are
driven by the availability of communications, health care personnel and supplies, as well
as by whether transport can move necessary resources to where they are needed.
The various ways in which a disaster disrupts both individual organizations and
collective efforts to develop a disaster response system points to several critical issues in
disaster and emergency management.

What Disaster Response Management Can Learn

1. The best efforts of disaster managers to develop a disaster response system may
achieve relatively poor results because:
a. The problems they face at the onset of the disaster are often ambiguous,
unclear, and shifting.
b. Information is unavailable, unreliable, problematic, and subject to multiple,
competing interpretations.
c. Resources are limited, not immediately available, and are being used up at
unknown rates.
d. Lacking a clear problem denition as to where the most injured are located,
a prole of the injuries, and measures of success relative to how the entire
response is proceeding makes it difcult to systematically prioritize re-
sources during the earliest part of the response.
e. Attempts to organize may actually be counterproductive due to incomplete
knowledge about the nature of the disaster and the availability of resources.
2. Simple relationships, even deterministic ones, appear to generate indeterminate
behaviors because of varying response rates between individuals and organiza-
tions.
3. The application of simple rules (e.g., all messages requesting assistance must
come to a specic message center and not go directly to response organizations)
can generate complex results (e.g., message delivery is slowed, increasing prob-
lems with obtaining resources in a timely manner).
4. Small changes appear to have an amplifying effect across the entire response,
resulting in large changes later.

Due to some or all of these factors, the planned emergency response system will
probably not be the one that emerges. The one that does emerge will, most likely, have
a tendency to be locally self-organizing, somewhat unpredictable in its interorganizational
linkages, and likely to succeed or fail in unpredictable ways.
Managing disasters is indeed a daunting task. Can chaos theory provide insights as
to why these organizational phenomena occur? If so, are there strategies that management
can adopt that may improve the nature of the disaster response? This paper addresses
these questions by rst looking at how chaos theory helps us understand the process that
causes disaster organizations to become disordered. Second, the paper discusses appropriate
strategies for the management of nonlinear events such as disasters. Third, it arrives
at key lessons disaster response managers can learn from chaos theory. After a review
of the limitations of chaos theory for disaster management, the paper concludes with a
presentation of options for future administrative and legislative action in California and
elsewhere.
II. WORKPLACE RULES, FIELDS OF ACTION, AND ORGANIZATIONAL MORPHOGENESIS
Disaster workers are in constant motion at various locations as they simultaneously apply
various management systems (e.g., the Incident Command System in California) and develop tactics
to organize and implement their response. Generally, they are applying policies, work processes,
work behaviors and attitudes, or workplace rules within a eld of action (Kiel 1994).
Workplace rules are rules for interorganizational coordination and communication, as with an
emergency operations center (EOC). The eld of action
is dened as the physical workplace and the external environment. The eld of action is
multidimensional and highly complex. In the case of a disaster, the eld of action is
inuenced by the initial conditions that an organization nds itself in following the often
abrupt onset of disaster. Kiel (1994) tells us that It is the interaction of the *workplace+
rules of motion with the eld of action that determines the direction and result of motion
in the workplace. The dynamic created by the interaction of the rules and the eld of
action lead to agency outputs and performance (p. 50).
A change process links the emergent organizational and system-wide disaster re-
sponse structure with the one that existed prior to the disaster. As the eld of
action
changes, so changes the organizations functions and accompanying work rules, which,
in turn, change its structure. Organizational survival and the emergence of the response
system are related to these self-organized adaptive activities (Jantsch 1980). Often the
emergent structure stabilizes long enough to provide some range and level of services
before changing back to its preresponse form (Thom 1972).
Our earlier discussion of what happens to an organization following a disaster and
its efforts to form a disaster response system, as well as the limits of rational management,
could be interpreted to mean that there are no rules or characteristic stages that dene the
disaster management process. Furthermore, we do not fully understand how interagency
structures emerge when faced with a disaster situation (Drabek 1987). While there is a
large literature that carefully describes and characterizes organizations and interoganiza-
tional behavior at various points in this process, there is no general theoretical explanation
for the process of disaster organization emergence, structure, stability, reintegration into
the day-to-day system, and cross-system interaction. In what follows, we hope to show
that chaos theory may shed some light on the processes associated with the emergence
of disaster response organizations.
The development of a time-based, process-oriented map of how
organizations change under extreme conditions, such as those prevailing in a disaster, might
reveal deeper or more fundamental aspects of the organizational change process in disaster
situations. Workplace rules and the eld of action create unique variations that emerge from these
deeper processes. In a way, the problem is analogous to how an individual organism grows. While
each individual is different, they are also members of a particular species and exhibit a general body
plan. Their individual growth process (morphogenesis) obeys very specic rules that guide growth
from an egg to an adult and on through death (Abraham 1985; Lincoln et al. 1982). These deeper
rules guide the formation of organs, bones, etc., so that functioning but different and adaptable
individual organisms emerge. Is there a similar set of organizational morphogenic rules that map the
process of how an organization is disorganized and then reorganized? Can we look below the surface
features of a disaster and nd more general principles that can be used to speed the response
along? Are there similar rules that apply to the morphogenesis of large-scale response systems
(Quarantelli 1987)? The term morphogenesis will be used to refer to this deeper set of
organizational response system dissolution/reforming rules. We will assert, for the sake of
discussion, that such morphogenic rules exist and present some preliminary empirical evidence of
how they might work.
In summary, our hypothesis is that effective disaster response management involves the
creative application of morphogenic and workplace rules within the disaster eld of action. In so
doing, an effective disaster response pattern emerges (self-organizes to a signicant degree) in
space and time to meet a qualitative objective such as saving lives.

What Disaster Response Management Can Learn 297

III. CHAOS THEORY AND THE RULES OF ORGANIZATIONAL MORPHOGENESIS
Disaster response organizations and response systems are dynamic systems. A dynamic
system consists of two parts: a rule or dynamic, which species how a system evolves,
and an initial condition or state from which the system starts. Some dynamic systems,
such as those being discussed here, evolve in exceedingly complex ways, appearing to
be irregular and initially to defy any rule. The next state of the system cannot be predicted
from the previous one.
In mathematical theory, the change from order and predictability into unpredictabil-
ity or chaos for dynamic systems is governed by a single law. Furthermore, the route
between the two conditions is a universal one. According to Pietgen and colleagues (1992):
Route means that there are abrupt qualitative changescalled bifurcationswhich mark
the transition from order into chaos like a schedule, and universal means that these bifurca-
tions can be found in many natural systems both qualitatively and quantitatively (p. 584).
Put another way, chaos is a type of nonlinear behavior emerging along a universal route.
At a certain point along this route (close to the edge of chaos) organizations become
highly sensitive to initial conditions and may abruptly change.
The effect of a disaster on organizations and response systems and the form(s) they
take appears to be inuenced by the initial conditions they experience following the disas-
ter. Having said this, we still do not know if such organizations or systems move from a
relatively stable state into a chaotic one or if they are simply adjusting their behavior
within a given and predictable set of possibilities consistent with each organizations work
rules (Holden 1986). The two conditions are very different and require different manage-
ment strategies; in the earlier case the existing management strategy is useful; in the latter,
a new one is necessary to deal with an emergent process and accompanying structure.
The application of chaos theory to other social phenomenon can be helpful in clarifying
this issue (Brown 1994; DiLorenzo 1994; Gregersen and Sailer 1993; Kronenberg 1994).
If it cannot be empirically shown that at least some disaster response organizations and
response systems come close to or enter into chaos, then disaster management has little
to learn from chaos theory. More to the point, does the single law and universal
route apply to a disaster response?
By applying the logistic equation to appropriate disaster response data, it is possible
to determine if a disaster organization or response system traces the universal route to
chaos (Priesmeyer and Cole 1995). Priesmeyer and Cole (1995) provide a detailed discus-
sion of how the logistic equation is applied to a large number of phenomena to produce
what is called a logistic map. Using disaster exposure data provided by Bosworth and
Kreps (1986), Priesmeyer and Cole (1995) show that disaster organizations follow the
logistic map in their response. The logistic map shows that as the level of activity increases
and the environment becomes more turbulent, the organization moves from a relatively
steady state through a bifurcation point and on to the edge of chaos.
If the environment becomes even more disordered, requiring the commitment of
even more resources or their exhaustion, the organization is forced to move through vari-
ous structural states until chaos sets in. Prediction of the next organizational structure
becomes progressively more difcult. In terms of individual or interorganizational interac-
tions, a series of ever increasing self-reinforcing errors are made by participants, deviat-
ing from established workforce rules and their relationship to the disasters eld of action
(Koehler 1995). These continuously repeated errors become amplied and redene the
functions of the organization, which in turn redenes its structure. The errors increase
the organizations sensitivity to small changes in the environment (sensitivity to initial
conditions), which in turn cause large changes in the organizations structure. Thus . . .
process and structure become complementary aspects of the same over-all order of process,
or evolution. As interacting processes dene temporary structures . . . so structures dene
new processes, which in turn give rise to new temporary structures (Jantsch and Wad-
dington 1976:39).
To summarize what happens to management efforts at and following a bifurcation
point:

The relationships between work rules, the eld of action, and the environment be-
come more and more unpredictable.
Problems of varying magnitude and the efforts to address them (errors) may
generate large structural changes in the organization.
The organizations functions and structures may lock onto one of two or more states
or may oscillate between them.

Eventually bifurcations and accompanying oscillations become so complex that they
cannot be distinguished from chaotic conditions.

When chaos occurs a . . . system does not retrace prior identiable sequences of behav-
ior and does not evidence obvious patterns in its behavior. Chaotic behavior thus ap-
pears extremely disorderly since patterns over time, a symbol of orderliness, do not
appear to exist. Chaotic behavior simply skips from one identiable point to the next,
yet never extends outside clear and distinct boundaries. (Kiel 1995:189)
Priesmeyer and Cole (1995) suggest, however, that disaster systems do not enter
chaos. Instead, they tend to exist at the edge of chaos.
At or near the boundary of chaos it appears that the ordered structure of a disaster
response agency loosens, potentially making new behavior possible. It is at the edge of
chaos that sufcient uidity is achieved by continuous error, allowing for new work
rules and a redened eld of action to emerge and be absorbed into a new but not necessar-
ily more adaptive organizational structure (Kaufman 1993). Organizational changes traced
by the logistic map do not necessarily lead to a rational emergent process or structure;
they simply undergo certain characteristic changes at certain points which workers and
managers must respond to. Interestingly, such changes often can lead to structures with
an increased level of organization, which are more complex and capable of accomplishing
more work, than the previous ones. Kiel (1989) suggests that this is due to its increased
capacity to attract, utilize, and organize available energy for its creation and maintenance
(p. 545). Recent work in evolutionary theory and simulation studies supports the view
that organisms at the edge of chaos tend to be highly adaptive (Kaufman and Goerner
1994).
It may be that this new or adaptive response structure emerges from a phase transi-
tion at the edge of chaos. There are two types of phase transitions: rst order and second
order (Waldrop 1992). A rst order phase transition involves a sharp change from one
physical state to another. An example is the rapid transformation of water to ice. The
change is very abrupt and well dened. A second order phase transition takes more time
to accomplish and is less precise. Once a second order phase transition starts, no clear
cut structure remains or immediately emerges but there are lots of little structures coming
into and going out of existence. Efforts to establish a better order or to select a particular
organizational structure among many possible ones are managements task. This structure
is reinforced by what is called a path-dependent process; that is, once the structure begins
to aggregate, there is a tendency to direct resources towards that aggregation rather than
to other alternative ones (Arthur 1990; Arthur et al. 1987). Both of these concepts
phase transition and path-dependent processesare important to understand how large,
geographically extended structures may emerge.
Drawing together what has been said about the edge of chaos:

At least during the rst 24 hours after an event, disaster organizations appear to
exist at the edge of chaos, a position that allows maximum adaptability.
Very small changes or errors can have large organizational consequences.
The accumulation of errors could lead to a second-order phase transition character-
ized by a period of disconnected organizational fragments that eventually
come together to form the new organization or system.
More complex and adaptive structures may emerge from a phase transition but they
are not necessarily more efcient.
Path-dependent processes may play an important role in reinforcing an emergent
organizational structure.

Although the logistic equation is very simple and carries little information about the
individuals, organizations, and systems we are interested in, it seems to map the essential
information about how these systems become disorganized and why they take the form
that they do. Priesmeyer and Cole (1995) show that disaster responses are clearly nonlinear
and at the very edge of chaos, therefore nonlinear tools and chaos theory are useful for
developing disaster management techniques.
IV. CHAOTIC SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT THEORY

Management techniques appropriate for organizations prior to a bifurcation point do not
work well once an organization reaches this point or moves to the edge of chaos. Prior
to the bifurcation point the variations occurring in the environment fall within the organiza-
tions change capabilities. The management task at the bifurcation point is to dampen the
disrupting structural oscillations. The challenge at the edge of chaos is how to creatively
interpret the options and choose among a multitude of possibilities that will, via a second-
order phase transition, effectively recouple the organization to other organizations and its
environment. Kiel (1995) tells us: Most importantly, during times of high instability
such as disasters and occasions when emergency services reach peak levels of activity it
is essential to recognize that stability can only be regained by developing strategies that
are themselves unstable. In short, we must match the instability of these environments with
management practices and organizational strategies that are dynamic and uid (p. 2).
According to Kiel (1994), there are three ways to deal with chaos:

Alter organizational parameters so that the range of uctuations is limited . In this
case, management tries to reduce the amount of change going on within the
system by reducing the effect of critical behavioral and other factors on the
system. The goal is to reduce uncertainty and to increase predictability so that
management goals can be achieved. However, this approach is unlikely to
work for an organization at the edge of chaos since the number of factors that are affecting
the organization may be very large, and their relative importance to the emergence of the new
organizational structure cannot be predicted.
Apply small perturbations to the chaotic system to try and cause it to organize . This
approach requires some understanding of how the various perimeters of the
organizations system work and what the effect of a small perturbation might
be. A highly unstable system may require a small efforta nudgeto cause
self-organization to begin. Appropriate lines of communication rather than the
control of hierarchical structures characterize this approach (Comfort 1994).
Adequate communications provide timely information about the progress of
the disaster and about the current state of local efforts. The nudge can be as
simple as a single person taking charge and making decisions (Weick 1985).
Change the relationship between the organization and the environment. This re-
quires continuous tracking of the relationship between critical conditions in
the environment and key organizational perimeters. As changes occur organi-
zational perimeters are adjusted in a continuous feedback process. For exam-
ple, the relationship between the number of injured and available transport is
closely watched so that as one increases or decreases, so does the other. This
approach could be a way of rening the second possibility above. In this case,
self-organizing processes are consciously shaped to bring the emergent struc-
ture more in line with environmental conditions and management goals.

For organizations at the edge of chaos, a combination of the last two options may
be useful. As we have noted, the aggregation of organizational fragments at the edge of
chaos into a new response structure may be initiated by an unexpected or unpredictable
event. Kiel (1994) suggests that as with variation beyond the control limits in quality
measurement systems, that variation should not be considered a problem in management
systems but rather an opportunity to learn why the variation occurred (p. 22).
In this case, the disaster response manager is looking for variations driving the self-
organizing processthe uctuationsin a direction that appears to meet his or her imme-
diate goals. Such a uctuation can be either positivesomething is being builtor nega-
tivethere is a silent area that has not reported. This phase transition or evolution of a
response organization or extended response structure to a more adaptive one is a learning
process. Good information about variations in the environment and the capacity to learn
and visualize based on that information are key manager attributes. These skills include
the capacity to see beyond the immediate present and construct a longer-term future
horizon that may serve to reduce resource waste through continuous short term adjust-
ments. Such skills are necessary to build in variation and to construct and adjust work
rules relative to the eld of action for optimal performance under changing environmental
conditions (Jantsch 1980).
Kiel (1994) suggests that we practice variation by perhaps using diverse teams to
try diverse methods on essentially the same disaster or emergency problem (p. 23). Rela-
tively autonomous messy or multidiscipline work teams in the eld may be able to
identify and use relatively large amounts of data to do problem solving and create individual or
coordinated response structures that respond to the immediate needs of their clients,
be they victims or other response organizations. Teams should be messy or unstable in
the sense that their membership is drawn from across functional areas constituted to solve
a service delivery problem. According to Kiel (1994) This suggests less of a focus on traditional
structuring by functional area and instead consideration of where functional
units converge to create outputs and services (Hammer and Champy 1993:200). Teams
drawn from a single functional area (medical but not transportation for example) may
tend to too narrowly dene the issue and may have an overly rigid view on how to address
it.
Sensitivity to initial conditions and the inability to predict exactly what form an
organization will take at the edge of chaos suggests that it is impossible to predict which
pattern for organizing the response is best. Provocative research cited by Loye (1995)
nds that groups do a better than average job of predicting future events. The research
suggests that groups are able to create a chaos gestalt that is able to predict a likely
outcome. Messy groups, particularly since they are composed of individuals drawn from
each element of a problem, seem particularly well suited for developing and implementing
options beyond the edge of chaos.
The creation of relatively autonomous, messy groups to solve problems in the eld
suggests a very at, decentralized disaster management structure. A multilayered, hierar-
chical structure will tend to restrict information ow at each point as it climbs upward,
concentrate and restrict decision making away from the eld, and reduce innovation and
exibility. A at structure allows for the uid and rapid ow of information, particularly
if multiple information linkages are possible. Experiments by Hershey and colleagues
demonstrate that a at organization tends to produce the least disorder in information ow
resulting in higher efciencies than hierarchical organizations (Hershey et al. 1990).
These suggestions appear consistent with the four factors that increase the resilience
and adaptiveness of the complex system that extends across the disaster. They are (1) a
capacity for creative innovation among organizational units that interact as a system to
achieve a common goal; (2) exibility in relationships between the parts of a system and
the whole; (3) interactive exchange between the system and its environment; and (4) a
crucial role for information in increasing either order or chaos, regularity or random behav-
ior within the system (Comfort 1994:158).

V. KEY LESSONS FOR DISASTER MANAGERS
Several key management lessons for public disaster response managers emerge from the
application of chaos theory to disaster management:
No general theory of disaster management as a set of prescriptive rules is likely.
Generally, the implication of chaos theory is that no grand theory of management is
likely to appear. By extension, no grand theory of disaster management will appear that
applies to all disasters and all environments particularly in varying social time contexts
(Kiel 1994).
All levels of the disaster response should be exible and adaptive . The capacity to
develop a self-organizing response involves the whole system from top to bottom.
Managers should look for the unusual, the variation, and the uctuation that indi-
cates that a new form is emerging. It is necessary to be open to learning and therefore
adapting to what is needed in the new environment. This style of decision making relies
on rapid, adequately networked communications and on an exploratory, experimental
process based on intuition and reasoning by analogy (Stacey 1992:1314). Overall, di-
saster strategy implementation may be more successful when it involves a series of
nudges directed at reinforcing favorable uctuations in the eld and collaboration with
other response efforts rather than implementing an overall, highly structured plan.
Support disaster infrastructure formation processes that enable the response to rap-
idly organize itself. Managers need to quickly identify the infrastructure processes that
contribute to the emergent response. The logistic map and the associated rules of morpho-
genesis may point to the kinds of disorder that will occur. On the other hand, the literature
suggests that there are rules that may contribute to the emergence of large-scale systems.
Infrastructures that support the response process should support a pattern that is likely to
help local messy groups. For example, the provision of a horizontal, deeply redundant
communications system with sufcient capacity for the immediate mobilization of large
numbers of personnel and supplies and transportation assets based on the disaster prole,
might be such an infrastructure-like process that contributes to the emergence of a
disaster-wide response. Consistent with a at structure and local decision making, messy
groups should be able to draw on this infrastructure and avoid hierarchical approval struc-
tures.
Self-correcting processes that track environmental changes relative to response in-
frastructure and messy group efforts are important . Continuing success involves creative
interaction with what is emerging in the environment. Building on existing strengths to
support the response is important. However, this effort should be exible enough to avoid
the negative possibilities of path-dependent processes which tend to reinforce existing
operations rather than being exible enough to respond to emergent needs.
Strategies should be incremental and process-oriented so that they speed the self-
organization of the response. Due to the large number of interactions and feedback loops, it
is very difcult to predict the detailed course of the response or to develop a comprehensive
strategy. But, on an incremental or local basis, the effects of feedback from one time
period into the next are often perfectly clear. This is a powerful argument for planning
strategies that are incremental rather than comprehensive in scope and that rely on a capac-
ity for adaptation rather than on blueprints of results (Cartwright 1991:54).
Managers should take the role of catalyst to cause self-organization to occur. By
having access to information and communications and by making it available to key
trained responders, it may be possible to speed the effective formation of local response
networks.
Management values provide the deepest source of order in an organization. A
commitment to service, a desire to excel, a drive to improve, and a dedication to having
open organizations that let democracy ourish are essential management values in a world
of increasing complexity (Kiel 1994:218). It may be that the level of employee commit-
ment to change and their ability to cooperate and form messy teams may reduce the time
an organization is disorganized (Kiel 1989).
Reward employees for creativity. Successful adaptation often involves making sec-
ond-order phase shifts. Because the effect of sensitivity to initial conditions and the effects
of choices made cannot be predicted, the creation of different visions about what should
be done should be encouraged. No single organizational vision for the entire disaster is
possible in such an environment. Attention could be given to which skills are needed to
make a system emerge. Employees should be rewarded for risk taking and experimentation
that creates different options and for making such shifts. Managers should focus on . . .
changing agendas of strategic issues, challenges, and aspirations (Stacey 1992:1314)
The politics of the disaster response need to be addressed. The politics of the disaster
response should minimize the ongoing stresses and strains between organizations to prevent
unnecessary fractures in the overall response. This approach involves top level managers dealing
with the politics of coordination and consensus building across organizational and political
jurisdictions (Stacey 1992).

VI. LIMITATIONS OF CHAOS THEORY FOR
The application of chaos theory to disaster management has a number of signicant limita-
tions:
The question of how helpful chaos theory is for disaster management needs further
empirical investigation. As shown, the application of chaos theory to disaster management
has some preliminary empirical support. The concepts make metaphorical sense and seem
to be consistent with disaster management experiences. However, several questions re-
main. For example: (1) How do we know when an organization is at the bifurcation point?
(2) When does an organization actually enter chaos or pass through a bifurcation point?
(3) Can these be rigorously dened and empirically observed?
Every response agency that is responding to a disaster does not come to the edge
of chaos. Some programs adapt using existing management systems. Thus different man-
agement systems apply to varying organizational situations throughout the disaster area.
Management exibility as a response to chaos has its own costs (Kaufman 1985).

Resources are needed to maintain the capacity to act in different ways on short notice.
When a disaster occurs, reserved resources, if immediately committed, could make a signicant
difference.
Technical expertise and functional specialization may be particularly important for certain types
of disasters such as hazardous materials events. Under these circumstances, generalists may simply
not know what to do.
An overcommitment to exibility can result in rigidity, particularly when decisive
action in a single direction is required. Such organizations can also be indeci-
sive and not be able to make critical decisions quickly.
The formation of messy groups may weaken important bonds between workers (i.e.,
friendship, self-interest, habitual behavior) that hold the organization together.
Leadership that constantly revises its direction may nd itself challenged, resulting
in increased disorder.
Management skills may not be the answer to why response organizations are suc-
cessful. It may be that sensitivity to initial conditions and fortunate relationships with
other organizations have more to do with a successful response than disaster management
skills (Kaufman 1985).
Computer chaos modeling is not the same thing as creative risk-taking by disaster
responders and cannot replace chaos management techniques. Efforts to simulate the
course of a disaster and to use the information to manage it may restrict the creativity of
individuals to develop the most appropriate local response. Complex predictive models
have many problems with validity and prediction that temper their applicability even
though they may be useful for investigating how sensitive critical elements might be to
initial conditions (Oreskes et al. 1994).
Chaos theory does not address many other organizational and interagency problems
that condition the emergence and effective operation of disaster response systems. A review of the
disaster research cited in this paper shows exactly how complex a disaster response is.

VII. ADMINISTRATIVE AND LEGISLATIVE OPTIONS
Based on the preceding discussion, the following are potential options for administrative
and legislative action in California and elsewhere.

A. Research and Evaluation

The science of complexity research, which includes chaos theory, may be a useful
avenue to further disaster research and should be encouraged with research
grants.
Design a PC-based disaster simulation program that could be used to investigate
the sensitivity to initial conditions of key components of the response for vari-
ous types of disasters.
Encourage researchers to validate Priesmeyers nding that a disaster response is
chaotic for various disasters and different types of public, private, and non-
prot organizations at the state, operational area, city, and eld level . Such
research should seek to link existing sociological, psychological and other
organizational studies of disasters to chaos theory.
A high priority could be given to the collection of time series data during a disaster
response. Time series data are important for understanding how a disaster
response organizes.
B. Communications and Steering

Inventory and coordinate state, local, and private emergency communication sys-
tems. Various levels of government, private agencies, amateur radio operators,
and others collectively represent a potential network that could provide the
necessary communications links to cause the rapid formation of a disaster
response. Often elements of these communications systems have failed, been
overloaded, or cannot intercommunicate. These limitations and failures need
to be identied and eliminated. Disaster exercises that bring up and stress
elements of the entire system and run according to disaster response plans
should be conducted. Providing communications to messy groups and coordi-
nating them into a network could be included.
Consideration could be given to parallel communication systems that connect key
decision makers and resource storage areas, allowing local responders to obtain the sup-
plies they need with a minimum of higher level regulation . Highly centralized communica-
tions systems for ordering, coordinating and delivering resources may not support the
rapid emergence of large-scale disaster networks.

C. Statutory and Regulatory Review

Statutes and regulations that limit cross-jurisdictional coordination and resource
sharing should be identied and reviewed to determine if they hinder the for-
mation of response networks.
D. Disaster Management

The California Legislature has attempted to deal with the disruptive effects of disasters
on response organizations. EMS, and other state and local government response agencies
are required by statute (Section 8607 of the Government Code) to use the Standardized
Emergency Management System (SEMS), when responding to emergencies involving
multiple jurisdictions or multiple agencies. Local governments must use SEMS to be eligi-
ble for state reimbursement of response-related personnel costs. This legislation was
passed to address interagency coordination and other response management problems oc-
curring during the 1991 East Bay Hills Fire in Oakland. Generally, law enforcement, re,
and other response organizations had problems organizing themselves in compatible ways,
making it difcult to identify or coordinate similar functions and resources.
SEMS seeks to address interagency coordination problems by providing a ve level
hierarchical emergency response organization (eld, local government, operational area,
region, and state) that facilitates:

The ow of emergency information and resources within and between involved
agencies at all ve organizational levels
The process of coordination between responding agencies
The rapid mobilization, deployment, use and tracking of resources
This hierarchical structure uses the Incident Command System (ICS), the Multi-
Agency Coordination System, the states Master Mutual Aid agreement, the Operational
Area Satellite Information System, and a specic designation of operational areas to inte-
grate the disaster response. Each agency organizes itself around a set of common ICS
dened functions (command/management, operations, planning/intelligence, logistics,
and nance/administration), species objectives that it seeks to accomplish (management
by objective is required), and uses preestablished systems to ll positions, conduct
briengs, obtain resources, manage personnel, and communicate with eld operations.
The preceding discussion of the applicability of chaos theory to disaster management
suggests that a number of state-related management options should be evaluated to deter-
mine their response utility for ICS and SEMS:
Integrate SEMS and ICS training with chaos management training options. SEMS
and ICS are analogous to the command and control structures of an army. Ideally, these
management systems provide a common command and control structure (SEMS) and
nomenclature for each unit (ICS). Commanders at headquarters or in the eld are not told
how to tactically coordinate with other units or how to arrange the units into an effective
formation on the battleeld to win a particular engagement. Tactics and the deployment
of forces are battle-specic. Similarly, SEMS and ICS help to organize the various compo-
nents of a disaster response. They create an adaptive priority setting and resource manage-
ment structure, but do not dene which tactics might be most useful for organizing individ-
ual components into an overall response system for a particular disaster. The Ofce of
Emergency Services has moved in this direction by decentralizing its operations away
from the State Operations Center to Regional Emergency Operations Centers. As noted
above, it is what is unique about a disaster that disrupts the response. Disaster managers
should be trained in skills that increase their ability to adapt to changing situations.
Identify and evaluate various critical interorganizational interfaces and rates of
interaction that regulate the response infrastructures self-organizing process. Agencies
ability to self-organize and mobilize resources is all directly related to how quickly theresponse
emerges. Relationships to be examined might include: state SOC interactions
between public and private response and resource agencies and resource agencies with
each other, state/region interactions; region/operational area interactions and setup of criti-
cal operations and their support; and operational area/emergent eld structures and their
identication and support.
Consider reducing the number of layers of government required to approve the
allocation of resources and personnel, and allow existing and emergent organizations in
the eld to request and approve distribution of state and other resources locally.
Consider developing and training a new group of eld responders who would be
seen as information brokers. Their purpose would be to identify locally emergent groups,
determine inadequate communication linkages, consider the need to coordinate resources,
and other similar functions. They would be dispatched with the appropriate communica-
tions equipment immediately following a disaster.
E. Disaster Response Training

State disaster scenarios should be scripted to emphasize the progress of the disaster by
showing emergent uctuations, process problems, and disaster infrastructure issues rela-
tive to the demands being serviced by EOCs close to the disaster.
Field exercises should be linked to EOC operations and emphasize communications,
self-organization processes to address unexpected problems, formation of messy groups
to deal with process problems, and the like. The emphasis would shift to supporting self-
organizing processes and disaster infrastructure issues.
State and operational area EOC strategy setting could involve tracking the emer-
gence and efciency of the response infrastructure relative to localized incremental goals
and needs. By attending to the emergence of the response infrastructure and how locally
set priorities and resource allocations are shaping these responses, it could be possible to
quickly improve the operation of the emergent processes and structures.
State and operational area EOC status reports could emphasize the emergence of
disaster infrastructure and overall uctuations across the disaster area. There would be
less of a focus on individual functional area accomplishments and more emphasis on
process, emergent organizations, and the implications of localized strategies and resource
use rates.
Disaster managers and responders could be trained to visualize the whole of the
response; do process mapping; form messy groups; engage in-group problem solving;
and be functionally cross-trained. The overall goal of the suggested modications in disas-
ter training would be to produce a creative generalist who is able to visualize large portions
of the response, understand the role of process in developing infrastructure, and capable
of forming and working in messy groups to solve problems.
Disaster response managers could be trained to resolve likely interorganizational
disputes, differences in social timing, political turf, and other issues that could seriously
disrupt a response.

AUTHORS NOTE
Gustav A. Koehler is the Senior Policy Analyst of General Law and Government for the
California Research Bureau. Guenther G. Kress is a Professor of Public Administration at California
State University San Bernardino. Randi L. Miller is a Professor of Sociology
at California State University, San Bernardino.
Many of the concepts, ideas, and management lessons presented in this chapter were
rst introduced at an invitational conference on what disaster managers can learn from
chaos theory. The conference was convened by the California Research Bureau on May
1819, 1995.