A Tale of Five Cities: Assessing Emergency Management for Future Disasters in the United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I found the paper to be interesting. I have some minor observations related to the work, as follows:

The rows 54-64 are not strictly connected with the discussion before them. Could you please place them somewhere in the methodology?

Also, please indicated some of the results to be obtained when stating your point regarding the research need in the introduction.

Section 2 is quite long. I think that a summary of the works in this section based on each selected location would be welcomed. You can add a table at the end of each sub-section in section 2 or add as a entire table at the end of section 2.6.

Section 3 is presented in a comprehensive manner that ensures the reproducibility of the study.

For section 4 could you please better state the source of the data in each case and the period for which it has been extracted?

Please add in the discussion section even some comparisons with other scientific works from the field and critically compare the obtained results.

Concluding remarks are supported by the results.

Author Response

A sincere “thank you” for your comments! They were valuable and helpful for improving the organization and content of the manuscript. 

Comment 1: The rows 54-64 are not strictly connected with the discussion before them. Could you please place them somewhere in the methodology?

Response 1: This was a good observation, and was very helpful for improving the flow and organization of information in this section. The content that was formerly in rows 54-64 was moved to the methodology section at lines 344 to 354.

Comment 2: Also, please indicated some of the results to be obtained when stating your point regarding the research need in the introduction.

Response 2: An excellent suggestion for improving the introduction -- The following was added at the end of the introduction, at lines 46-49:

“Our results shed light on gaps and overlaps at the local policy level, suggesting a new avenue of research regarding local level emergency management. The results support the use of the model at the local level to inform policymakers and local decision-makers on strategy gaps as well as progress on building capacity for emergency management and resilience.”

Comment 3: Section 2 is quite long. I think that a summary of the works in this section based on each selected location would be welcomed. You can add a table at the end of each sub-section in section 2 or add as a entire table at the end of section 2.6.

Response 3: This is quite true. A summary table was added at the end of section 2.6 (line 336) as suggested (second option).   

Comment 4: For section 4 could you please better state the source of the data in each case and the period for which it has been extracted?

Response 4: The sources in question were comprised of city and county plans, programs, and policy documents. Dates of publication or adoption were added with titles of the city documents that were sources of data throughout section 4. 

Comment 5: Please add in the discussion section even some comparisons with other scientific works from the field and critically compare the obtained results.

Response 5: Thank you for this comment. Additional discussion and references to relevant literature from the field were added at the beginning of the Background section, Section 2 (lines 58-75), and at both the beginning and end of the Discussion section (lines 669-687 and lines 785-799.

Thank you again. We would be happy to address further comments or questions you may have.

Kind regards,

Lisa Greenwood, Maddie Tlachac, and Jennifer Schneider

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting contribution to the literature on emergency management for future disasters in the United States.  

The scoring system is quite simple, but also comparatively coarse compared with quantitative risk-informed methods.  Whilst a paper such as this is useful as a step forward in gauging the state of emergency management in five U.S. cities,  the results in themselves are not necessarily a good indicator as to where further attention and resources should be prioritized. 

In particular, effective emergency management must encompass innovative surprise management.  All too often in the past, surprising losses have occurred that were not adequately anticipated.

This paper should include an honest assessment of the weaknesses of the scoring system adopted.  Some scenario analyses should be considered as a way of gauging limitations and deficiencies in the scoring system.

Readers would also find useful an indication as to how scores have evolved over the past few decades.

Author Response

A sincere “thank you” for your comments! They were valuable and helpful for improving the organization and content of the manuscript. 

Comment 1: The scoring system is quite simple, but also comparatively coarse compared with quantitative risk-informed methods.  Whilst a paper such as this is useful as a step forward in gauging the state of emergency management in five U.S. cities,  the results in themselves are not necessarily a good indicator as to where further attention and resources should be prioritized. 

Response 1: Your comment about the results is quite true. This was added in the discussion of limitations in Section 5.7, at lines 817-818.

Comment 2: In particular, effective emergency management must encompass innovative surprise management.  All too often in the past, surprising losses have occurred that were not adequately anticipated.

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. This was addressed in the limitations in Section 5.7 lines 828 – 833, referring to a city’s capacity to anticipate unexpected disruptions. 

Comment 3: This paper should include an honest assessment of the weaknesses of the scoring system adopted.  Some scenario analyses should be considered as a way of gauging limitations and deficiencies in the scoring system.

Response 3: This is an excellent suggestion. A brief discussion of tradeoffs was added at the end of the Materials and Methods section (lines 511-513), with reference added to limitations described in Section 5.7. The limitations section (5.7) was fully revised and expanded to discuss and illustrate the weaknesses and limitations of the scoring system (lines 801-833).

Comment 4: Readers would also find useful an indication as to how scores have evolved over the past few decades. .

Response 4: This is an interesting point. Given the relatively recent publication of the Rockefeller CRF and CRI as well as the RMM in 2014-2015, we did not see reference to the evolution of scoring associated with those tools in the literature. However, we did add a discussion of existing models and methodologies related to community resilience and common themes in the literature at the beginning of Section 5 (Discussion), and this also includes a discussion of scores generated using our model in relation to scoring using other tools. In addition, discussion was added at the end of section 5.6 that includes the evolution of the focus of research in the emergency management literature (lines 785-799). 

Thank you again. We would be happy to address further comments or questions you may have.

Kind regards,

Lisa Greenwood, Maddie Tlachac, and Jennifer Schneider