OU professor leads study to strengthen disaster communications

Jun. 30—A University of Oklahoma educator is reaching out to municipalities, nonprofits and businesses to improve disaster resilience, resource allocation and emergency management.

Xiaochen (Angela) Zhang, an assistant professor in public relations in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, received a five-year Faculty Early Career Development grant worth $530,000 from the National Science Foundation to launch the project.

The grant starts Sept. 1, but Zhang has already connected with the city of Norman, the National Weather Center, the United Way of Norman and its affiliated nonprofits, the Cleveland County Health Department, OG&E, Oklahoma Natural Gas, the Norman Chamber of Commerce, and Norman Regional Health System.

With her grant, she is studying how entities communicate with each other amid disaster, and she is looking to improve cooperation between community partners.

"I do research on social capital and community resilience and how communication can improve that relationship," Zhang said. "My project uses existing bases to study relationships building social networks, and how we can use that structure to improve disaster response, especially resource allocation and collaboration coordination in times of disasters."

Zhang said Norman is an ideal candidate to study because it has an existing response network. It also disproportionately experiences natural disasters, and it has the presence of the university, which offers resources to gather data, including the National Weather Center.

"Norman is at a place where there's a lot of disasters that happen, especially with tornadoes," Zhang said.

She is working closely with United Way of Norman, which helped establish the Community Needs Network.

"For short, they call it CNN," said Zhang. "It's more of a communication project to study social networks. The network theory can inform what kind of a social network structure might be best for resource sharing allocation."

Diane Murphree, director of community impact at United Way of Norman, said the CNN was developed three years ago as a way to bring community partners together.

"Three years ago OU and United Way, along with many community partners, did a community needs assessment to see where the gaps are in our community to help people move forward," Murphree said in a statement. "As a result of that assessment, one of the issues that came up was disaster preparedness."

Tiffany Vrska, spokesperson for the city of Norman, wrote a letter of support on behalf of the city for the grant, titled "Transactive Resilience: Uncovering the Effects of Social Network and Communal Capacity on Disaster Community Resilience."

Vrska said the city supported Zhang's project because officials believe the city can't support all of its residents without its community partners, and that there are areas where it can improve its communication.

"Effectively managing disasters involves entire communities — not only city staff or government officials," she said. "Participating in this project will allow our team additional opportunities to connect with leadership in different sectors of the community to ultimately enhance communication and bolster resilience."

Vrska said the city will benefit because it will give a space for it to build better relationships with these partners.

Travis King, the city's emergency manager and fire chief, currently spearheads emergency response, alongside David Grizzle, the emergency management coordinator.

"As applicable, city officials operate in concert and in accordance with the National Incident Management System — a standardized approach to incident management developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security," Vrska said. "Depending on the type of emergency, various policies and procedures are laid forth for staff to abide by regarding incident response and recovery."

Businesses also play a key role in disaster relief.

"What we've experienced in the past is that our businesses can partner with public entities when disaster strikes in a number of ways," said Scott Martin, president and CEO of the Norman Chamber of Commerce.

Martin said businesses serve as a point of contact between residents and programs, such as those that collect items for disaster relief.

"Utility companies may need a parking lot to repair down lines," he said. "We are also a point of communication. We have a separate reach where businesses and employees can spread the words for critical needs and items."

Over the course of the five-year grant, Zhang plans to build a model that would show how cities and counties should communicate with community partners.

"The end goal is to form a more systematic and formal system transactive resilience model that can actually benefit other cities who want to adopt similar mechanisms," she said.

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.