A MIS is critical in normal management issues and can be proved useful  in catastrophes if designed accordingly. The issue relies mostly on the analysis of the system concerned it subsystems and so on.

The information science field has historically focused on the “document” as the primary unit of information. Documents have traditionally been paper-based,  and consisted primarily of published books and articles. Their contents are individually meaningful, at least at a literal, surface level. Deeper meanings however do require interpretation in relation to connected documents and cultural contexts.These connections are relatively sparse (e.g., a few dozen references in an academic article) and have little built-in semantics (e.g., a reference simply leads you to another document, much like the  links that  predominate on today’s “World Wide Web”). Documents are fairly stable, and new ones take considerable time and effort to create. Document content is primarily read, interpreted and acted

on by humans.

In general, information has to be managed before the occurrence of any disaster. When a disaster happens, it is not so much as managing information but recovering needed information to continue the business, or any other aspect of life. When a disaster strikes, information has to be consumed, disseminated, or information has to be used in order to continue whatever existed before the disaster. From this point of view, to address the question "Who are the users of this system?", there are several individuals and groups that will seek such a system that can provide reliable information. In an enterprise environment, the individuals can range from the CEO at the top right down to the transaction level person who has to process a purchase order, or pay an invoice, or address a customer complaint. In a societal environment, this can range from a group of fire-fighters, to a group of federal emergency management teams, to a group of community leaders.  

In the center of the disaster MIS is of little use as events escalate quickly, and services such as electricity, mobile phones, internet, etc are immediately cut off.  It's a good idea to have a manual backup plan, for example a printout of your personnel and family data, which can be shared with the offsite crisis management team.

That said, MIS is useful in the planning process, so that you have accurate personnel data and can perform predictive modeling.

Tracey:

I absolutely agree that some systems (electricity, mobile phones, internet) may be compromised, but MIS is not limited to electronic information. Proper management will include redundant systems (such as radio networks, satellite phones, etc.) as well as manual systems that are scalable and agile -- not just backup.

The original question, I think, was not about business continuity but about IS in disaster response, and is rightly concerned with the requirements of numerous users. Moreover, many of those users rely on IS that is tailored to their particular operation and even culture -- even first responders in emergencies find that there is often poor integration between fire services, police services, hospitals, and utility providers, all of whom are pre-existing organizations with emergency plans in place.

More complex still are the needs of the unaffiliated responders: outside or international organizations, spontaneous volunteers, and those directly affected by the disaster who need timely, dependable information.

Satish:

Aside from the needs of users, have you also considered the information inputs FROM multiple users? This would be the case in certain GIS responses (tracking Twitter feeds, etc.) that compile information that is dispersed and feed it into centralized portals to create information maps. Any emergency IS needs to consider the needs not only of transmittal, but of reception of information (which raises issues of how to filter and use vast sums of data).

Hi. My approach to this topic is that from Command and Control.

Thouth I haven't had time to go through the literature referred by Harshvardhan Singh, I would recommend you to see the FEMA online course about Information Management (NIMS Communications and Information Management IS-704). However it is not longer available. But you could get some interesting training material like this: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/21st-century-fema-study-course-progressive-management/1115303732

Anyway. In may opinion there are several layers of users, and information has to be adjusted to their needs:

Strategic Level: They need overall figures of the needs and situation status, as well as, global resources usage. In this level you'll find Authorities and top emergency leaders, in other words, those who have to decide about what are the priorities and what to be done.

Tactic Level: Operational leaders. In this level, coordination is very important. In this level you will find those who decide about how the things need to be done. Planning happens in this level and they need accurate information about the objectives fulfilling. Also, they need to communicate with the Strategic and Operational level.

Operational Level: Responders are in this level. They need to share information about the situation status, and command and control in order to keep the accountability, (this is a wonderful word that doesn't exist in Spanish).

Besides, Public are also emergency information users, and it is critical.

Some tips:

- Pay attention to what is relevant to every user.

- Keep all users in the same Common Operational Picture.

- Adapt information to the system your are going to use to share it.

- Establish procedures to share information before the emergency arrives.

I thing I have summarized the most important ideas.

Juan:

Nicely summarized. The document for FEMA is available online at https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/.../is0700a_instructorguide_l4.pdf  and

https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is700a/student%20manual/is0700a_studentmanual_l4.pdf

although the course is not available as it is considered outdated.

[I am intrigued that there is no equivalent to "accountability" in Spanish ... responsibilidad would be my usual translation, but it doesn't cover all the nuances.]

Thanks Neil.

I'm not a native English speaker, but "accountability" means in this context "who is doing what". According to wordreference.com accountability is "responsability for outcome". To me it is very accurate.

What happens is when I use the word "responsabilidad" in the same sentence, the meaning of the sentece is very vague because it is like if you used responsibility or sensibleness instead of accountability.

Accountability means that actions and outcomes are traceable. That's a key point of Command and Control.