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EFFECTIVE COOPERATION AMONG AIRPORTS AND LOCAL AND REGIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCIES FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE Airports frequently cooperate closely with local emergency management (EM) agencies in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. While crucial to a successful outcome, such coordination presents complex challenges, as a wide array of personnel and materiel must be orchestrated under unpredictable conditions. In preparing to respond to disasters, airport and EM leaders can benefit from understanding how their peers in the field address the issues of cooperation and coordination. This study began with a literature review regarding collaborative efforts among all sorts of organizations and among airports and EM agencies in particular; that research guided the subsequent selection of participants and the development of on-line surveys. Sixty-seven airports and 35 local or regional EM agencies completed surveys regarding their current policies and practices. Follow-up interviews added depth. From that group, case studies of four airportsâa large hub, a medium hub, a small hub, and a commercial service airportâwere developed to investigate real-world practices. One case example also includes a reliever airport and a general aviation airport. The response rate was 93% for airports (67 of 72); and 66% of EM agencies (35 of 53). A very high degree of agreement concerning effective policies and benefits was found among airports, among EM agencies, and between the two groups. Essential elements of successful management practices with respect to collaboration emerged from a synthesis of the literature review, surveys, and interviews. These elements are iden- tified and described to assist airport executives, their governing boards, and personnel in developing effective mutual aid agreements to improve the preparedness and resiliency of airports and their surrounding communities. In the four case examples, airports and their EM partners focus most strongly on activi- ties required by regulations, at least by regulations applying to the airports. There is also a suggestion that peer reviews are an emerging trend among airports, with the process perhaps more advanced among airports than among EM agencies. Leadership, structural approaches to relationship building, communication, and personal traits were found by the case example partnerships to be essential to developing and sustaining airport-EM agency relationships. The issue of revenue diversion was found to be a concern but not generally an obstacle, to successful collaboration. SUMMARY
