The US is replacing its historical federalist

There exists an acute need for an unambiguous objectively measurable emergency scale to facilitate communication and mutual understanding of the nature of any emergency, by the public and government agencies. A review of existing emergency scales and their potential indicates no one scale can accurately describe all emergencies. Our research solicits ideas for such a scale using a modified Delphi process followed by a survey. The goal of this research is to gain a better understanding on how the public understands emergency scales and anticipate response for emergency events. The contribution of this research is to identify a set of fundamental dimensions for a measurable emergency scale, derived from the Delphi process outcomes. We also present preliminary findings from the survey developed from the results of the Delphi process.