Communication in emergent disaster response is not only a matter of broadcasting instructions. It is the process through which many actors build enough shared understanding to act together under uncertain and rapidly changing conditions. That is why distributed sensemaking is a central method in this school [@kendrawachtendorf2006sensemaking].
Sensemaking across organizations
Kendra and Wachtendorf’s study of the waterborne evacuation of Lower Manhattan shows how large-scale action can occur without prior detailed planning when participants collectively derive norms, meaning, and capacity for action from the situation itself [@kendrawachtendorf2006sensemaking]. This is a useful model for emergent disaster response because it shows how communication can remain effective across geographic and organizational space without a single dominant command center.
Social media and live information routing
The Occupy Sandy case shows a later variant of the same process. The HSSAI report describes how social media enabled volunteers and hubs to identify needs, route information, and redirect people and supplies in near real time [@ambinder2013]. In this sense, digital media did not replace local judgment. It expanded the speed and range of distributed sensemaking.
Communication as social capital
Wachtendorf and Kendra emphasize that convergence and coordination in disaster are also shaped by social capital and prior relationships [@wachtendorfkendra2004]. Communication works better when actors already have ties, trust, and some familiarity with one another’s capacities. That is one reason grassroots networks can sometimes adapt faster than formal bureaucracies that have more equipment but weaker horizontal connection.
Significance
Communication and distributed sensemaking matter because they explain how decentralized response stays coordinated without becoming purely hierarchical. They are the connective tissue between convergence behavior, improvisation, and concrete practices such as hubs, orientations, and local needs assessment.