  Technological advances are creating exciting new opportunities that have the
potential to move HPC well beyond traditional computational workloads. In this
paper we focus on the potential for HPC to be instrumental in responding to
disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, extreme flooding, earthquakes,
tsunamis, winter weather conditions, and accidents. Driven by the VESTEC EU
funded H2020 project, our research looks to prove HPC as a tool not only
capable of simulating disasters once they have happened, but also one which is
able to operate in a responsive mode, supporting disaster response teams making
urgent decisions in real-time. Whilst this has the potential to revolutionise
disaster response, it requires the ability to drive HPC interactively, both
from the user's perspective and also based upon the arrival of data. As such
interactivity is a critical component in enabling HPC to be exploited in the
role of supporting disaster response teams so that urgent decision makers can
make the correct decision first time, every time.
