Becoming An Emergency Management For Nine Years

According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.

The various local, state, and federal emergency management systems of the United States suffered a crude awakening in the decade of the 2000s. Systems expected to hold up were put to the test and failed to prepare for disaster, mitigate the damage, and, in some instances, actually hampered responses in life-or-death situations. Worse, all failings were highlighted in an age of global communication and mass media, on display first whether a man-made incident like September 11th attacks or natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. The decade found the complacent government failing to maintain modern emergency management practices, stimulating began a series of doctrinal upgrades and training improvements. Yet, no matter the bureaucracy, writings, or money thrown at a problem, the first responder to the incident has and will continue to influence the outcome. While the individual responder stands as the most important part of

Natural and man-made disasters have increased in the past decade, and due to these changes, Emergency Managers had to make drastic changes in order to improve the way first responders operate in a disaster area.

Current in the United States there is a huge impact form weather, starting with Hurricane Harvey and know Hurricane Irma. These two storms have tested and taxed the Emergency Response teams as well as the Emergency Management Teams on a Local, State and Federal Level. Hurricane Harvey came ashore in Texas, causing wide spread power outages, causing residents to evacuate their homes and overall disrupted the entire states and many parts of the country. With Hurricane Irma, we are seeing much of the same things on even a large scale. As Emergency Management we need to focus on the many different aspects of Preparation, Previous events and be able to employee the last technologies to help our residents, Family and

In the years after the 9/11 tragedy, the United States continues to face risks from all forms of major disasters, from potentially dangerous terrorist attacks to catastrophic acts of nature. Professionals in the fields of emergency management and homeland security have responsibilities for ensuring that all levels of government, urban areas and communities, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and individual citizens are prepared to deal with such hazards though actions that reduce risks to lives and property. Regrettably, the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's ability to deal with disasters is unnecessarily challenged by the absence of a common understanding on how these fields are related in the workforce and educational

While we do not have historical record of all of the natural hazards that have impacted the United States, we do know that for multitudes of years, the United States has been hit by many natural hazards – hurricane, tornado, drought, wildfire, flood and earthquake, to name a few. As each of these natural hazards occur, multiple issues arise – relative to the core components of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Yet, even with prior knowledge from years past and the destructive events that have occurred, we as a nation continue to struggle with natural hazards that more often than not become natural disasters. For too long it seems as if we have settled in to a rhythm of responding, attempting to recover, rebuilding and then repeating the cycle as another natural hazard strikes.

“In recent years with an increased emphasis on non-routine incidents such as hazardous materials, and now terrorist events, other methods have been developed to address new aspects related to non-routine situations” (FEMA, 1999). Command structure will encourage the delegation of workload to more manageable levels. Panic and chaos are not conducive to emergency responder productivity in a disaster. Managed response is a “force multiplier”, meaning that responders can accomplish their mission with less personnel or fewer resources if they work within a well- developed and planned system of

"You are truly benefit from the content you are studying, you may have to learn at a higher level than the mode of teaching in a class requires of you" ( Paul & Elder 2012,p.144). The purpose of my education is simple to prepare me for dealing with better educated individuals whether in an office or out in the field and compliment my twenty-five years of field experience. The quote I began my with is truly fitting for the degree which I am working towards in Emergency Services Medical Administration. This information that I learn from this class specifically will help me think before I speak and allow me to better focused not only on the situation but also the questions and answers that are constantly being asked. There are many questions

The future of Emergency Managers (EM) will be greatly enhanced by seeing more and more people obtaining their bachelors degrees in this field. This is credited to more colleges offering the program, and seeing the need for it in todays ever changeling, and changing environment. Having a BA in EM could also include a chance for promotions, and higher salaries.

Thus, in emergency management, to enhance the agency’s vision, changes may arise from policies and procedures, technology advancement, and equipment, shift in priorities, increase on mitigation and prevention measures, and methodologies among many others. This therefore demands that leadership in the emergency management must possess the ability to lead changes as requires since emergency management itself has to do with prepared for and responding to disasters or crisis that take place often with little to no warnings with the expectation to respond with adequate preparation. Hence, the emergency management employees and the leadership who want to be successful in dealing with disasters must learn to respond swiftly and effectively to changes; “an effective leader is able to motivate and inspire others to embrace change” (FEMA, 2005, p.

Emergency managers that I have met tend to be sponges, soaking up information. Britton argues that uncertainty is becoming a large part of the emergency managers mindset. Emergency managers must coordinate with others outside the field to gain insight into many situations. Britton argues that legitimacy is gained from the interface with other careers to reach a common objective. The student must be able to work outside of their comfort zones to develop this fifty-thousand foot view of all interrelated fields as they pertain to emergency management.

The burden of emergency management has grown great deal in the last few decades. We have seen an increase in natural disasters, a new threat of terrorism on our front door and an increase in manmade disasters. All of these have tested emergency management in a number of cities and towns across the nation. It is not always disasters that present problems for emergency managers. We have to look beyond our traditional view of emergency management of helping us during times of disasters and view what issues they consider may affect their emergency response. Issues that emergency management see that are moving into the critical area are issues of urbanization and hazard exposure, the rising costs of disaster recovery, and low priority of emergency management.

With these leaders, the individual efforts of first responders will be organized and harnessed into an effective and well executed response effort across multiple agencies. Additionally, as more reinforcements of responders arrive, the emergency management leaders will be that established center and check-in point for instruction, task assignments, communication central, and updated information. In fact, multiple emergency management command centers may have to be established, across the state or city, due to the damage and destruction left in the wake of a massive tornado. Therefore, the dispersing of assets and resources may be affected because of the demand stretching across a vast distance. The equipment and training these leaders should possess will include multiple avenues for lines of communication, extensive knowledge on orchestrating a massive response effort, and the ability to multi-task to ensure all areas are being attended

These programs are based on a set of preexisting standards developed by organizations, such as FEMA and IAEM, that measure and maintain the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are expected from practioners out in the field (Kapucu & Zerdem, 2013). The skills and knowledge developed ensure that all certified practitioners would have a sufficient aptitude to independently make decisions, and operate on their own without the guidance of supervisors (Kapucu & Zerdem, 2013). Furthermore, with the development of advanced educational programs and certifications it increases the legitimacy of the emergency management profession. According to Lindell et al. (2007), “the actions of a professional society promote public recognition of its existence as an organized group with specialized skills of expertise” (Lindell et al, 2003, p.

Emergency Operations in the United States are governed by the National Incident Management System and its sub component Incident Command System. The ICS is an organizational planning tool that helps sort and define incident command responsibilities to aid in the prompt mitigation of disasters and its effects. The primary staff positions govern other subsets of skills and together form a scalable organization that in theory can operate given an incident of any size and still perform the same functions. The primary design of the ICS structure is flawed in that it does not hold medical planning as its primary staff position but regulates it to a lower level. This is the Achilles heel of disaster management, medical operations are vital to the success of any disaster mitigation and management plan. Medical staff planning should be a primary staff position under the ICS structure.