From February 7, 1942 to the deaths of 111 miners on March 25, 1947, Centralia Number 5 was a disaster waiting to happen. So many things could have been done that were not. Scanlan's first report on February 7, 1942 was a premonition of the disaster to come. Scanlan as an inspector should have and could have done more to prevent this tragedy. This paper will discuss the four measures that Scanlan could have taken to avoid the catastrophe that resulted in so many deaths.
The Clock Begins: The Choices Available Life is unpredictable. So many things that happen are beyond man's control. However, Centralia Number 5 was not one of them. This incident was a calamity waiting to happen. There were several points along this path of
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Scanlan's decision not to close down the mine is a reflection of what happens when "mock bureaucracies" become the norm. Scanlan's based his decision not to close down the mine on the assumption that the Director would reopen the mine and fire or replace him with a more "reasonable inspector". In government one of the first things a person learns, is to follow the chain of command. Your supervisor is not the last step, but the starting point. When a supervisor fails to perform, their legal, ethical, or moral duty, the next step in the chain is to report him or her to their supervisor and so on. Scanlan started using the chain of command and then stopped. When his initial attempts met with failure, as a public administrator, Scanlan had a duty to protect and ensure the enforcement of state laws. When his reports went unanswered, he allowed political bias to prevent him from doing the right thing. "The saddest part [ about coal mining safety] is that in many instances the bias takes the form of concealing or glossing over unsafe conditions or practices" (Harrington, 1926, p. 97). As a public administrator, Scanlan had the duty and obligation to make sure his reports went to correct person. If this meant hand delivering them, then he should have done so. Following the chain of command goes hand in hand with being an active
Yellow Dirt is a well written novel that brings out the dishonesty and betrayal of the Navajo Nation and other Native Americans once again. During a time that focused on extracting uranium at all costs for the completion of the Manhattan Project would later change the future for all to come, the sacrifices that were made will be remembered and that trust between the United States and the Native Americans and minorities within our borders must be guaranteed for the protection of all of the public’s health. I believe that it was truly unethical not to take action when miners have been known to experience the cancerous health effects since the late 19th
Public administration always entails decision-making that serve the well-being of a collectivity. In “the Blast in Centralia No.5” case, the terrible explosion killed one hundred and eleven men. However, such tragedy was precisely predictable and preventable as the mine was perceived drastically dangerous for long time. Dwight H. Green was one administrator that managed the preceding fall and assigned mine inspector to supervise the mine operators. The moral obligations ambiguities he encountered was obviously the attempt to supervise and restrict mine industry versus political patronage upon the industry. Based on Waldo’s Sources of obligations, he was simultaneously obligated to mine law, nation, organizational norms, professionalism, himself
In addition to environmental concerns, opponents argue that government regulation is too lax and as Bahr states, “It is all too easy to mine on public lands and the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have made it extremely easy to validate claims.” Although uranium miners recognize federal obligations to reclaim operation sites Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Program
The role of the major public health personnel, including the public health nurse, is to provide the public with accurate information, and to assure the community, as well as ensure the immediate safety and well-being of the members of the community, while being competent compassionate and accessible. The public health director was contacted by the incident commander to attend the incident briefing due to immediate and long term public health impacts. The fire chief gave report concerning how many people were confirmed dead, what time it occurred and what county(s) were affected. He made the public aware if any hazardous materials had been released and where and whether
In this assignment, I will go over the different items related to the disaster recovery plan. I will go over the purpose of the plan, explain the key elements that go into a plan, the methods of testing the plan, and why we test the plan. All while explaining why the disaster recovery plan is so critical to businesses in the event of an emergency.
Pinchot, although not officially part of the Forest Service, still supported the agency he had largely formed and was supported by his previous employees. As the congressional hearing proceeded Pinchot and his allies worked to tarnish Ballinger’s credibility, not so much in the eyes of Congress but instead to the more powerful American people. The effect of their testimony was striking: much of the media depicted Pinchot as a hero attacking the corruption threatening conservation. The result of the hearing was expected, Ballinger was exonerated and his accusers rebuked. However, they also recommended that Congress prohibit government selling of coal fields such as the disputed Cunningham claims. Pinchot greeted this verdict with gladness, saying, “We had won the war-- in spite of the fact that technically we had lost the verdict.” Pinchot’s stand had been, in his opinion, as successful as could be expected. Although he had lost his job as head of the Forest Service and Ballinger had left with no punishment, Pinchot knew he had at least leveled the playing field for conservation. He never regretted the stand he had taken in the Ballinger-Pinchot
In the beginning of the book, Mayor Orden was very wise and unselfish, he always tried to do what was best for the town; the reader could tell he was capable to run the town from the beginning of the book. Early on in the book, Mayor Orden says to Colonel "Sir, I am of this people, and yet I don't know what they will do. My people have elected me. They made me and they can unmake me. Perhaps they will if they think I have gone over to you. I just don't know”. Colonel wants the people to work in the mines but Mayor Orden tries to defend his people and says they will not want to. Orden also thinks the townspeople will think he's gone over to the opposing side if he starts listening and obeying what they are telling him to do. It's obvious to the reader that Mayor Orden thinks about the town before he makes decisions. In chapter two, Orden says “You won't believe this, but it is true: authority is in the town. I don't know how or why, but it is so. This means we cannot act as quickly as you can, but when a direction is set, we all act together." Orden never put on a show for anyone, from
the paper is about the water crisis that is taking place right now in the Klamath Falls are of Oregon. It discusses the many problems that the different groups of interest are dealing with. The main group that I focused on was the view point of the farmers.
The outcome of this case not only has an impact on the materiality of the coal mining community, the environment that surrounds the area, the coal companies themselves or the state of West Virginia, it affects the materiality of everyday life, my materiality. The decision shows that it is ok for people to get away with certain decision that they negatively impact others. The Bragg v. Robertson unfortunately has more than one example of that, from the DEP allowing seventy-five percent of West Virginia’s mines to operate without a valid permit which was in violation of state and federal law, all the way up to the Fourth Circuit of Appeals failing to understand the SMCRA and using protection under the Eleventh amendment to justify their reasoning.
The most important aspect in managing a disaster situation is preparedness. The simulation Disaster in Franklin County highlights the role of public health personnel, with emphasis on the public health nurse because the nurse is often a first responder to such a disaster. This helps to examine the roles, actions, coping methods, and techniques used by a nurse in a disaster scenario.
While natural disasters such as floods, drought and hurricanes are commonly thought to occur due to environmental forces such as weather, climate and tectonic movements; a deeper investigation into the ‘disaster’ displays other contributing forces. Human factors have a large, if not equal, contribution to the occurrance and outcome of such disasters (Pelling, 2001). As Pelling (2001) argues, there is both a physical and human dimension to ‘natural disasters’. The extent to which the natural occurrence of a physical process, such as a flood or earthquake, impacts on society is constructed by that society, creating a ‘disaster’ as measured by a
Missing Figures The use of geographic data in the field of preventing and mitigating natural disasters remains a pioneering activity. However the circulation of the technology is still hindered by many issues such as the difficulty in obtaining the appropriate raw data, the lack of effective graphical user interfaces, the intricacy of predictive models and the expense of digitisation (Carrara et al., 1999). Natural disasters are becoming more frequent around the world, as seen in figure 1, which shows that in 1975 there were approximately 50 disasters
Natural disasters have never been an issue for me in the twenty years I have been living in Florida. There have always been the threats of dangerous hurricanes living near the coast, but I never took them seriously. I always thought " they're just little storms, what's the worst that could happen?". I was so naive to think that way.
Man-made and natural disasters are incidents that occur within our society. Research has indicated these incidents have become more common internationally over the past several decades (Pan-American Health Organization, 2004). As a result, it is integral domestically to plan for, work to prevent, and respond to incidents within our borders. These incidents have been shown to be increasing in commonality due to increased levels and technology associated with transportation, higher concentrations of humans in smaller areas, growth of chemical industries that increase availability of explosive and/or toxic agents, and increased terrorist activity and armed conflicts (Pan-American Health Organization, 2004). In response to these increasing risks of man-made and natural disasters occurring within our borders, it is integral for our society to utilize an emergency management system in order to prepare for, mitigate, and respond to these incidents. The Incident Command System (ICS), which allows for coordination on every governmental level and among a multitude of agencies, facilitates efficient communication between entities, and ensures a continuity of command through a highly organized chain of command (Phoenix Police Department). ICS is currently the main and most efficient and effective system throughout governmental and non-governmental agencies and entities within our borders.
Natural Disasters are very unpredictable as well as devastating to us as a human race. You never know when they will occur or where so this makes it very difficult to prepare for. You never really know what damage will occur of how long the clean up or repairs will take. We all try to prepare for Natural disasters however this is a very hard thing to fully prepare for. Many people are dying every year from natural disasters because they are so unpredictable. It appears the storms are only getting stronger and fiercer in time. The Wikipedia defines the term Natural disaster quite nicely. A natural disaster is a major adverse event resulting from a natural processes of the Earth.