Community Disaster Assessment and Planning Essay

is ranked at highest vulnerability for drought, flooding, and winter storms in South Carolina. It

Tragic events that cause damage to property and life may destroy the social, cultural and economic life of a community. Communities must be engaged in the various phases from prevention to recovery to build disaster resilient communities. In order to do this, there must be a disaster preparedness plan in place that involves multiple people in various roles.

This chapter provides an overview that describes the basic types of hazards threatening the United States and provides definitions for some basic terms such as hazards, emergencies, and disasters. The chapter also provides a brief history of emergency management in the federal government and a general description of the current emergency management system—including the basic functions performed by local emergency managers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the all-hazards approach and its implications for local emergency management.

Editor’s Note: This Chapter is the continuation of an adaptation of a state plan for disaster preparation and response. In total, the original chapter comprises Chapters 1, 14, 16-18.

National Response Plan Howard L. Hayes Saint Leo University Abstract Why is it necessary for our country to have an effective emergency plan in place? Why does it matter how the country responds to emergencies when every part of our country, including cities and states, face emergency situations on a daily basis all over? Some are bad to worse, and some horrific to deadly. Well, this paper explains the importance of the National Response Plan and why it is necessary for our country to have it in place. It explores several articles that have been published to show the results on the effectiveness and response of the National Response Plan. The National Response Framework, previously called The National Response Plan, is a plan that the United States put in effect to organize the way the country and the community handles attacks, disasters, as well as all events looked at as an emergency. The Response Plan relays and describes all the information in order to avoid catastrophic damages and to protect and save lives. The plan focuses on how the country as a whole can work together to prepare for damaging events. Morover, the plan doesn 't always seem to be effective as it is expected to be. Issues arose at the time it is most needed, which causes necessary changes to take effect immediately. Sometimes the damage is already done and that could be due to economic collapse, being unprepared, and failure to respond appropriately. The National Response Framework replaced the National

Critical incidents require immediate action (Levinson & Granot, 2002). Additionally, they also require ongoing support in order to ensure that they are correctly managed and the long-term effects are mitigated (Schneid & Collins, 2001). Addressed here are four specific events - earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornados. There are ways to mitigate the damage of these events, and there are also ways to try to prepare for them. Additionally, the type of response to these events is important as is the recovery from them. For earthquakes, mitigation is limited. It is possible to build houses and buildings stronger and more able to withstand shaking, and in earthquake-prone areas the cabinets often have latches and large appliances are strapped to the wall (U.S., 2007). People who live there should also have emergency supplies of food and water, and should be prepared for an earthquake by knowing information about evacuation routes (U.S., 2007). The response to earthquakes and the recovery from them are usually strong, because the areas that are most prone are also most prepared. When an earthquake hits in an unusual area, however, it can take much longer to help people and to rebuild the infrastructure.

The purpose of the Emergency Preparedness Plan is to save lives and prevent injuries in case of emergencies such as nuclear attack, fire, natural disaster, civil disorder or other, and provide the necessary best practices to ensure all possible and relevant forms of communicating with our faculty, staff, students, and parents. Mrs. Patricia Harris of the International Studies Elementary Charter School was interviewed about the International Studies Elementary Charter School’s Emergency Management Plan and the role of the school counselor during emergencies. Surprisingly, the school counselor does not play as important of a role than one would have thought. Although, the counselor does serve as one of the Designated School Emergency Team Members, some the tasks that would seem likely the counselor would perform, are performed by other administrators. Tasks such as talking to parents or being there for the students are performed by the principal while the school counselor is delegated to direct traffic. Based on the Emergency Management Plan, it would seem that the school counselor’s role is still not clearly understood. With all the expertise that counselors can bring to a crisis situation, it’s disappointing that counselors are assigned such a miniscule task as delegating traffic. Counselor Harris did discuss the Dougherty County School System’s Crisis Team. That team is

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.

Data obtained by assessing social vulnerability must be implemented within each phase of the emergency management process; mitigation, response, and recovery. First, to effectively respond and recover from incidents emergency management agencies must concentrate on the mitigation phase to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. This is achieved through a thorough hazard/vulnerability analysis (HVA). This type of analysis assesses the risk of physical, economic, and social vulnerability within all communities of a given jurisdiction (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 165). Additionally, the basis of the HVA allows emergency managers to effectively plan for disaster by creating pre-planned responses to disasters (rather than improvised response) and staging resources to locations with the highest probability of risk; ultimately contributing to the mitigation and response phases.

Disasters, whether natural or manmade, can happen anytime and anywhere, without warning. An earthquake, hurricane, tornado, fire, or hazardous material spill or even an act of terrorism can happen

Protecting the public’s health historically has been a state and local responsibility. However, the growing threat of bioterrorism has highlighted the importance of a strong public health infrastructure to the nation’s homeland security and has focused increased attention on the preparedness of the public health system (Frist, 2011). Since the 2001 anthrax attacks Congress has passed new legislation to increase the strength of the nation’s public health system thus the funding has also rapidly increased to meet the potential demand. There is an ongoing debate however, as to what level of contribution local, state, and federal agency’s feel is an appropriate level of ongoing public health investments.

Security measures to be input into the firm to boost disaster recovery process include establishing firm registry in bomb proof vaults that will shield the firm’s documents and data from disasters such as terrorist attacks. Such will ensure that the records of the firm are not tampered with and as such the company is able to run business without fundamental data loss (Menken and Blokdjik, 2010).

Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disrupted time for their normal business functions. Thus it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid

In a new form of protection and communication, social media is the main thing that everything is using in today’s times. Marketing employees have positions as titled as social media directors. Companies have people watching and monitoring everything that happens with their social media reputation all hours of the day everyday. Young people are seeing the power of social media everyday with teachers demonstrating how fast a picture can be shared across the world. Social media is relatively new and could possibly open many gates for communication. This depends heavily on who is publishing information and news on social media. If news spreads fast on social media, then the use of it can be used for emergencies. If many people are

Risk for disasters is a part of life; emergency situations occur more frequently than many people believe. A wise person plans for the worse, and hopes for the best. After a disaster, how well a community can recover will depend largely on how well they prepared in advance. Risk management includes identifying any potential risks to a community and proactively planning to minimize the threat. Proactive organization of resources and people to respond to emergencies can mean the difference between a community’s ability to regroup and recover, and the loss of life. To better