Disaster Management : Disasters And Disasters

When was the last time you or your family were affected by the path of a hurricane? How was your experience? Some hurricanes can leave devastation, but it can be more dangerous if you don’t prepare and expose your family to the hazards during the landfall and aftermath. To be fully prepared in the event of a and have ways of staying informed and keep family entertained to avoid anxiety hurricane you must have an emergency evacuation plan. Gather essential supplies, protect one’s home, and have ways of staying informed and keep the family entertained to avoid anxiety or panic attacks.

Katrina was a crisis primarily because of its scale and the mixture of challenges that it posed, not least the failure of the levees in New Orleans. Because of the novelty of a crisis, predetermined emergency plans and response behavior that may function quite well in dealing with routine emergencies are frequently grossly inadequate or even counterproductive. That proved true in New Orleans, for example, in terms of evacuation planning, law enforcement, rescue activities, sheltering, and provisions for the elderly and infirm.

Every year, there are approximately 150,000 deaths and 200 million people affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises (Thomas, 2003). Natural disasters alone, which include various occurrences, cause substantial disruptions such as the temporary displacement of more than five million people. According to the Fritz institute, statistics show that uprooted people from humanitarian crises such as civil conflict and war is greater, with an average of 13 million refugees and 20 million internally displaced people each year. As the biggest worldwide participants in the relief effort in the global community, disaster relief organizations are the forerunners of the help supplied to people affected by catastrophic events.

Often, the government responds to natural disasters with thorough preparation and planning. The federal, state, and local levels of government do this in an effort to help reduce injury and property damage as well as ensure the overall safety of the general population. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season saw the costliest and one of the deadliest storms in United States history. This storm was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina displaced of an estimated 645,000 Louisiana citizens (Cepeda, Valdez, Kaplan, & Hill, 2010). This paper will examine…

Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive loss of life and billions of dollars in property damage. There are many lessons worth learning from this event. Finger pointing started before the event was over. Most of the focus on Hurricane Katrina was on its impact on New Orleans; however, the storm ravaged a much wider area than that. This paper will briefly summarize the event, the impact on the city of New Orleans and the lessons learned to ensure preparedness today.

Leaders tend to hide information from citizens, state, and federal organization always state that it is for their own good or that they withhold information because they did not wish to create panic and wanted to lessen the impact it could have on the citizens. Thereby, even before hurricane Katrina, New Orleans governor was aware of the problem(s) with the levee. According to Irons (2005, p. 4) Governor Blanco, who recently released her actions in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina, states that no one ever predicted or

Actions taken to minimize adverse impact of disasters. These including structural measures like building of flood defences and non-structural measures like training etcetera. Public awareness related to disaster risk reduction, contribute in promoting a "culture of prevention" by changing attitudes. It revolves around civil institutions responsible to prevent disasters.

It is with the salient awareness of its susceptibility to hurricanes that the city of Mobile in Alabama initiates the development of hazard mitigation planning. The Mobile County Alabama Hurricanes Hazard mitigation plan is a multi-jurisdictional guide for the county of Mobile. Its communities and other stakeholders who are the vital players in their efforts to successfully prepare a plan that will act as a roadmap in responding to hurricane disasters. The plan addresses the hurricane hazard that is a major threat to the people, property and the infrastructure of Mobile County in Alabama. The plan focuses on hazard mitigation planning and actions necessary to reduce or eliminating long–term effects to people and their property as a result of the occurrence of hurricanes. The purpose of the mitigation plan is to ensure that the repetitive cycle is broken by producing less vulnerable conditions amongst the people, property and topographical features.

Natural disaster management has become a worldwide challenge that has made organizations and institutions shift from the attitude of it being a one person issue into being a national and international issue that can only be handled in collaboration with other organizations globally (Sandwell). He also posits that these challenges are caused by natural factors example not being able to predict an earthquake or a flood and the intensity of the forthcoming destruction. However, the environment in which libraries operate makes it prone to the elements of natural disaster (Latonero, Shklovski). As Parsons has states in his account of the destruction of the library at Alexandria some 2000 years ago; “The brittle and frail paper of Egypt and even tougher skins of Pergamon seem fragile media indeed on which to confide the precious knowledge and wisdom of the ages. Ready victim of the accidents of nature, fire, water and the other elemental forces…the book would appear to have small chance of survival”. It should be clearly noted that, libraries are particularly susceptible to disasters because of their nature and resources they acquire. For example, a national library one of the most important cultural institution that protects the nation’s heritage has been destroyed because of natural disasters, that country would eventually lose their rich and treasured collection. The value of their resources must be protected; therefore, it is imperative for natural disaster management

Katrina traveled into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and started to expand. When the storm reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane however, deteriorated before making it to Louisiana to a Category 3 on August 29 with winds at 145mph. Due to the 20 to 30 foot storm surge and levee failure, it resulted with the infrastructure critically damaged from Florida to Texas. State and local agencies use the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to know whom and when to evacuate to include what routes people should take. There was argument on who failed the devastated areas, since the assistance needed could not get to the certain areas due to massive flooding and bridges destroyed. Even though there was no one agency to blame through the lack of coordination and communication from local agencies up through the Federal Government, the lessons learned where noticed within hours and days after the storm arrived, the local population felt as being neglected or forgotten.

Hurricane Katrina exposed huge issues in the United States disaster preparedness and response programs. In 2005, the structure for homeland security was unable to manage catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina. Unified management of national response

The damage caused by natural disasters and manmade events can be extensive. June 1st will be the beginning of the 2017 hurricane season. While there are multiple challenges with regards to storm preparation, one of the most reoccurring themes as it relates to storm preparedness is complacency on the part of the public. In the days, months, and even years following natural catastrophic disasters emergency officials have had significant challenges deterring pre storm complacency with/to the public that it is charged with protecting. Moving forward, the challenge will be to maintain communications with the public and increase urgency in the public’s preparedness for known and unknown storms.

Before we discuss disaster management, it is important to briefly sum up the events of the events that began on August 25, 2005 to fully understand the brevity of the situation. Meteorologists began warning inhabitants of the regions that were hit by Katrina on August 23, 2005. By the 28th, evacuations were under way, that day, the National Weather Service predicted that after the storm hit, “most of the [Gulf Coast] area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer.” (Spowart, 2015) New Orleans was particularly vulnerable. More than half of the city was built below sea level, and the levees protecting it were built on porous sand. The poorest parts of the city were completely unprepared for a storm surge. Many of these citizens lacked transportation and could not evacuate, and were left to wait out Katrina in their

The purpose of this paper is to identify one of the more common circumstances about why people panic in disasters. The paper will discuss fear and the lack of knowledge in which it make a person behave differently.

Disasters such as tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, landslides, and terrorism pose major economic, social, and political concerns to people. However, it is astonishing that the areas disposed to such unexpected occurrences are liked and preferred by human beings for habitation purposes. These include coastal areas which floods when the amount of rainfall increase or are affected by tornadoes and tsunamis due to their proximity to the coast; mountainous areas which have the possibility of experiencing landslides; and overpopulated cities which are either poorly serviced with social amenities such garbage collection, or are targeted by terrorists for attacks. Other people stay in such places in order to be close to their families or because the lands on which they dwell is their ancestral land, which they would not wish to lose. Thus, the risks involved in such places are many and needs to be addressed before the tragedies strike (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2013). This paper seeks to critically discuss and analyze these trends of living in disaster prone areas, whether or not there are other ways of making the society safer and the possibility of people continuing to live and or work in these environments.