Disaster Management in Pakistan

Disaster is anything that can occur causing damages, an ecological disruption and deterioration of health and the health services. Disaster can be manmade or natural disasters such as floods. When disasters like flooding or tornadoes that may be accompanied by floods occur, the public health personnel and public health nurses are normally the first people who respond to the emergency, given that they are the people who understand and know the available resources used in providing first aids to the affected victims.

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.

Effective disaster management is highly important when it comes to assisting in rescue and relief to affected. This does not only include post disaster rescue efforts but these disaster management activities should be proactive. They start right from taking preventive measures before the disaster actually occurs and goes on till the effected people are resettled back in their lives. This disaster management pertaining to human life is not only associated with physical well being but also focuses on psychological, emotional, and spiritual rehabilitation.

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.

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.

Each disaster response should start at the local or state level, and then depending on the magnitude it may grow to the response level only the federal government can provide. The initial response to an emergency by the state should deal with the emergency needs of the public. The State’s responsibility will be to focus around control of communication procedures; warning of the upcoming emergency if possible, providing public information, any information regarding evacuations and shelter (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1996). Beyond controlling communication, the state will also be responsible to alert and dispatch the required emergency response teams to engage in protection of people and their property, and if needed a request for aid from the Federal Government (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1996).

Additionally, the preparation phase covers all fundamentals of an incident response plan, reports interaction among basics, and increases to emergency response planning at some point in the life of an incident in order to develop the necessary trust relationships that will be fully exercised during the stress of a real crisis. According to Whitman (2012) “The Disaster Recovery Plan Similar in structure to the IR plan, the DR plan provides detailed guidance in the event of a disaster. It is organized by the type or nature of the disaster, and specifies recovery procedures during and after each type of disaster. It also provides details on the roles and responsibilities of the people involved in the disaster recovery effort, and identifies the personnel and agencies that must be notified. Just as the IR plan must be tested, so must the DR plan, using the same testing mechanisms.” (P. 231). Many of the same principles of incident response apply to disaster recovery such as fundamentals must be clearly established, roles and responsibilities must be visibly outlined, someone must initiate the alert schedule and notify key personnel, someone must have the responsibility of the documentation of the disaster and only if it is possible, attempts must be made to moderate the impact of the disaster on the operations of the organization.

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.

An emergency is a severe, sudden and sometimes risky circumstances requiring urgent action (Salman Sawalha, 2014). Escalation of an emergency situation can lead to disaster; which is an unusual event that can cause lost of life and property (Salman Sawalha, 2014). International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRRCS) define disaster as “unexpected devastating events that disrupts the operations of a population or public which leads to huge losses and overwhelmed the affected community 's ability to respond to the situation with the resources they have at hand”. There are two main types of disaster that can lead to emergency situations; these include natural and man-made disasters.

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.

Communication is widely regarded as one of the most essential elements in successfully managing an emergency situation. The dissemination of information, which is both timely as well as accurate, to the parties concerned goes a long way to lend a hand in ensuring that the recovery activities in an emergency situation, together with its management takes place effectively. For that reason, five critical assumptions are used to provide the basis of disaster management strategy.

Disasters are incidents or accidents that are disruptive, tragic, and in many instances result in deadly and injurious events. Emergency management seek to apply science and technology, planning and management to deal with disasters that can result into death or injury of several people and destruction of property within the community, state, and the nation. Emergency management make effort to eliminate or at least lessen the number of losses and cost through execution of strategies that reflect full life cycle of any disaster management (Sylves, 2015). Below is the brief historical information of emergency management.

Specific measures taken before disasters strike, to ensure effective response constitute preparation. This phase may include specific contingency planning, emergency exercises, training, installation and use of warning systems.

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

On August 29, 2009, Hurricane Katrina struck the United States Gulf Coast. It was a Category 3 Hurricane, according to the Saffir Simpson Scale. Winds gusted to up to 140 miles per hour, and the hurricane was almost 400 miles wide . The storm itself did a tremendous amount of damage, but the storm’s aftermath was cataclysmic. Many claimed that the federal government was slow to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the storm. This paper will examine the four elements of disaster management – preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation – as well as an analysis on the data presented.