Disaster Planning And Preparedness For Disasters

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.

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…

Undoubtedly, the impact of a major disaster such as Hurricane Katrina can be devastating to the community it occurs in; whereas, major terror event the size of 9/11 has impacted the entire world. As a result, the financial losses have continued to bloom far beyond the economic and clean-up costs in the immediate after math of the attacks. Emphatically, the financial and personal costs of Katrina cannot be argued; in terms of mitigation planning and hazard impact methodology I postulate that the attacks of September 11th dwarf the costs of Katrina today.

Ensuring Resilience to Disasters has more tasking’s than another mission and involves many different agencies to accomplish those tasks. The four tasks are to mitigate hazards, enhance preparedness, ensure effective emergency response, and rapidly recover. The main agency that is responsible for these tasking’s is FEMA. FEMA’s mission is to “reduce the loss of life and property and protect communities nationwide from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters” (FEMA, 2017, p.2). FEMA works with federal and State services to assist them in accomplishing their goals. They also assist local services by assisting in setting up emergency management agencies (LEMA) and set guidance for Emergency Operations Planning (EOP). EOP’s are “plans that provide an overview of the jurisdiction’s preparedness and response strategies. It describes expected hazards, outlines agency roles and responsibilities, and explains how the jurisdiction keeps the plan current.” (FEMA, 2010,

and Dentistry and Director of the Program in Disaster Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry and the UR Center for Disaster Medicine and Emergency Preparedness. For over a decade, he has responded to numerous national disasters as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. He has also developed comprehensive disaster mental health training programs for the New York State Office of Mental Health and the New York State Department of Health currently being disseminated throughout every county, state psychiatric center and acute healthcare facility throughout New York State.

Adams and Kostel, the authors, discuss the causes of the disasters and ways to minimize the effects of these type of disasters. The authors use physical data to help readers visualize the..causes..In...text..it..states,.“Total losses exceeded $150 billion.” The authors use monetary data to show the devastating effects of the hurricane.

The differing needs of a vulnerable population have to be addressed in order to alleviate issues that were noted after Katrina. In particular, the needs which are known prior to a disaster, such as evacuation for the infirmed, elderly, impoverished, and those who lack the means to evacuate. The Department of Homeland Security represented a solution to addressing these needs via a three phase response: “pre-event planning and preparation, the event, and recovery” (Dept. Homeland Security, 2008). It has been widely studied that residents of a vulnerable community may be impacted more severely and are disproportionately affected than those with means following a disaster. Assessing how to prepare for each of the phases represents an issue for emergency managers especially when it comes to those who lack the means to prepare for themselves. Quickly rebuilding homes in a devastated area won’t help a community when a disaster strikes again. Platt stated that “disasters offer a window of opportunity to strengthen communities”, via “construction and change land uses to prevent a recurrence of a disaster”. (Platt, 1998) It also can be argued that following a disastrous event, this is when a true opportunity arises, by providing an opportunity to work through solving the societal issues that are the basis for a vulnerable populous via comprehensive political reforms and

Natural disasters affect thousands of lives each year, and have the potential to drastically alter a country/state and its people. Because of the destructive force Mother Nature can bring about, it is imperative to have mitigation plans set up in populated areas to protect people and reduce the structural damage to buildings, houses, etc. There are some mitigation plans, however, that have been unsuccessful, resulting in catastrophic disasters. Best examples of these are the Connecticut Flood of 1955 and Hurricane Katrina. Even though these are two different types of natural disasters; the level of destruction, preparedness, mitigation strategies, and the overall aftermaths had profound and lasting changes on the areas inflicted, mainly Connecticut and Louisiana.

Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, freak floods, mudslides, typhoons, and avalanches. Natural disasters cost billions of dollars each year all over the world. The severity of these disaster are measured by the lives lost, the economic loss, and the ability of the population to rebuild. Natural disasters that really affect people worldwide tend to become more intense as the years go on. The frequency of earthquakes, mega storms, and heat waves has gone up considerably in the last few decades. Scientists, geologists, and storm watchers work hard to predict major disasters and avert as much damage as possible but it is still to predict some natural disasters. It has become easier to predict major storms, blizzards, cyclones, and other weather related natural disasters over the years. But there are still natural disasters that come up rather unexpectedly, such as earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. FEMA goal is to ensure that the United States is able to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, natural and manmade alike. The agency’s motto is “A Nation Prepared”. Some people like FEMA former director Joe Allbaugh believe people shouldn’t depend on FEMA. That people should be able to help themselves and rebuild on their own.

The Hurricane Katrina disaster highly challenged the operations of FEMA thereby leading to great changes in the agency. The Storm that is ranked as the third most intense U.S. landfalling intense caught the FEMA and at large the Department of Homeland Security unprepared thereby leading to severe losses. The hurricane claimed more than 1200 individuals and a total property of around $108 billion, of which could have minimized if FEMA could have carried out its operations effectively (Bea, 2006).

Disasters weather man-made, natural, or technological are ineluctable. Community stakeholders, leaders, and citizens are ultimately culpable for ensuring that a sound disaster preparedness and recovery plan is in place should a calamity materialize. Failure to enact such a plan comes with immeasurable consequences. Over the discourse of this paper, the Banqiao Dam disaster will be examined as a case analysis, to render what preparedness and recovery plans were sanctioned, as well as the scope of the response effort.

In the United States, people who live in poverty are already one of the most vulnerable populations and it is this population that is heavily impacted by public policy relating to natural disasters. Often, public policies relating to disaster preparedness and recovery are not discussed until after a natural disaster takes place which is too late to do any good for the people affected and who are devastated almost beyond comprehension. The role of government in disaster preparedness and recovery became a “hot button” issue especially after Hurricane Katrina when the federal and local governments seemed to protect/help those who already had resources and not those with little to no resources. According to a Gallup Poll by Jones & Carroll (2005), forty-nine percent of respondents said that FEMA was most helpful to them while thirty-one percent of respondents said that nothing was helpful to them during recovery from Hurricane Katrina. This information indicates that there is a gap in services disaster relief policies and programs that needs to be filled.

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.