Emergency Management Curriculum

According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would become the central point-of-contact within the national government in responding to incidents. Since formation in 1979, FEMA’s core missions were to enhance the government’s ability to survive a foreign attack, and to assist state and local authorities in disaster response (Carafano, 2005). And while the two core missions seem heterogenous in scope at times from an outside perspective, the biggest difference between the two tasks is duration. A man-made disaster may be over in a matter of minutes as compared to a hurricane lasting several days, but in both instances the road to recovery is long. In order to streamline response and recovery in either scenario, FEMA was reorganized with new directives to support comprehensive emergency management practices (CRS, 2006). Today, FEMA provides the standard approach and guidance that many local communities may not have due to funding, training, and

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,

There are many ways to describe emergency management and the importance of the tasks emergency managers perform. Indeed, in

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.

The history of emergency management dates back in 1803 when a great fire struck Portsmouth city in New Hampshire. In response to this firebreak out, the Congress passed into law the Congress Act, 1803 to compensate the Portsmouth merchants. The Portsmouth city fire breakout and the congress response to the disaster set a precedent, which was applied in United States in management of emergencies like the 1835 terrific fire of New york city, fire break out at Chicago in 1871, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and the 1906 San Francisco horrible earthquake up to mid-20th century (Rubin, 2012).

Over the last decade emergency management has changed to better provide the necessary provisions to the public during disasters whether

In attempt to provide background on the impacts of past natural disasters, condensed case studies of two major natural disasters are summarized, outlining the damage – both financial and physical. The aftermath of any natural disaster highlights the weaker areas of emergency management and as a result, the federal government has made significant efforts to strengthen those areas through preparedness and mitigation measures. Additionally, emphasis on mitigation and preparedness has increased following the vast number of natural disasters that the United States has endured, not only in the federal sector but also in the education and research sector. Today,

In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager.

Over the past half century, the field of emergency management has gradually evolved into a more structured profession. There are several aspects of response efforts that needed to be revised in order for the field to be viewed as legitimate and trustworthy. Primarily, the implementation of advanced education through the process of accreditation, college programs and certifications has paved the way to legitimize the field. In addition, there has been an increase in efforts to hold those accountable to their actions while responding to crises. Through a combination of these efforts, emergency management has attempted to become a more dependable organization as viewed by the general public.

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.

One aspect that a local Emergency Manager to consider is that of planning prior to the disaster occurring. Local Emergency Managers are required by law to plan for and mitigate disasters and public health emergencies that could affect their jurisdiction. An example would be that the local Emergency Manager has a plan to evacuate an area where there is a potential for radiation exposure (i.e. nuclear power plant). The plan would also include what other agencies would respond to assist the local government when a disaster arises. For example, a metropolitan city would request assistance from the county health department for a public health emergency (i.e. swine flu outbreak).

An Office of Emergency Management is in charge of the training and planning to secure a plan for preparedness, to act in response to and convalesce from damages that affects the Department and to ensure that the Office of Emergency Management's mission continues. It is going to be an either local, tribal, state, national or international level agency that holds the responsibility of recovering from all manner of disasters. A major goal of the Office of Emergency Management is in being recognized as the Department that is a center of epitome in management, during an emergency, and continuity planning. An Office of Emergency Management can also be referred to as an Office of Disaster Management. In order for effective emergency management procedures

The number one goal for emergency management professional is to save lives and prevention the best way to save lives. Emergency management profession has identified actively pursuing mitigation programs as a means to do so. To fund mitigation, arguments need to be developed to persuade those who has authority to approve and release funding. The additional mitigation benefit are cost savings, one that is not realized until a disaster happens, and increased resiliency. These additional benefits is what sways the bureaucracy which looks at the cost verses benefits and cost savings; it is key to fund mitigation programs.

This subject aims to teach students the main elements of emergency management for natural disasters and to a lesser degree terrorist attack. Students will understand the principles involved in emergency