Emergency Management Part 1 Summary

Living in an environment with limited resources affects vulnerability in many ways. For example, those who are poor are continually faced with multiple risk factors that cause chronic stress, such as unsafe housing, repeated exposure to violence/crime, barriers to health care access (i.e. lack of insurance, lack of transportation, language barriers), and other limitations. Therefore, it is not unusual for an individual or community that is constantly bombarded by stressful situations to become immobilized. “In other words, they do not have the ability to effectively respond to even the

There are numerous points of view on resiliency, as non‑governmental associations (NGOs) perceive that individuals ' capacity to better withstand and recuperate from calamities is basic to maintaining improvement. NGOs, contributors and worldwide reaction groups are attempting to characterize resiliency in their terms. CRS characterizes resiliency as "the capacity of people, communities and institutions to advance integral human development in the face of shocks, cycles and trends" (2014, p.2). The vulnerable individuals themselves best characterize strength and resiliency. What vulnerable individuals accept helps most to their versatility limit is discriminating to current dialogs on resiliency. Contributors and NGOs may have their own meaning of the term; however, an understanding of what it really means to individuals looking to make their community resilient is crucial to outlining successful Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and recovery activities in development, risk reaction and catastrophe recuperation programs (CRS, 2014). The danger of not utilizing the

The disaster assessment and planning guide tool was used to assess the potential for disasters in this area and to assess the adequacy of the current plan in place for potential disasters. The population considered to be most vulnerable to the effects of a disaster would be children, seniors and persons with chronic health issues, in the current population there are 6.5% under the age of 5, and 24% under

This is a review of Emergency Management: The American Experience 1900-2010 by Claire B. Rubin and Butler (2012), chapters 1 and 2. Emergency management at the federal level was nonexistent before 1950 when the Federal Disaster relief Act was passed. Disaster relief was the responsibility of state and volunteer agencies like the Red Cross. Several disasters paved the way for emergency management. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the San Frisco Earthquake of 1906, and the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 were the disasters that laid the foundation for the 1950 Federal Disaster relief Act (Butler, 2012, pg. 17).

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

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the lead federal agency accountable for disaster management in the United States and known to assist other countries. FEMA is the preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts for disasters (FEMA.gov| Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2017). The clean-ups are very costly and require the involvement of numerous federal programs and agencies. They are known to help the government private and non- private sectors. It is vital and a necessity to have FEMA help states that have reached a major crisis. That is outlined in their policy to help and recover states that have been through horrific natural disasters. However, the issue that is arising is the continuous funding

Within the first chapter of Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication (2001), there were many things that caught my attention. Prior to the reading, I hadn’t thought about how different disaster preparedness would affect the elderly population, and how much consideration and planning is needed for them compared to the general population. I also wasn’t aware that such a high percentage of the elderly population developed chronic diseases. It would, however, make sense for the elderly population to require different treatment for these chronic diseases, and have different reactions to these diseases than the rest of the general population (Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication, 2014).

Regardless of their causes, disasters invoke human reactions in the context of social institution, small communities or long-term care facilities. The attempt to reestablish the social order of the culture after a disaster requires anticipation and collaborative planning prior to any disaster. Planning is acquired through government officials and scientists in an attempt to avoid future

Many individuals in the country are struggling to make ends meet on a good day, so what happens when disaster strikes? They are unprepared, have a harder time recovering, and their risk and devastation are increased in the disaster. Class inequality impacts individuals on the lower end of the scale. They have less access to resources to prepare themselves before the disaster strikes, and after disaster strikes they have even less resources to recover with. Lower class individuals are also at a higher risk of devastation during a disaster because they cannot always escape before the disaster hits or have the potential to live in areas that are less likely to be affected.

The U.S. government provided an estimated $20 billion dollars in federal assistance to individuals and businesses in the New York area (Hecker, 2003). This support took many forms and was primarily distributed through four government entities; FEMA, Housing Urban Development (HUD), Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Liberty Zone Tax benefit. Approximately, $5 billion of the $20 billion dollars was used for compensation and losses and was

Before any disaster hits, individuals belonging to community need to have information about potential dangers and how and where they can seek safe shelter, emergency contact numbers of local and federal agencies, communication-related to isolation and quarantine procedures is required. Vulnerable populations are often “not able to access and use the standard resources offered in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.” (Weist , 2007). They are the main concern to the rescue team. People who are physically and mentally disabled and older people have specific limitations and extra requirements to know about the emergency preparedness communications.

When a disaster hits an area it does not discriminate on where it hits or who is affected. When it comes to effective emergency management it is important that managers take into account certain preimpact conditions in order to properly prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from a disaster regardless of the magnitude. One preimpact condition that is important to consider is the Social Vulnerability. Social vulnerability is important because it assesses the resilience of communities and how disasters or external stressors can impact them (Lindell et al, 2006, pg. 153). It is important for emergency personnel to understand the social vulnerability of a community in order to alleviate the amount of human suffering and economic loss that can occur post disaster.

As global climate continues to change, emergency managers must prepare communities around the world for frequent catastrophic focusing events. Specific disasters vary from location to location; consequently, many emergency preparedness plans in many jurisdictions are ineffective. As a result, government officials and emergency managers under evaluate and wrongly assess areas of vulnerability. I present some of the special needs groups that emergency managers can include in vulnerability assessments. Lastly, I explain how emergency managers can collect resources to create concrete assessments for responding effectively to vulnerable populations before and after disasters.

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.

This comprises all forms of activities, including structural and non-structural measures to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) adverse effects of hazards[4].