Emergency Management Plan: Phase Three

Under which phase of the disaster do the three proposed interventions fall? Explain why you chose that phase.

The four phases of the emergency management cycle are Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. Mitigation is the process of reducing the occurrence, minimizing impact of the event, and preventing an event from occurring. Mitigation steps can happen before and after an event.

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.

At the point when the national part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is lessened to just the procurement of the financial support there is the probability that extremely unfavorable impacts of a debacle when it happens will be felt. Those tasked with crisis administration is tasked with the making of the structures which are gone for helping the groups decrease a portion of the vulnerabilities to the dangers for example terror threats. It is additionally ordered with the adapting of debacles at whatever point they strike.

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.

Crisis management can be classified as a procedure with which an individual organization or organizations can manage a key occurrence that endangers or threatens the institution, its stakeholders, or even the public at large (Birkland, 2006). Lerbinger (1997) identifies 7 types of crises as follows:

Pursuing this further, the Preparedness Phase has a total of three sub phases known as Continuing Education, Pre-Disaster Preparation, and Post‐ Disaster Recovery (City of Tampa | Office of Emergency Management, n.d.). The first sub-phase, Continuing Education, was developed to help expand awareness of for disaster preparedness; this is done by educating the population on techniques to help protects one’s life and property and much more recovery (City of Tampa | Office of Emergency Management, n.d.). The next phase, Pre‐Disaster Preparation, was designed to help inform the public of any imminent danger as well as provided people with details about evacuation procedures and sheltering (City of Tampa | Office of Emergency Management, n.d.). Finally, the last sub-phase, Post Disaster, is implemented to help inform the immediate public about disaster assistance, health precautions, long term sheltering, and more (City of Tampa | Office of Emergency Management,

deal with the potential hazards and detriments of these emergencies. Preparedness in the field of emergency management is defined as “a state of readiness to respond to a disaster, crisis, or any other type of emergency situation” (FEMA, 2016). There are five phases of emergency management: prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation (Bexar County Emergency Management, n.d.).

The Crisis Response Team will declare the level of emergency or crisis that is occurring.

The City of Virginia Beach upholds an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) that defines all roles carried out during an emergency. Procedures are utilized throughout each stage of the disaster by all involved agencies, in order to decrease any adverse effects on the community. The state of Virginia utilizes the Incident Command System for all large emergency response efforts. This system is a structured system that coordinates local, regional, and federal organizations to efficiently work together during mass casualties. Preparing for an emergency is a collaborative effort between all members of the community and follows a mushroom tier system during a disaster. All operations start at the local level of the population and can possibly spread to regional and/or national resources. The level of resources utilized depends on the level of destruction and demands that each event necessitates. (City of Virginia Beach, 2011)

The basis for emergency management lief in “The Congressional Act of 1803 contained the first piece of national disaster legislation ever to be passed by a United States Congress.” (Anna Maria College, 2014). This paved the way for the original system that we utilize today. As with many formations of programs and funding analysis citizens contribute to the process in which we formulate a response. “A series of massive hurricanes and earthquakes during the 1960s and early 1970s served to focus public attention on natural disaster relief.” (Anna Maria College,

The first of these frameworks is called the National Incident Management System (NIMS) which provides a template on how national, state, and local governments should work together. Within this system, there are instructions for the Multi-Agency Coordination system (MACs) whose primary function is to “coordinate activities above the field level and to prioritize the incident demands for critical or competing resources, thereby assisting the coordination of the operations in the field” (Homeland, 64, 2008). The next framework is the National Response Framework (NRF) describes how communities, tribes, states, the federal government, and nongovernmental agents apply these principles for a coordinated, effective national response. The NRF is designed to provide the ”structure and mechanisms for national-level policy and operational direction for incident management to ensure timely and effective Federal support to State, tribal, and local related activities” (Homeland, 12, 2008). And finally the last important national response structure is the All Hazards Approach to preparedness. This approach provides a comprehensive, all hazards, and risk based in approach to preparedness and includes the Emergency Operation Plans (EOP). These plans are for explaining who, what, where, and when and by what authority for emergencies, including before, during and after the

There are several phases in the emergency management of disasters. One is the recovery phase. McEntire (2015) defines the recovery phase as an “activity to return the affected community to pre-disaster, or, preferably, improved conditions.” The reason that the conditions should be improved is because emergency managers should study and learn

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.

Major emergencies, disasters when they occur they don't discriminate nor do they respect national borders and they never occur at the times when we are ready. The level of suffering caused by these events is enormous and many a times he aspects of people's lives in one way or another are affected. This can be in terms of health, security, access to basics necessities like food, water and so forth. In this regard therefore it's important to have emergency plans in place so that the affected people and their properties can be mitigated, and response to disaster can be coordinated effectively and efficiently in timely manner when disasters and other calamities strike (Cara McMillan, 1998).