Emergency Preparedness, Response And Recovery Programmes

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.

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.

I would like to propose that the World Health Organization takes a more active role in this area and create a more sophisticated quick response branch that embeds personnel in an effective manner. This will take much logistical planning and preparedness, perhaps the successes could be used analogously in this country to strengthen FEMA’s responses.

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

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.

Over the years, the National Response Framework (NRF) has evolved to meet the growing need of a more comprehensive and logical approach to a nationwide emergency management strategy. Stemming from the National Response Plan in 2008, it is one of the five frameworks designed to aid in organizing national preparedness activities, the others being Prevention, Protection, Mitigation and Disaster Recovery. The NRF’s main function is to guide how the agencies and communities respond to all types of disasters and emergencies. The framework was designed to be scalable, flexible and adaptable to account for the differing scopes, particulars and complications that arise from these events. Its application can range from grave but local incidents, such

Disasters are human made or natural and occur sudden and unexpected. As disasters cannot be prevented, government has to be prepared for any emergency situation. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2014), there are four stages in the disaster management: Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery. According to Stanhope and Lancaster (2014, p 250), public health professionals study disaster effects on populations while American Red Cross work with local and other communities in preparedness, response and recovery phase of disaster.

What is the National Response Framework? The National Response Framework is a guide to how the Nation conducts all-hazards response – from the smallest incident to the largest catastrophe. This key document establishes a comprehensive, national, all-hazards approach to domestic incident response. The Framework identifies the key response principles, roles and structures that organize national response. It describes how communities, States, the Federal Government and private-sector and nongovernmental partners apply these principles for a coordinated, effective national response. And, it describes special circumstances where the Federal Government exercises a larger role, including incidents where Federal interests are involved and catastrophic

First, Incident Response (IR) plan “is a detailed set of processes and procedures that anticipate, detect, and mitigate the effects of an unexpected event that might compromise information resources and assets.” (Whitman, 2013, p. 85). Consequently, Incident response planning (IRP) is the planning for an incident, which occurs when an attack affects information systems causing disruptions. On the other hand, Disaster Recovery (DR) plan “entails the preparation for and recovery from a disaster, whether natural or human-made.” (Whitman, 2013, p. 97). For instance, events categorized as disasters include fire, flood, storm or earthquake. Thus, the differences between an Incident Response (IR) plan and a Disaster Recovery (DR)

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.

Protecting the public’s health historically has been a state and local responsibility. However, the growing threat of bioterrorism has highlighted the importance of a strong public health infrastructure to the nation’s homeland security and has focused increased attention on the preparedness of the public health system (Frist, 2011). Since the 2001 anthrax attacks Congress has passed new legislation to increase the strength of the nation’s public health system thus the funding has also rapidly increased to meet the potential demand. There is an ongoing debate however, as to what level of contribution local, state, and federal agency’s feel is an appropriate level of ongoing public health investments.

Every emergency or disaster, from a small house fire to a hurricane that devastates entire communities, have a distinct cycle. This is

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.