Emergency Responders And Emergency Emergencies

As Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma successively lashed the gulf coast starting in late August 2005, nature’s fury exposed serious weaknesses in the United States’ emergency response capabilities. Not all emergencies pose this magnitude of challenge. In the United States, the initial—and usually major—responsibility for disaster response rests with local authorities. This “bottom-up” system of emergency management has a long history and continues to make sense in most circumstances. Core Challenges for Large-Scale Disaster

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.

In the event of a disaster, the community relies upon the public health personnel to evaluate the needs of the community, assess the available resources, provide reliable information, and coordinate health activities. It is essential that local health workers are trained professionals who are reassuring and organized to address health, social, cultural and material concerns of the community. Local health personnel coordinate social services, transportation, available health services, volunteers, outside assistance, public utilities and rescue work (HELP, 1989).

Organizations over the past few decades have come to realize two things, there are a limited number of people in the government that are able to respond to natural disasters or large scale disaster effectively and that the government only has so many available resources to offer during a time of crisis. Another fact is, that private sector companies and non-profit entities, such as the Red Cross, have the ability to be more prepared due to their vast network of stores and distribution centers and their leisure, they indeed do have a unique responsibility

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

The strong State and Federal Government presence in Oklahoma City helped the response-and-rescue effort. For example, immediately following the explosion, the Oklahoma City Fire Department set up an Incident Command System (ICS) to manage the

People respond to a natural disaster by gathering materials. The Red Cross had provided many of the most needed items such as blankets, mosquito nets, and water containers (Doc A). People were in great need of these organizations at this time in their lives because people in families had died, and they were not ready to take on the change of overcoming this tragic time. Some of the most needed items were water and health care services (Doc A). The people were in need of food, but they had struggled to find it. “Just 10 hours later, food was there” (Doc B). Although food was there, it was not enough for some people to eat.

The Red Cross has been chartered by Congress to help people prepare for, prevent, and respond to emergencies and provide relief for survivors of disasters (NRF, 2008). As a Red Cross volunteer you should ensure you are not working against the situation. Although you are going there to assist those effected by the disaster you will need to make sure you do not become a distraction or even worse needing to be assisted yourself. Working within the system with the Incident Commander and his staff will ensure you are part of the team and not working against these efforts. Having an understanding of the policies, guidance, and processes in place will

People respond to a natural disaster by gathering resources. There has been so much change by just getting people household materials. We have provided at least 10,000 families with resources(Doc A). Although some people are able to get resources, there are still thousands of people that haven’t been reached. They are getting better at gathering resources and delivering it to remote locations that cannot be easily gotten to.

According to Jack Herrmann is Asst. Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine “Disaster management is the preparation for, response to, and recovery from disaster. While there are different understandings of Disaster Management, it is generally viewed as a cycle with the following five key phases:

FEMA faced Katrina, they had sponsored a project called Hurricane Pam but were cut out before it was

Collaboration involves various groups or groups of people working together to accomplish a desired outcome. It is a bit like teamwork. By strengthening connections during an emergency crisis, you have the ability to be more effective, faster, produce more, and have more personnel available. Collaboration offers more innovation and experience to a situation. This paper will discuss the roles of those that were involved in the collaborative efforts of FEMA. The basic reasoning for this paper is to provide knowledge and understanding the experience of emergency management and collaboration that took place during Hurricane Sandy.

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.

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

When a disaster has taken place, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be equipped to meet the demands for many services. Several issues such as the number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will stop people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment 's notice through 911 emergency services. Individuals will have to rely on others for help in order to meet their immediate lifesaving and life sustaining needs. If access is blocked or the agency’s capacity is exceeded, it may be hours or days before trained help arrives. There is a four-phase model that organizes the events of emergency managers. This model is known as the “life cycle” which includes dour