Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

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 Department of Homeland Security was established in 2002 because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. FEMA was integrated into the DHS so that they could ensure there are effective plans in place to quickly resolve catastrophic events. In compliance with one another, they manage at government levels bioterrorism, chemical or radiation emergencies, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks.

Bioremediation is the process in which microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, molds, and filamentous fungi are introduced into the spills. The introduction of these microorganisms assists in altering and metabolizing various chemical compounds present in oil. When the microorganisms metabolize these certain compounds it significantly reduces the time it takes for the oil biodegradation to occur.

With the current changes in weather patterns, strange climatic conditions and other uncontrollable natural disasters, there has been a lot of attention directed towards the mitigation of the negative effects such natural disasters can have on man and the society at large.

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

When a major storm or natural disaster has the potential to hit any part of the United States there are certain responsibilities assumed for both the government and people. Preparedness behaviors take place so that the country is as ready as it can be. “Preparedness behavior includes a variety of actions taken by families, households, and communities to get ready for a disaster. Preparedness activities may include devising disaster plans, gathering emergency supplies, training response teams, and educating residents about a potential disaster (Mileti,1999)” (Quoted in Fothergill, 1). The government agency involved in responding to most natural disasters in the United States is The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). According to

Once such example is the Fire Prevention and Public Education which increase community awareness about preventing home fires, educate youth on the dangers of playing with fire, and work with the news media to get fire prevention messages into news stories. FEMA has a federal flood insurance program that lessens the financial blow of disasters on citizens, the Treasury, State, local and Tribal communities. FEMA has a Federal Insurance & Mitigation Administration that enforce building codes, flood-proofing requirements, seismic design standards, and wind-bracing requirements for new construction or repairing existing buildings to withstand hazards that may have in the past caused damage to similar properties that were unable to withstand the storm.

“On April 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the executive order that created the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”1.Year in and out, a disaster can strike at any moment and put millions of people in danger and wreck billions of dollars’ worth of property. But, this is where the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) steps in and up to the plate. FEMA works “as part of a team helping communities reduce their risk, helping emergency officials prepare for all hazards, and helping people get back on their feet after their lives are disrupted by a disaster.”2 FEMA’s primary focus is to coordinate federal and logistical operations “to save and sustain lives, minimize suffering, and protect property in a timely and effective manner in communities that become devastated by disasters.”3

This report below is a concerning the overall DHS program prioritization which will address the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which is a directorate under the DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which become part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate of DHS. This report could have not been prepared without gathering background information concerning the following area hazard/threats, hazard identification and risk analysis, terrorist laws and analyzing and quantifying risk DHS. All of which led to findings and recommendation for the DHS to evaluate and prioritize their programs

While talking about the Environment we need to touch briefly on FEMA before we move on. Considering all the natural disasters that have hit our country over the past few years (and escalating) I'm sure most of you are at least familiar with this agency. If not, FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency, your to-go in case of emergency in our country, forest fire, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, mudslide, volcanic eruption, they cover it all. If some act of nature has knocked over your community, they step in and help dig you out and, in theory, give you funds to help rebuild and get your life back in order.

There are numerous types of situations that could cause an emergency response, but who is supposed to provide emergency response to largescale emergencies? The answer is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); specifically the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Department of Homeland Security was created because of one single event that happened on September 11th, 2001. There are several entities under the DHS program, additionally; the Federal Emergency Management Agency heads the emergency response efforts under DHS.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a program called the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), which provides training to citizens to respond to disasters, providing safe and effective assistance to professional emergency services (FEMA, 2016). The training is conducted over a 7-week span covering topics including disaster preparedness, disaster fire suppression, disaster medical operations, light search and rescue operations, as well as disaster scenarios. The mission of the CERT program is readiness when disaster strikes, moreover, it focuses on safety for everyone including the rescuer.

When a crisis occurs a team of emergency personnel must collaborate to proved the best response and recovery tactics available. Similar to any other line of work, the collaboration of multiple entities can prove effective only with proper planning and coordination. If prior planning is not implemented, the response actions may less than efficient which in the field of emergency management can mean the difference between life and death for first responders and victims on the scene.

The individuals that are part of the emergency response team, including the sub teams of crisis management i.e. BCM and Disaster recovery, need to undergo sufficient training to be able to assess situations and respond as per defined policies and processes while maintaining compliance.

The purpose for this Disaster Recovery Plan is to primarily maintain all of the information and material appropriate to the initiative’s ability to survive a disaster, and to document all the phases that the initiative will take if a disaster does occur. The first priority of the TC-MACT if a disaster does occur is to prevent the loss of lives. In order to move to the second step, we must guarantee all personnel and other members on the premises are safe and secure. Once we can guarantee the safety of individuals, the next objective of the TC-MACT will be to ratify the steps outlined in this DRP to bring all of the agencies, groups and departments back to business-as-usual as quickly as possible. Although CERT programs vary in some ways, they all share the potential to offer significant benefits to their sponsoring organizations, their communities and their citizens. As with any activity, there is risk.