Hurricane Impacting Florida

Once a disaster is declared, then the disaster is classified according to the level of response needed to cope with the situation. This incident is declared a Level I disaster according to the local community disaster plan.

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:

During a storm, when the wind reaches over 75 miles per hour, tropical cyclones forms over either tropical or subtropical waters. Over the years, there has been over a handful of these hurricanes that have been both costly and deadly. It was between August 24th and the 26th of 1992, when the second costliest hurricane to take place in the United States of America history. The name of that expensive storm is called Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Andrew affected the areas of the Bahamas, Louisiana, and South Florida.

Under the 1988 Stafford Act, the federal government guidance is to support the disasters only if they are of “such severity and magnitude beyond their state and the affected local government’s capabilities to support the disaster” (Edwards, 2014). The Governor may request to the president to declare an “emergency” or a “major disaster” if federal assistance is needed (Edwards, 2014). An “emergency” declaration usually considered when a hurricanes hit, whereas “major disaster” declarations is after disasters to render aid to state and local governments and individuals (Edwards, 2014). In the past, 86 percent of major disaster declarations requested by governors to the president have been approved (Edwards, 2014).

Hurricanes have affected the Caribbean islands for many centuries but particularly in the 19th century. During the 1840’s Cuba was affected by three hurricanes that all happened within four years of each other in 1842, 1844, and 1846. Many scholars have looked over these hurricanes in Cuba as not really having much of an in depth affect on Cuba’s life and history but just as being hurricanes. But Louis A. Pérez Jr. a professor and scholar, labeled these 19th century hurricanes as a “flash point” to look at Cuba’s history from multiple angles. saw the 1842, 1844, and 1846 hurricanes as being more than just storms by using multiple resources like the Archivo Nacional de Cubaa, Havana, encyclopedias, such as the Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones by David Longshore (New York, 1998), and descriptive chronologies by David L. Niddrie and David M. Ludlow to name a few. By reviewing and using all of these resources, Louis A. Pérez concluded that the 1840’s hurricanes had an effect on agriculture, social relations, and the overall national identity of Cuba.

I personally have not experienced a disaster. However, I have heard about a lot of megadealths from the media. The most recent is Hurricane Matthew. Hurricane Matthew affected the Caribbean, Florida and North Carolina. It is known that hundreds of people have died and over one thousand people remain without houses and clean water in Haiti, four people have died and one million people lost power in Florida and seven people have died, about 760,000 people still remain without power and over 880 people had to be rescued in North Carolina. I am sadden by the destruction that this hurricane has caused. I have a lot of friends in Florida and a lot of family in North Carolina all whom are safe. It took a couple of days to ensure everyone was safe.

I decided to show my date the hurricane risks associated with Key West, Florida. Key West is at a very high risk for hurricane damage because of its low elevation and its proximity to the sea. I did some research and discovered that approximately 90% of Key West is only five feet above sea level. For this reason storm surges, flooding, and erosion could cause considerable damage to most of the city. The issue regarding how to protect the city from these problems is of much debate. On google earth I could identify sea walls that prevent sea water from flooding the city. Sea walls and storm management systems are perhaps Key West’s main form of mitigation. However, as we have learned in the flooding unit, if the water is high enough no manmade drainage system will prevent flooding. A risky feature that we could identify was how flat Key West is. If

Hurricanes can be predicted with Doppler radars. When hurricanes get detected by Doppler radars the hurricanes get sorted

According to FEMA in Professor Rion’s PowerPoint slides, a disaster is “An occurrence that has resulted in property damage, deaths, and/or injuries to the community” (FEMA, 1990). I personally believe this definition is the best because not every disaster has to have a certain amount of deaths to occur or a specific number of injuries. I also like this definition because it fits to the disaster that happened in my hometown over a year ago.

It is a well-known fact that where there is a hurricane there is damage, whether it is to property, living organisms, or habitats. Hurricanes can not only have catastrophic consequences for humans but for numerous marine organisms, from microscopic plankton to sharks and everything in between. Every organism responds to the situation differently, such as sharks and larger pelagic fish that detect the oncoming storm and head to deeper waters or leave the area all together (McNoldy 2012). Hurricanes impact marine ecosystems by doing more than harming animals, however. Once you understand what creates a hurricane and the hazards associated with it, you can then see how it could have both positive and negative effects on water quality, benthic

The rules for actions can be specific in some cases but not all cases. The situation will dictate what actions need to be taken. Even though some disasters are the same in some aspects and can be treated the same, but there will be some change to take into consideration. Now the outline of a

Disasters, whether natural or manmade, can happen anytime and anywhere, without warning. An earthquake, hurricane, tornado, fire, or hazardous material spill or even an act of terrorism can happen

To figure out the difference between a hazard, an emergency, and a disaster we will first need the definition for each. For this, we will be using the definitions found in the book Introduction to Emergency Management. According to the book, a “Hazard refers to the potential for extreme events to affect people, property and the natural environment in a given location.” An emergency is “a Minor event that causes a few casualties and a limited amount of property damage or an imminent event that will likely strike soon. Whereas a “Disaster is reserved for events that produce more losses than a community can handle.” (Lindell). Knowing this we can determine that the main difference between these definitions is the level in which they affect a given

The purpose of this paper is to examine a recent natural disaster. The number of natural disasters has risen dramatically in the past two decades. Natural disasters are increasing exponentially and creating expanding amounts of destruction each year. A recent natural disaster to examine is the flooding in Louisiana August 2016. This paper will discuss the type of disaster, characteristics of the disaster, and the application of disaster management stages.

According to UNISDR Disaster is defined as “A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own