Inclusive Emergency Management Practices

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.

Oncor electric is a regulated distribution and transmission business of the private sector and owned by a limited number of investors. Oncors’ responsibility is to deliver reliable and safe electricity to the private sectors, so they can have the power to maintain productivity by keeping the backbone of our economy (oncor 2012). We are known as the “poles and wires” infrastructure company, we manage our business like the private sector does and our company invests in the latest technology and by putting our employees and customers first. When restoring outages due to large storms or natural disasters we respond quickly and safely to restore power to the critical infrastructure. Electric service providers are required to notify the Commission’s Emergency Management Response Team (EMRT) to be involved in the event of a major emergency and natural disaster that occurs such as hurricanes and ice storms (puc.texas.gov 2009). With the EMRT, they help to coordinate power restoration while communicating regularly with any affected electric service providers before, during, and after an event.

There are many important aspects that must be considered when looking into the US emergency management system. Planning for disasters, both man-made and natural, can be overwhelming and a bit intimidating. From small towns to large metropolitan cities, major catastrophic events can happen at any time and planning for these events must occur before an event takes place. Emergency and disaster planning involves a coordinated, co-operative process of preparing to match urgent needs with available resources. Since emergencies strike without warning and neatly fit into a one size fits all plan, an emergency plan needs to be a living document that is periodically adapted to changing circumstances and that provides a guide to the protocols,

In addition, we are seeing a well diverse generation coming up through the ranks of emergency management. The role of EM is forever changing. Everyone entering into this career must understand the importance of the commitment to becoming a life long student. Sense this field is continuing to evolve, we need to encourage the same for the students of this field. They have to remain fluid, and professional in all regards. It will be a critical part of their training to be able to communicate with all levels of the parties involved. Along with the role, will be the responsibility to become involved with the community and to become a member of well known associations in the area.

Life is full of unexpected disasters as well as calculated ones. As a whole, society cannot account for all disasters that will occur nor can we successful eliminate the results of these disasters. That’s why in most advanced societies there are people in place to manage and or monitor natural disasters. These people are in charge of the planning process and execution of emergency management systems or operations. They are essentially the people responsible for ensuring that when a disaster whether natural or acts of fate occur the effect on the community or society as whole is minimal. The emergency manager or planner is to follow a strategic planning process that encompasses a variety of aspects including but not limited to a

The goals of the city Emergency Management operations unit are “to save lives, protect property and the environment, stabilize the incident and provide for basic human needs” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2013). A well developed emergency mitigation plan for this community will help to reduce the impact of disasters and save life and property. This paper will explore how different social groups of people react to disaster and various ways people react to disasters. Some of the key points to highlights on this paper include the importance of mitigation, each mitigation strategy listed, special needs population considerations. The paper will also access the applicability of the five hazard mitigation strategies including; hazard source control, community protection works, land-use practices, building construction practices, and building contents protection to the community.

Social vulnerability is impacted throughout the emergency and disaster management process. The threat level of social vulnerability can vary between community segments based upon demographics, income, and/or business type. First, social vulnerability must be analyzed in every community within a jurisdiction which first starts by understanding its meaning. Second, data

As global climate continues to change, emergency managers must prepare communities around the world for frequent catastrophic focusing events. Specific disasters vary from location to location; consequently, many emergency preparedness plans in many jurisdictions are ineffective. As a result, government officials and emergency managers under evaluate and wrongly assess areas

Introduction To reduce catastrophic events from occurring there must be established structured departments with individuals to attempt to manage natural and technological hazards and their impacts on life and property. Emergency management is the discipline and profession of applying science, technology, planning, and management to deal with extreme events that can injure or kill large numbers of people, damage to property, and disrupt community life (J. Wilson, A. Oyola-Yemaiel. 2001). I am curious and want to know more in detail about the current and future challenges emergency managers face and the importance of the profession. What does the future hold for emergency management? Is the profession and its implemented tactics needed, if so what are the barriers emergency managers face on a day to day basis? To answer my question, I will need to consider multiple related subtopics on emergency management.

The United States emergency management communities are psychologically unprepared to deal with the loss of lives and property from catastrophic disasters; a price of overwhelming death and destruction affecting the international first response community. Many first responders lament to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (bostock, Matusko,Emp, Paterson & Bryant, 2013) and whereas, the global community has tried for decades to prevent such mental injury, the U.S., since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and hurricane Katrina, is only beginning to understand the cost of sending emotionally unprepared personnel to national disaster front lines.

Part I The book ‘Introduction to Emergency Management’ is written by George Haddow, Jane Bullock and Damon Coppola. George D. Haddow served as White House Liaison and Deputy Chief of Staff to FEMA Director James L. Witt from 1993-2001. Jane A. Bullock served as Chief of Staff to FEMA Director James Lee Witt in the final 5 years of her 21-year career in that agency. Damon P. Coppola is an emergency management planner and analyst with over 15 years of experience providing technical and subject matter expertise to clients in the public, nonprofit, private, and international sectors. It is very important to know the background of the authors. Two of the three authors of the book have served under the FEMA director James Witt. While reading

The Planning Process The Plan is a “multi-jurisdictional” plan that was prepared pursuant to the Hazard Mitigation and

The town should develop an emergency management plan in the event of weapons of mass destruction terrorist attack. Emergency management includes four basic phases: mitigation, response, recovery, and preparedness (Maras, 2013). First we will look at mitigation, in this process the focus is to lessen the effects of the emergency. Then maximize the effort to reduce potentials for future disasters. The second step, response, seeks to effectively respond to an emergency in order to save lives, protect property, and meet basic human needs (Maras, 2013). First responders are very critical at this point and their training will save lives in these types of situations. The people in the community will all work together to suruce the areas and provide

Who is an emergency manger and what do they do? Generally, the emergency manager is responsible for the emergency management program within their county, city or designated area of control. From a layman point of view, programs may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and will contain Local Emergency Operations Plan and Hazardous Materials Plan.

Community emergency preparedness and response is “dependent on the willingness of communities to prepare in advance and to respond to instructions as events unfold” (Scutchfiled & Keck, 2009, p. 564). An emergency can be anything from a pandemic of influenza to a natural disaster that causes “disruption of access to health care in a community” (Scutchfiled & Keck, 2009, p. 564), such as the forest fire that has occurred in The Neighborhood TM Season 2 Episode 5 (Neighborhood, 2014). This certain forest fire impacted the entire community, particularly those who have respiratory problems; we are going to look at how it specifically impacted the hospital, senior center, the school, and the Bley household. The impact the health care workers and the public health care teams had on the response of the community in this state of emergency.