Mcentire: Recovery Case Study

Disaster is anything that can occur causing damages, an ecological disruption and deterioration of health and the health services. Disaster can be manmade or natural disasters such as floods. When disasters like flooding or tornadoes that may be accompanied by floods occur, the public health personnel and public health nurses are normally the first people who respond to the emergency, given that they are the people who understand and know the available resources used in providing first aids to the affected victims.

evacuation, making emergency repairs to the levees, and providing food and law and order in an unprepared shelter). These measures, born of necessity, may be quite different from or exceed in scale anything responders have done before. They must be creative and extremely adaptable to execute improvised tactics. Equipping organizations to recognize the novelty in a crisis and improvise skillfully is thus a far different (and far more difficult) matter from preparing mainly to implement preset emergency plans. Scalability and Surge Capacity In many disasters, as Katrina well illustrated, responders must cope with far greater numbers of endangered people or more extensive damage than usual. To scale up operations to handle this surge of demand, emergency agencies require access to resources in larger quantities than normal and frequently to specialized equipment or

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.

Sixth the executive management team must define the procedures that all employees and essential vendors will use during emergency situations. Seventh, the employee training team must define and execute an awareness campaign that properly informs each employee of their role within the DRP/ECP plan and confirm that employee's understanding of their role. Last, the emergency management team’s members must maintain documentation of the DRP/ECP plan including updating when needed, changing the plan to meet organization changes, and recording of observations post plan execution.

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:

The Federal government was involved in the planning processes, and has financed up to 75% of the recovery efforts (FEMA, 2014). Residents, homeowners, small businesses, nonprofits, and renters were offered low interest loans up to $ 200, 000 from the Small Business Administration (SBA) as it was planned to ensure business continuity and recovery (Jill, 2014). Equipment was provided in place of lifelines, and the reparation of these utilities took place as the officials and those involved in the disaster recovery planned the processes (Doyle, 2014). The coordination of the recovery efforts for housing, the environment, and the infrastructure followed the scheme as it was planned (Fazio, 2014). Willingness, communication, implication, coordination, and resources fullness were some of the strengths of the long-term

An emergency is a severe, sudden and sometimes risky circumstances requiring urgent action (Salman Sawalha, 2014). Escalation of an emergency situation can lead to disaster; which is an unusual event that can cause lost of life and property (Salman Sawalha, 2014). International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRRCS) define disaster as “unexpected devastating events that disrupts the operations of a population or public which leads to huge losses and overwhelmed the affected community 's ability to respond to the situation with the resources they have at hand”. There are two main types of disaster that can lead to emergency situations; these include natural and man-made disasters.

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.

Shock events or disaster often cause communities to cease functioning properly. Emergency management is planned to prepare communities for these events, mitigates their effects, and responds to and recovers from these events. Part of emergency management, the recovery phase, aims to return the communities to the normal situation, or an even safer situation following the shock events. The recovery phase requires an understanding and exploitation of the dynamic interactions among the community’s physical and social infrastructures and post-response condition. Case studies of recovery processes and effects, combined with the understanding of the dynamic interactions can help in improving the process of recovery phase in the future. The purpose

Disasters have become an inevitable part of businesses and organizations as well. They not only have a major effect on business and organizational continuity; they also result to an overhaul in organizational operational mechanisms (Awasthy, 2009). It is for this reason that many organizations and business resort to preparing business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans that will facilitate better disaster management in future. Effective disaster recovery plans are important to every business and organization (Thejendra, 2008).

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

Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disrupted time for their normal business functions. Thus it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid

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

After the effects of a disaster it is imperative to rebuild the community by restoring trust in public health and safety specialists, who look to prevent epidemics and the spread of disease, protect against environmental hazards, prevent injuries, promote and encourage healthy behaviors, assist communities in recovery, and assure the quality and accessibility of health services for the community. Effective recovery programs, reconstructive efforts, environmental clean-up, and sustained financial support are important topics that arise after dealing with the major aftershock of a disastrous event. Impacts of bioterrorism and natural disasters can greatly affect communities, and the necessity for a complete Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) and recovery planning s is critical. Post-Disaster Needs Assessment was established in 2008 among The United Nations, Europe, World Bank (an international financial organization that will provide funds and loans to developing countries for health and safety investment programs), and other universal stakeholders to align disaster recovery efforts. They work collectively to establish a comprehensive framework for guidelines that try to recognize the open use of an all-inclusive recovery system to address short and long-term recovery goals and asses needs for community support of the affected population (United Nations Development Programme, 2015).

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.