Natural Disasters : Challenges And Strategies

Whether it is a local flood or a national disaster, there is always one organization there to help, the American Red Cross. Each year the organization turns down no one in need, benefits 70,000 people in disaster relief, along with saving three lives every time a person donates blood. The American Red Cross has evolved through the years and is still known as one of the most important nonprofit organizations in the world.

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

In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount

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.

Undoubtedly, the American Red Cross has done many wonders over the course of its existence. Whether it is providing relief from disasters, aiding the less fortunate nationally and internationally or saving lives with their blood program, the Red Cross has always been there to help the world become a safer place to live in. Most recently, this organization has had a strong impact in the recovery of “Superstorm” Sandy and Hurricane Isaac, providing food and water, multiple shelters for people that have lost their homes and even counseling during such a devastating time (“Top 20 Accomplishments”).

Every year, there are approximately 150,000 deaths and 200 million people affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises (Thomas, 2003). Natural disasters alone, which include various occurrences, cause substantial disruptions such as the temporary displacement of more than five million people. According to the Fritz institute, statistics show that uprooted people from humanitarian crises such as civil conflict and war is greater, with an average of 13 million refugees and 20 million internally displaced people each year. As the biggest worldwide participants in the relief effort in the global community, disaster relief organizations are the forerunners of the help supplied to people affected by catastrophic events.

On the morning of August Twenty-ninth, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The storm brought the water to about twenty feet high, swallowing eighty percent of the New Orleans city immediately. The flood and torrential rainstorm wreaked havoc and forced millions of people evacuate from the city. According to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, Katrina caused approximately one hundred and eight billion dollars in damage. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive disasters have ever occurred in the United States, but it also revealed a catastrophic government at all levels’ failure in responding to the contingency.

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

Disaster relief operations are complex systems having more to them than just a response mechanism. They require a significant amount of pre-planning.

Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast of the United States on August 28, 2005. The center of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on the morning of August 29, 2005. The devastating effect of this hurricane resulted in more than 1,800 citizens losing their lives, as well as more than an estimated $81 billion dollars in damages occurred. By August 31, 2005, eighty-percent of the city became submerged under water because the storm surge breached the city's levees at multiple points. If the levees are damaged massive water will flood Louisiana from the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi River, and other surrounding bodies of water. Some areas of New Orleans were 15 feet under water. Winds of Hurricane Katrina reached an astounding category 3 as

There are always people willing to provide a support system, and many professional resources we have available to us in any case we may need to help cope. As a first responder, many people understand that we must still fulfill our duties and responsibilities. When disaster strikes, many emergency responders are always willing to volunteer to help in any ways they can. For example, The Fort MacMurray Fire in May 2016, This fire had a significant impact on many people across Alberta. When extra resources were being requested we immediately had several crews ready to go help. We had a small number of members that were significantly impacted by the fires as their families were evacuated or lost their homes. However, this did not stop them from volunteering to go offer their services. Often times, people will request to volunteer even when it was not requested by the event command, during these fires we had several evacuees in our town and we chose to as a department provide a barbeque for victims of the fires. This was a way for us to help without going to the scene until

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.

Community based groups such as the Red Cross responded to the bushfires through fundraising and relief programs. The Australian Red Cross led the largest relief and recovery programs with around 1,600 volunteers and staff responding immediately to the bushfire. They

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