Private Emergency Management

The history of emergency management dates back in 1803 when a great fire struck Portsmouth city in New Hampshire. In response to this firebreak out, the Congress passed into law the Congress Act, 1803 to compensate the Portsmouth merchants. The Portsmouth city fire breakout and the congress response to the disaster set a precedent, which was applied in United States in management of emergencies like the 1835 terrific fire of New york city, fire break out at Chicago in 1871, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and the 1906 San Francisco horrible earthquake up to mid-20th century (Rubin, 2012).

In the years after the 9/11 tragedy, the United States continues to face risks from all forms of major disasters, from potentially dangerous terrorist attacks to catastrophic acts of nature. Professionals in the fields of emergency management and homeland security have responsibilities for ensuring that all levels of government, urban areas and communities, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and individual citizens are prepared to deal with such hazards though actions that reduce risks to lives and property. Regrettably, the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's ability to deal with disasters is unnecessarily challenged by the absence of a common understanding on how these fields are related in the workforce and educational

This is a review of Emergency Management: The American Experience 1900-2010 by Claire B. Rubin and Butler (2012), chapters 1 and 2. Emergency management at the federal level was nonexistent before 1950 when the Federal Disaster relief Act was passed. Disaster relief was the responsibility of state and volunteer agencies like the Red Cross. Several disasters paved the way for emergency management. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the San Frisco Earthquake of 1906, and the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 were the disasters that laid the foundation for the 1950 Federal Disaster relief Act (Butler, 2012, pg. 17).

Our world is complex there has always been and always will be disasters that can happen anywhere anytime. There can be natural disasters, for example floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires and drought. There are also man-made and technology types of disasters from hazardous material spills, biological weapons, cyber-attacks to even civil unrest. According to PEMA, the history of emergency management can date all the way back the first civil defense program which was started during World War I and later during World War II the office of civil defense (OCD) was created by Pres. Roosevelt. In the past emergency management, has always been event driven. With each new crisis that our nation has gone through, the reason for and the avenue in which to accomplish emergency management has changed. No more so than when the terrorist attacked on 9/11. The 9/11 commission report states that the Incident Command System is a “proven framework for emergency response” (911 CR). The incident command system is a proven framework for emergency response by providing clear leadership and organizational structure, improving the effectiveness of resource efforts, and maintaining safety for responders.

The future of Emergency Managers (EM) will be greatly enhanced by seeing more and more people obtaining their bachelors degrees in this field. This is credited to more colleges offering the program, and seeing the need for it in todays ever changeling, and changing environment. Having a BA in EM could also include a chance for promotions, and higher salaries.

One of the major tasks of emergency management is successfully communicating with the public during the course of a disaster. Social media has taken the world by storm and used in almost every facet of a person’s daily life. As technology advances, so does the potential for social media within emergency management. One of the values of social media is that it not only allows emergency managers to transmit messages to the public, but it also permits interaction with the public that can keep managers better informed and use the public as an asset in emergency response. However, social media often remains a capability separate from operations, leveraged mostly by community and volunteer groups and within the public information or communications functions of emergency response organizations. Not until social media is incorporated within operations, as a communications and as an information source, will its full capabilities be recognized (Social Media in Disasters, 2014).

In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager.

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.

Communication, in regards to some kind of emergency, has been something that has been around since the day the earth was created. The cavemen communicated with one another about a danger by grunting or throwing rocks at each other to get the attention across, the dinosaurs made noises of distress when something wasn’t right, the cowboy era had guns to shoot in the air or a simple yell for help would suffice, and with the invention of the telephone and television the warnings of emergencies were on their way to what we have today through the internet, television, outside alarms, smart phones and aps. This paper will focus on a little history of the emergency management programs that have evolved over decades into where we are today, as well

Emergency Management laws and acts are established by the Federal Government to allow emergency managers and local elected officials the opportunity to lead disaster response and recovery from the local level to the Federal level. Many of these laws and acts give absolute power to local and state officials to make decisions to best preserve life and property during and after an incident. The laws and acts also hold these officials accountable for the actions that they take and the responsibility is totally held by the official. There are many considerations an emergency manager must think about during and after a disaster such as Dillon’s Law, Home Rule, and other laws that allow for decision-making powers of the local and state officials.

Emergency Operations in the United States are governed by the National Incident Management System and its sub component Incident Command System. The ICS is an organizational planning tool that helps sort and define incident command responsibilities to aid in the prompt mitigation of disasters and its effects. The primary staff positions govern other subsets of skills and together form a scalable organization that in theory can operate given an incident of any size and still perform the same functions. The primary design of the ICS structure is flawed in that it does not hold medical planning as its primary staff position but regulates it to a lower level. This is the Achilles heel of disaster management, medical operations are vital to the success of any disaster mitigation and management plan. Medical staff planning should be a primary staff position under the ICS structure.

In order to understand the historical context of the emerging discipline of emergency management and how it is a continuing evolving process we need to look at our past. Throughout the history of mankind there have been disasters, with them being either man-made or by Mother Nature. In each of these instances we have taken what we have learned and tried to apply it, to make sure that a disaster on that scale doesn’t happen again. One of the early examples that explains why there is an emerging discipline of emergency management happened in 1803. In this year a congressional act was passed to help a small town in New Hampshire that was devastated by a fire, and was an early example of the federal government becoming involved in a local disaster

Emergency planning has been an important source of the public’s safety efforts for many years due to the government recognizing that there should be a public emergency preparedness in disaster managements. “U.S. Department of labor Statistics (2014) reports Emergency management directors are responsible for planning and leading the responses to natural disasters and other emergencies. Directors work with government agencies, nonprofits, private companies, and the public to develop effective plans that minimize damage and disruptions during an emergency. Directors must prepare plans and objectives that meet local, state, and federal regulations.” The initial goals for planning for the public’s safety is strategize by forming a regulation on

In comparing these two roles both parties play a key role in keeping the public safe and being knowledge of all disasters that are prone to the area in which they work. While Healthcare administrators focus more on internal scenarios public educators focuses both on internal and external. Both professionals partake in continuing education training to stay informed in finding the most beneficial way to keeping the public safe whether it be a natural disaster, man-made, or epidemic (Disasterium, n.d.). Actively participation in disaster planning and preparedness activities, striving to ensure their emergency operations plan fits within overall community plans and represents a responsible approach to the risks an organization might face (About

A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. In contemporary academia, disaster is seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. Disaster Management (or Emergency management) is the effort of communities or business to plan for and coordinate all personnel and materials required to either mitigate the effects of, or recover from, natural or ma-made disaster, or acts of terrorism. Disaster management does not avert or eliminate the threats, although their study is an important part of the field. Events covered by Disaster management include acts of terrorism, industrial sabotage, fire, natural disasters (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.), public disorder, industrial accidents, and communication failures.