Social Vulnerability In Emergency Management

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.

Communities, according to Kapucu and Özerdem (2011) have a drastic effect on the recovery process. In the end, by having a recovery place in plan within the community, it will ensure economic and resident resiliency for when a crisis is to occur. In order to ensure such a plan is in place, it is up to the American Red Cross to partner with and focus on the citizen involvement in decision making, from the beginning stages of planning all through mitigation; increase the buy in within the community; and provide for the community in an effective manner after a disaster has occurred Kapucu and Özerdem

Effective disaster management is highly important when it comes to assisting in rescue and relief to affected. This does not only include post disaster rescue efforts but these disaster management activities should be proactive. They start right from taking preventive measures before the disaster actually occurs and goes on till the effected people are resettled back in their lives. This disaster management pertaining to human life is not only associated with physical well being but also focuses on psychological, emotional, and spiritual rehabilitation.

There are numerous points of view on resiliency, as non‑governmental associations (NGOs) perceive that individuals ' capacity to better withstand and recuperate from calamities is basic to maintaining improvement. NGOs, contributors and worldwide reaction groups are attempting to characterize resiliency in their terms. CRS characterizes resiliency as "the capacity of people, communities and institutions to advance integral human development in the face of shocks, cycles and trends" (2014, p.2). The vulnerable individuals themselves best characterize strength and resiliency. What vulnerable individuals accept helps most to their versatility limit is discriminating to current dialogs on resiliency. Contributors and NGOs may have their own meaning of the term; however, an understanding of what it really means to individuals looking to make their community resilient is crucial to outlining successful Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and recovery activities in development, risk reaction and catastrophe recuperation programs (CRS, 2014). The danger of not utilizing the

And it involves interaction with familiar faces, tasks, procedures, and organizations. (Auf der Heide, Erik. 1989) An emergency is generally personal in nature. A disaster is “an event associated with the impact of a natural hazard, which leads to increased mortality, illness and/or injury, and destroys or disrupts livelihoods, affecting the people or an area such that they (and/or outsiders) perceive it as being exceptional and requiring external assistance for recovery” (Cannon 1994, 29, fn.2). Finally, a catastrophe can be viewed as “…any disaster that overwhelms the ability of state, local, and volunteer agencies to adequately provide victims with such life-sustaining mass care services as food, shelter, and medical assistance within the first 12 to 24 hours.” (GAO, Disaster Management, 1993, p. 3).

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.

The analysis and the mapping of social vulnerabilities have been successfully used in many countries as a tool for the development of emergency management plans. One of the most consistent methodologies is the Social Vulnerability Index (hereafter defined as SoVI®), initially constructed to compare U.S. counties (Cutter et al., 2013). The SoVI® provides a social vulnerability map by synthetizing socio-economic and demographic factors based on the principal component analysis [see Dunteman (1989) for further details]. In the recent years, this approach has been utilized in various geographical settings, different time periods and accounting different variables for the identification of social vulnerabilities for effective management of disaster-related

Data obtained by assessing social vulnerability must be implemented within each phase of the emergency management process; mitigation, response, and recovery. First, to effectively respond and recover from incidents emergency management agencies must concentrate on the mitigation phase to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. This is achieved through a thorough hazard/vulnerability analysis (HVA). This type of analysis assesses the risk of physical, economic, and social vulnerability within all communities of a given jurisdiction (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 165). Additionally, the basis of the HVA allows emergency managers to effectively plan for disaster by creating pre-planned responses to disasters (rather than improvised response) and staging resources to locations with the highest probability of risk; ultimately contributing to the mitigation and response phases.

Major emergencies, acts of terrorism and disasters have become more frequent in recent decades. These disasters affect more and more people, taxing local state and federal resources. Mass casualty incidents are commonly classified as disasters due to a large number of individuals affected by the event. Many lives are saved if the affected communities are prepared organized and have developed emergency response plans in place before the disaster. Also, survivors of mass casualty incidents often suffer from ill health and disabilities placing, even more strain on emergency responders. In these disaster situations, the local emergency responders are the first to arrive on the scene and began rescue efforts. As the incident escalates, more resources from local, private, state and federal levels respond to the scene. Due to a large number of people affected by the incident,

As the Marxist approach puts it, “underlying states of human marginalisation are conceived as the principle cause of disaster.” (Pelling, 2001, p. 179). This resource exclusion to particular categories of people within society creates their vulnerability to risk, and in turn disaster. McLaughlin and Dietz (2007) suggest there are three dimensions that make up vulnerability including exposure, sensitivity and resilience. An example displaying the vulnerability of lower classed social categories is in North Bihar, India, where floods have been managed through engineering works to create embankments. While the Government appears to be reducing the hazard, this has increased the vulnerability of the local people. Soil fertility has decreased reducing agricultural success, dangerous flash floods are occurring due to embankment walls collapsing and communities have settled on apparently safe embankments and are now highly exposed (Pelling, 2001). The natural flood hazard was dangerous, but these works by society have created a natural disaster (Pelling, 2001). Power inequalities have created this disastrous situation where lower classes are at high exposure to floods due to profit hungry management bodies. This technological approach is clearly failing but the Government and other managing groups make large profits off flood engineering works and have the power to decide how to control the issue (Pelling, 2001). This has resulted in creating

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

Dasgupta, et al (2010) asserted that an individual’s gender impacted an individual’s reaction to the disaster and the ways of coping. According to Alam and Rahman (2014), the immediate issues were to find shelter and manage foods after the disaster. Involvement of women post disaster is challenged by the conception that women are vulnerable and that men are more capable and proficient then women. It is important to acknowledge that women’s involvement is vital for effective change, thus they too should be granted decision making opportunities in response to a disaster (Scanlon, 1996). Women played important roles that help protect lives, assets, however were always given a secondary role than primary. And if women were provided with better information then that could have resulted in better preparedness. Chowdhury (1993) and Forthrgill (1996) identified women’s primary role post disaster is to take care of the family members and provide food. Women are often depicted as victims that lack agency during disaster, however studies have showed they can be very useful too. According to UNDP (2010) report the women’s social roles can be mobilized as capacities for adaption in vulnerable areas. Skidmore (2002) and Hallegatte (2009) emphasize that disasters might not always render women vulnerable, but also opened up opportunities as well. According to Rees, Pittaway and Bartolomei, (2005) post disasters women are more subjected to marginalization because of the preexisting social

Mechanisms and capacities to build resilience to hazards and to systematically incorporate risk reduction approaches into the implementation of emergency preparedness, response and recovery programs.

Disasters, at their most basic, arise when hazards have a significant impact on a population. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake that would be a devastating disaster in a densely populated and vulnerable city, may be a relatively insignificant geologic occurrence when it strikes an unoccupied island chain. Risk of a disaster is more traditionally calculated by identification of the potential hazard, assess in relation of likelihood of an event as it relates to the potential impact severity – or risk = probability x impact/loss. (Smith 2013). For preparedness, risk formulas are insufficient in the absence of context and consideration for social vulnerability, Birkmann (2007) encourages us to shift away from viewing disasters as large-scale events