The Causes And Impacts Of A Natural Disaster

Distressing natural disasters, such as hurricane Irma have devastated the world and caused loss of homes, as well as greatly affecting humanity. According to French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe of St. Martin, “95 percent of the island’s houses had been damaged and 60 percent were uninhabitable. Earlier, France's interior minister said at least eight people had died.” This devastating hurricane is one of the many examples of how extreme natural disasters negatively impact the world and how dominant Mother Nature is over humanity.

Environmental damage that is caused by just one individual is exclusively minor which causes it to be unnoticed, whereas a major group of people, such as a large corporation harming the environment at once causes major harm to society. More than a century of industrial development has caused negative environmental impacts such as global warming, ozone depletion, and air and water pollution. These are recognized as global environmental problems that need immediate solutions. Climate change, as an international environmental issue, is getting a great deal of attention as it has become a global issue. In the last few decades, there has been a heightened awareness of environmental issues by governments, policy makers, advocacy groups, business firms, and the public all over the world. The corporate role in this, the potentially most severe and all-encompassing of environmental disasters, is quite clear as business activities are effecting climate change negatively. This paper will argue that in order to minimize the negative effect of environmental harm and climate change, the undertakings of corporations should be structured and encouraged to perform in a socially responsible manner. This will be examined through the discussion on the legal structure of corporations and the desire of regulators and victims looking to hold them accountable for their environmental harm. It will be followed with a description of the importance of corporate social responsibility. This

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

Critical incidents require immediate action (Levinson & Granot, 2002). Additionally, they also require ongoing support in order to ensure that they are correctly managed and the long-term effects are mitigated (Schneid & Collins, 2001). Addressed here are four specific events - earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornados. There are ways to mitigate the damage of these events, and there are also ways to try to prepare for them. Additionally, the type of response to these events is important as is the recovery from them. For earthquakes, mitigation is limited. It is possible to build houses and buildings stronger and more able to withstand shaking, and in earthquake-prone areas the cabinets often have latches and large appliances are strapped to the wall (U.S., 2007). People who live there should also have emergency supplies of food and water, and should be prepared for an earthquake by knowing information about evacuation routes (U.S., 2007). The response to earthquakes and the recovery from them are usually strong, because the areas that are most prone are also most prepared. When an earthquake hits in an unusual area, however, it can take much longer to help people and to rebuild the infrastructure.

Disasters are totalizing events, impacting and influencing every aspect of a community when they occur. As the anthropology of disaster grows, both in the number of publications and the number of researchers, the scope of topics related to disasters will also grow. Economic implications, vulnerable populations, and human ecology already contribute heavily to the

Sudden-onset of natural disasters disrupts daily life and, in the worst cases, causes devastation. Disasters are occurring at a rate many people cannot absorb psychologically and financially. Therefore, affecting people’s decisions to move away from disaster-prone areas, mainly if they were displaced, lost their possessions, or had a traumatic experience. To help alleviate some of these effects, FEMA has not only developed mitigation planning guides for local governments to adopt as a guide but also serves a starting point for reducing such disasters. (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2003). Political leaders, influential residents, fire department, police department and other participants are involved in the planning process in identifying

This goes along with the strain theory because it causes large amounts of strain on some. Communities that are impacted by the disaster are under strain as well as those feeling obligated to aid. The environment in which we live is a huge part of the stability we have and when something such as a natural disaster alters that environment, we react.

This measure considers the potential risks of a disaster event and the potential disaster effects. Demographic and vulnerability of the area are considered along with the community’s capability to respond, react, and rebound after a disaster. Natural disasters such as hurricanes are not obviously not preventable but the effects can be predicted. Regional areas such as coastal towns can expect to experience a hurricane disaster event with high winds, flooding, and break in power services while inland communities may feel the hurricane effects such as the storms backlash including flooding and poor weather

It is unknown and intriguing to see how people and countries come together when a natural disaster occurs. Earthquakes are one of the most deadly and complex of all the natural disaster, it can cause more consequences than the other natural disasters. Tsunami, Landslides and horror in the streets. In Peru 2007 one of the greatest earthquake ever recorded in South America, with a 7.9 in scale causing many people be homeless, death and injured.

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.

In this text, Dr. Jorn Birkmann takes an in-depth look at the interaction between society and natural hazards. Birkmann explores, among other things, the concept of vulnerability and how it relates to calamity. There is a focus on how the knowledge of particular natural hazard can be combined with information regarding the vulnerability of a society before a disaster to reduce risk. Overall, this text will provide me with relevant information on the complex interactions between natural hazards and society.

In any conceivable emergency disaster situation there are portions of the population which are more vulnerable to the effects of the situation. These socially vulnerable populations include elderly, disabled, and the lower socioeconomic class living in impoverished neighborhoods, which will be the focus of this paper. The lower and impoverished population are vulnerable in the majority of emergency situations, and with the founding of the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, there has been a vast multitude of devastating disasters which have been witnessed and catalogued; with concentration on hydrologic incidents, of which the most notorious being the tropical hurricane.

Earthquakes are deadly. “An earthquake is a shaking of the ground caused by the sudden breaking and movement of large sections (tectonic plates) of the earth's rocky outermost crust. The edges of the tectonic plates are marked by faults (or fractures). Most earthquakes occur along the fault lines when the plates slide past each other or collide against each other” (Moon). Earthquakes

For the purpose of the discussion in this paper, the disaster concept described in the recovery phase will be according to what is described as being “deadly, destructive, and disruptive events that occur when a hazard interacts with human vulnerability” (McEntire, p. 3). This concept of a disaster also takes into consideration the disruption of humans’ lives and their daily routines (McEntire, 2015).

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.