The Concept Of Risk Assessment

According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would become the central point-of-contact within the national government in responding to incidents. Since formation in 1979, FEMA’s core missions were to enhance the government’s ability to survive a foreign attack, and to assist state and local authorities in disaster response (Carafano, 2005). And while the two core missions seem heterogenous in scope at times from an outside perspective, the biggest difference between the two tasks is duration. A man-made disaster may be over in a matter of minutes as compared to a hurricane lasting several days, but in both instances the road to recovery is long. In order to streamline response and recovery in either scenario, FEMA was reorganized with new directives to support comprehensive emergency management practices (CRS, 2006). Today, FEMA provides the standard approach and guidance that many local communities may not have due to funding, training, and

Ensuring Resilience to Disasters has more tasking’s than another mission and involves many different agencies to accomplish those tasks. The four tasks are to mitigate hazards, enhance preparedness, ensure effective emergency response, and rapidly recover. The main agency that is responsible for these tasking’s is FEMA. FEMA’s mission is to “reduce the loss of life and property and protect communities nationwide from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters” (FEMA, 2017, p.2). FEMA works with federal and State services to assist them in accomplishing their goals. They also assist local services by assisting in setting up emergency management agencies (LEMA) and set guidance for Emergency Operations Planning (EOP). EOP’s are “plans that provide an overview of the jurisdiction’s preparedness and response strategies. It describes expected hazards, outlines agency roles and responsibilities, and explains how the jurisdiction keeps the plan current.” (FEMA, 2010,

This chapter provides an overview that describes the basic types of hazards threatening the United States and provides definitions for some basic terms such as hazards, emergencies, and disasters. The chapter also provides a brief history of emergency management in the federal government and a general description of the current emergency management system—including the basic functions performed by local emergency managers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the all-hazards approach and its implications for local emergency management.

The constant threat of focusing events, places a high level of pressure on emergency managers to respond appropriately to various levels of complex disasters. Past focusing events, highlight the importance of communication and coordination before and after disasters. Consequently, citizens expect emergency responders and government agencies to be accountable for rapidly responding to disasters in an organized manner. Prior to a focusing event, it is beneficial for emergency mangers to determine disaster risk prioritization. I present methods that emergency mangers can use to determine these priorities. Lastly, I discuss the integration of geographic information systems (GIS) to identify hazard zone areas.

the current multi-agency/multi-discipline approach to national disasters and emergencies. This summary briefly reviews the history of federal planning documents over the past twenty years as context for the present day, National Response Framework; and then highlights the response doctrine and its five principles, as it seems to encapsulate the National Response Framework overall. “Response doctrine

My city, West Lafayette Indiana is all hazard arrange that builds up a solitary, thorough system for the administration of city occurrences. It gives the structure and instruments to the coordination of state backing to the affected nearby governments and influenced people and organizations around it. This disaster preparedness plan clarifies the regular train and structures that have been practiced and developed at the neighborhood, tribal, state, and national levels after some time. In particular, it expands upon the National Incident Management System, which gives a reliable format to overseeing occurrences.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has developed and implemented many practices for managing both natural and man-made disasters. Emergency managers play an important role in ensuring these practices are fulfilled entirely and all disasters are handled efficiently and effectively. Through the development of plans emergency managers work to reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management does not avert or eliminate the threats but instead focuses on decreasing the impact of disasters. Issuance of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5) has forced Homeland Security to manage domestic incidents better and they have done so through the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The NIMS system offers a reliable nationwide model to assist “Federal, State, tribal and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to work together to prevent,

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

At one time or another, city officials must mitigate or manage risk because emergencies strike with little to no warning. When disaster or emergency strikes, one’s response in the next minute could mean the difference between survival and loss. In many situations, similar to the summer of 2015, in Phoenix Arizona, an Incident Commander must mitigate risk to achieve the greatest degree of success. While the process for mitigating risk varies somewhat from situation to situation, proper risk management calls for the Incident Commander to know what commodities are available, and what measures must be taken to maintain security, particularly as it pertains to extreme situations and political gatherings. Thus, survival depends

Disasters of varying degree, natural or manmade, can happen at any time in any area. It is imperative that the necessary emergency preparedness plans are in place and responders are properly trained. While disasters can take on a variety of forms, the plan should be inclusive of all possible threats in the surrounding areas. Public safety and healthcare providers must work together to ensure that they have a cohesive plan of action. They must plan how resources will be delegated as soon as an emergency is announced. Disasters are inevitable but planning reduces panic and confusion, which allows response personnel to react accordingly.

In efforts to provide the best lifestyle to every member of a community, the city’s emergency manager must incorporate protective measures for each critical infrastructure sector that will be affected during a natural disaster. In order to reduce the natural hazards, each member that is a part of the emergency team should have a policy to implement that will guarantee the reduction of the vulnerabilities the city will face as a result of the disaster.

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 four phases of comprehensive emergency management includes mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. All four phases are intrusive of each other as there cycles work together to better prepare a community for harmful events whether it be from nature itself or manmade. There are many details and actions that must take place to keep a good active emergency management program. A failure in any one the four cycles could spell disaster for all of a community or part of. Plans have to start with the leadership and understanding that all risk cannot be entirely eliminated; however, it can be planned for.

Studies show that hazard preparedness and mitigation are essential stages in the preparation of emergency processes (FEMA, 2011). These stages are important in ensuring the safety of people and their property during a