Understand The Role Of Communication 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.

When the airplanes flew into the Twin Towers on 9/11 in New York, there was chaos and confusion throughout New York and the entire country. The events following the Boston Marathon Bombing were full of confusion and stress. However, in both events, first responders were there to aid in whatever way they were able. First responders, like those that responded to 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing, rely heavily on proper communication to do their job properly. While communication has advanced in the past years, there are always more ways for communication amongst first responders to be advanced. Response efforts need to flow smoothly and efficiently, and communication aids greatly in those efforts. The events following a terrorist attack,

Natural and man-made disasters have increased in the past decade, and due to these changes, Emergency Managers had to make drastic changes in order to improve the way first responders operate in a disaster area.

Thus, in emergency management, to enhance the agency’s vision, changes may arise from policies and procedures, technology advancement, and equipment, shift in priorities, increase on mitigation and prevention measures, and methodologies among many others. This therefore demands that leadership in the emergency management must possess the ability to lead changes as requires since emergency management itself has to do with prepared for and responding to disasters or crisis that take place often with little to no warnings with the expectation to respond with adequate preparation. Hence, the emergency management employees and the leadership who want to be successful in dealing with disasters must learn to respond swiftly and effectively to changes; “an effective leader is able to motivate and inspire others to embrace change” (FEMA, 2005, p.

Approaching and following major catastrophic events, it is crucial to have communication plans set in place for the community. Communication during disasters helps to spread information regarding evacuation, weather, and recovery (Guion et al, 25). It is important for rescue teams to be able to locate those in the community who cannot be found during a catastrophic event, however, with communication networks not working, this could be hard. During Hurricane Katrina, communication networks had stopped working due to high winds and power outages. This made it hard for individuals who were lost to be located, and hard for the government to coordinate the response needed (Comfort and Haase, 2). As stated by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study, “over 1.7 million” individuals living on the Gulf had lost power during Hurricane Katrina (Waple, 6). Different systems of communication let the community know of ways to become prepared when it comes to taking shelter and evacuation. Due to the poor preparation for Hurricane Katrina, the government learned lessons on communication strategies that would better inform the community on weather and evacuation plans for Hurricane Sandy.

Emergency managers that I have met tend to be sponges, soaking up information. Britton argues that uncertainty is becoming a large part of the emergency managers mindset. Emergency managers must coordinate with others outside the field to gain insight into many situations. Britton argues that legitimacy is gained from the interface with other careers to reach a common objective. The student must be able to work outside of their comfort zones to develop this fifty-thousand foot view of all interrelated fields as they pertain to emergency management.

Over the past half century, the field of emergency management has gradually evolved into a more structured profession. There are several aspects of response efforts that needed to be revised in order for the field to be viewed as legitimate and trustworthy. Primarily, the implementation of advanced education through the process of accreditation, college programs and certifications has paved the way to legitimize the field. In addition, there has been an increase in efforts to hold those accountable to their actions while responding to crises. Through a combination of these efforts, emergency management has attempted to become a more dependable organization as viewed by the general public.

Long gone are the days of this field being perceived as a career path mainly for retired military and first responders. While often military and first responder professionals tend to have many of the skillsets valuable to emergency management, the depth and scope of the field has opened up to many other professionals. There is a need for a tremendous amount of knowledge required to be a proficient emergency manager. Newly formed threats such as growing terrorism acts at home and abroad, climate change and extreme weather, pandemics coupled with the increasing vulnerability of our citizenry, population densities and demand for resources are among many dynamics that require the emergency manager to possess comprehensive and proficient skills. There is much technology to be harnessed and science available to help guide and ensure we are putting our best effort forward. We are living in an interconnected world where disasters from one location impact others. Decisions we make regarding planning for our future need to be made in consensus not just with our stakeholders, but with our professional partners in many other disciplines. From climate change alone we face issues such as droughts, flooding, stronger, more frequent storm surges, reduced agriculture capacity, loss in biodiversity and ecosystem collapse, increase of disease and allergens, under nutrition, increase in vector borne illnesses, mental health impacts,

Emergency management faces many challenges in today’s modern society. In the years prior to 9/11 emergency management was primarily focused on natural disasters. That has since changed; we now face a diverse variety of risks and hazards on a constant basis. As we continue to grow in population current and newer have compounded into more problems that emergency planner must face and find solutions for.

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

Survey Capability. Another valuable tool you need to have in your emergency mass communication system is the survey feature. Surveys allow you to gather information from your employees and staff, so you could make the best decisions. Surveys not only give you your people’s feedback about certain policies or about how the business is run; they also help you connect with and interact with your staff better. Surveys are not only used to learn about the engagement levels of your employees, or how satisfied they are with the company. They could also be used for assigning different tasks and shifts through polling, marketing and promoting product campaigns, and determining the safety of employees during emergency

Emergency management is a difficult job, and there are many factors that goes into it, if a person wants to be effective at their job. Usually on the news stations, or on social media websites, we can see the actual disaster happening in real time, and/or can see the immediate damage the emergency has caused a town. An example, could be seeing the destruction a hurricane leaves in its wake from an aerial views from news helicopters. Usually after a few days the news will stop reporting on this event and move on to the next major news story. After a disaster occurs, people in the emergency management business are there to help pick up the pieces, and try to restore order or to help those in need. In many cases they are successful and everything,

This emergence of social media has also changed emergency management and disaster response. Emergency management as a whole is fairly new, only creating widely recognized, integrated emergency management systems beginning in the 1970s. Furthermore, at this same time people realized that the effects disasters have on the communities they strike can be mitigated by the creation of disaster plans ahead of time, proper disaster response training, and the efforts of human actions in these situations. Because social media has enabled mass amounts of instant information sharing, it allows not only locals and disaster response teams to help with the management of crises, but also many remote citizens.

Providing a needs assessment remains necessary for determining the best strategies for communication. The first step to crisis communication planning includes identifying potential crisis, such as natural disasters, data breaches, and negative social media comments (William Mills Agency, 2013). The additional steps includes establishing a communication team, determining the appropriate messages for each scenarios, designating spokesperson, develop frequently asked questions, develop communications to employees and customers, determine the media communication method, facilitate a media training refresher, track media coverage, and evaluate your crisis communication plan (William Mills Agency, 2013).

The media has a number of important responsibilities during a natural disaster. I have broken down their responsibilities into four stages: early warning, immediate response, post-disaster review, and implementation. While these phases do not necessarily occur one after the other without overlap, they form a good basis from which to explain the different roles of the media throughout the