The Role of Government in Ensuring Public Safety - Essay Example

? Disaster mitigation involves the efforts of reducing the loss of life and property by reducing the impacts of the environmental disasters. Mitigation efforts include analyzing the risks, insuring the risks or reducing the risks. Disasters can determine the outcomes of political elections. For instance, President Barrack Obama was endorsed by New York Mayor for reelection due to quick response to Hurricane Sandy Storm and declaration of disaster emergency. A proactive and risk based approach of disaster management is needed to predict the likelihood, and the potential damage of the disasters. Introduction It has been said that all disaster are “political”. For instance, the elder President George Bush is said to have lost the election because of perceived deficient response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. His son, George W. Bush, suffered politically for several years as recovery operations on the Gulf Coast dragged on a pace that constituents considered unsatisfactory (Olasky, 2006). President Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 1979 in order to response to the increasing disasters (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). There are numerous environmental threats that United States face today. The environmental disasters include floods, tornadoes, failure of dams, or building structures. Hurricanes and bridge collapses are also considered natural environmental disasters. The federal relief under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been expanded under the Stafford Disaster and Emergency Assistance Act of 1974 and Hazard Mitigation Act of 2000. The FEMA was placed under the department of Homeland Security in 2003. Experts attribute the increase in environmental disasters to increased human encroachment and development to areas that are considered disaster prone and increased occurrence of the weather related disasters due to climate change (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). President Bill Clinton issued disaster declarations for political gain while President Bush issued a total of 56 disaster declarations (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). Disaster mitigation involves the efforts of reducing the loss of life and property by reducing the impacts of the environmental disasters. Mitigation efforts include analyzing the risks, insuring the risks or reducing the risks. Hurricane Katrina that happened in August 29 2005 is one of the disasters that experienced intense political influence (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). The hurricane blew across southern Florida roaring in to Louisiana coast with 125 mph sustained winds thus causing a surge in sea waters and leaving 80 percent of the city flooded (Olasky, 2006). Katrina killed about 1,836 people and inflicted damages estimated at $ 125 billion. Contrary to President Clinton who utilized the FEMA to deal with a series of hurricanes, President Bush suffered major political blow due to his ability to intervene in Hurricane Katrina disaster (Olasky, 2006). Given that a large percentage of the population in New Orleans comprised of Black Americans, the slow response made the population question Presidents Bush “compassionate conservative” policies on the minorities (Olasky, 2006). President Barrack Obama also suffered politically in his early years in office due to the slow response to halting the oil spill in Gulf Coast. However, he recovered his politically when the oil spill was finally cleaned up (Olasky, 2006). Last week, citizens across northeastern seaboard were hit by Hurricane Sandy that left thousands homeless and destroyed thousands of businesses. The governor’s of the affected cities called for the state of emergency and President Barrack Obama granted the national disaster proclamation. Hurricane Katrina has changed the dynamics of Presidential elections in the eastern coast. For instance, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Barrack Obama’s reelection to what he termed as the prompt response to Hurricane Sandy disaster and the urge to people to avoid waters and portions that may have been electrified by downed power lines (Markon & Tumulty, 4). The role of government is the main issue surrounding this year’s presidential campaign. The Democrats and Republicans have struggled in attaining political edge on their role of government policies. According to political analysts, a disaster like Hurricane Sandy activates the “sixth sense” of the public on the role that government can play. Republicans are calling for a reduction in federal spending on disaster agencies (Markon & Tumulty, 4). According to Pew Research Center pre-election survey, Obama’s handling of the Hurricane Sandy disaster will help him move ahead of Romney since almost 69 percent of the likely voters asserted that they were satisfied with how Obama handled the storm’s impact. After the storm, Romney found himself in difficult position to explain a statement that he made in June 2011 during Republican primary debate that Emergency Management Agency’s duties should be privatized (Markon & Tumulty, 4). Obama signed emergency disaster declarations for States affected by the storm such as New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and Columbia thus attracting praise from politicians from those states and attaining credit for advancing disaster response efforts (Mali, 2). Obama also held several meeting with FEMA officials to discuss on the deployment of Incident Manageent Assistance Teams. The President emphasized on five issues in the disaster recovery that are getting power back, pumping the water out of the flooded areas, taking care of the victims basic needs, removing the debris and making sure the transportation systems are running again. Obama visited New Jersey himself and immediately instructed the US Department of Defense to provide fuel supplies to the affected areas. New Jersey governor, Chris Christie visited the storm victims while accompanied by President Obama whereby he praised the visionary leadership of Barrack Obama thus attracting aiding Barrack Obama in convincing the electorate that he cared for victims of natural disasters (Mali, 3). In order to counter the political gains made by Obama due to his quick response to the disaster, Romney’s communications director quickly announced that Republicans had initiated plans to mobilize the campaign staff to collect any donations to the storm victims and scale down the notion that Romney was interested in politics at the expense of public safety. The disaster has also made it impossible for people to vote early in Virginia due to downed trees and power outrages that may still affect the Election Day. President Obama has effectively utilized politics of disasters right from the BP oil spills in Gulf Coast, the massive tornadoes and numerous hurricanes include the recent flooding in north coast (Markon & Tumulty, 4). Disaster policy might be more proactive if the FEMA establishes adequate measures like disaster anticipation and preparedness, mitigation measures and quick response to disaster. The Local emergency management agencies should identify hazards in the local areas through risk analysis and recommending measures of preventing the disaster (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). Disaster planning will make it possible for the agencies to management the potential crisis of the disaster. Strategic disaster plans should establish priorities and identify the expected levels of disaster response capabilities. Disaster planning should include the standard operating procedures and emergency operations Plans that can deliver adequate response to disasters and recovery in order to minimize the potential loss from large-scale disasters (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). The disaster preparedness planning process should engage the communities in addressing the risks that may occur in the communities. Disaster preparedness plans must gather and analyze information on the potential hazards and threats in order to guarantee sufficient success in uncertain environments. The plans must identify the unique hazards like floods, earthquakes and fires thus the jurisdiction will be in a position to issue early warnings and evacuation orders and find new shelters to the affected persons (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). A disaster policy should be comprehensive. The policy should mitigate, prepare, respond and recover from all emergencies whether natural, technological or human caused disasters (Campbell, 2008). All hazards within the jurisdictions should be considered through thorough risk assessment and prioritization on the likelihood and impact on the population. Mitigation activities should be in place to prevent or minimize the potential losses. The policy should ensure immediate response to the disaster while recovery actions should ensure all community functions and activities are restored with minimal time (Ritchie, 2010). Disasters cut across a broad spectrum of activities thus all impacts of the disaster on the infrastructure, economy and human services must considered in developing the disaster policy (Campbell, 2008). A proactive disaster policy should involve all the stakeholders like the communities, the government, the private sector, the general public and all government agencies dealing with disasters such as the weather forecasting departments and fire department (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). A proactive disaster policy should be progressive. The policy should enable the emergency management agencies to forecast disasters and take preventive activities to build disaster-resilient communities or disaster-resistant communities. The current disasters have become more complex and dynamic thus difficult to predict but the disaster policy. Failure to follow environmental management codes like building codes would make it difficult to prevent future environmental disasters (Ritchie, 2010). The policy should pay maximum attention to prevention and mitigation of disasters that address all the cycles of emergency management. The policy should facilitate the assessment and assessment of disasters in order to reduce vulnerability (Campbell, 2008). Activities such as building code enforcement, environmental management and training must be focused on reducing vulnerability to disasters (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). The disaster policy should be risk driven and based on sound risk management principles that include hazard identification, risk analysis and allocation of resources to mitigate the risks. The policy should identify all the man-made hazards and natural hazards and analyze the hazards based on the vulnerability of the public to the hazards. The continuity of operation plans and recovery plans should be based on the identified risks and resources should be availed to address the identified risks (Ritchie, 2010). The disaster policy should integrate the local, state-level and federal level disaster management policies. The local government disaster plans should be integrated with the federal level strategies of responding to emergencies. The private sector emergency continuity plans should also factor the community wide emergency operations plans and recovery plans (Saundra, 2011). The disaster policy should also be flexible to meet new disaster challenges like unforeseen earthquakes or fires. A flexible disaster the policy will be capable of dealing with the short-term pressures of the communities like political and social pressures in mitigating disasters (Ritchie, 2010). A proactive disaster policy should provide public information and education on the potential disasters. The policy should create incentives for communities that exert efforts in mitigating disasters such as avoiding climate change issues like water pollution or environmental degradation. The policy should have evacuation plans and early warning mechanisms in order to facilitate evacuations to refuge shelters (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2011). The policy should provide for temporal assistance to disaster victims, counseling and long-term medical support to the critically injured persons (Campbell, 2008). The proactive disaster plan should include search and rescue missions, registration and tracing systems, public health response measures and damage assessments. The disaster policy should contain measures of restoring the public assets like transportation systems and electricity, and active coordination centers for distribution of emergency aid and reliefs (Ritchie, 2010). The proactive disaster policy will be implemented strengthening disaster response at all levels. The policy will be implemented through creating sensitization programmes and disaster prevention mechanisms at all levels. The policy will also be factored in economic planning like the state and the federal budget (Campbell, 2008). The policy implementation will also include installation disaster surveillance systems like radio communications and digit emergency calls. Disaster preparedness will involve strengthening the laws that conserve the forests, creating fire belts, proper physical planning in built environment and providing adequate safety precautions such as maintenance of ferries and boats in order to respond to storms (Saundra, 2011). Some of the greatest obstacles to a more proactive emergency management include the lack of adequate training and resource planning in order to respond to emergencies. The FEMA officials are tasked with determining the projects that can receive funding under the Stafford Act. The training of disaster response staff has not been adequate due to budgetary constrains. The public assistance budget for training FEMA staff has declined from $ 1.9 million in 1999 to $ 750,000 for the year 2001. Only 20 percent have received training on the National Emergency Management Information System (NEMIS). FEMA also estimates that about 48 percent of its staff will be retiring in the next five years thus creating a challenge in implementing a proactive emergency management approach. FEMA has been experiencing problems in financial resources accountability. For instance, the agency received qualified opinion for its financial statements in 2001. The auditors found that FEMA’s systems were not integrated and required two manual accounting processes. FEMA could not reconcile the property information from the manual spreadsheets. The agency was unable to account for about $ 10.8 million that was reported as FEMA’s equipment. The agency also lacked adequate support for the unliquidated obligations accounts. Weak internal controls and insufficient financial systems make the agency vulnerable to financial misappropriations. Another obstacle in implementing proactive disaster policy is the changing natural environment due to continued human activities which has led to air pollution, and ecological degradation that is responsible for destructive winds and storms. Climate change due to global warming has caused the sea temperatures to rise thus leading to intense meteorological events like storms that are difficult to foresee or predict the likelihood of occurrence. The emergency of drug resistant bacteria, new lifestyles, depletion of ocean resources and migration of natural species will also make it difficult to implement proactive disaster policy (Saundra, 2011). Conclusion All disasters are political. Emergency of disasters attracts intense political debate due to the role of government in ensuring public safety. The recent Hurricane Sandy storm response has taken a political dimension in mitigation, preparedness and response with President Obama calling for immediate assistance and restructuring of the disaster. The President attained political mileage from endorsement for reelection by several political leaders in the affected states like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A proactive disaster policy requires a risk driven approach to emergency management that entails risk assessments and risk mitigation. The approach entails collaboration with all stakeholders and providing public information on the likelihood of disasters through early warning systems. Some of the obstacles of implementing a proactive disaster policy include the climate changes, the insufficient financial resources required to mitigate the complex resources and lack of adequate and skilled personnel. References: Campbell, B.C. (2008). Disasters, accidents, and crises in American history: a reference guide to the nation’s most catastrophic events. New York. Facts on File. Haddow, G.D., Bullock, J.A & Coppola, D.P. (2011). Introduction to emergency management. Burlington. Butterworth Heinemann. Mali, M. “Gov. Christie praises Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy as outstanding,” Accessed on 5th November 2012 from http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/264747-gov-christie- obama-response-to-hurricane-sandy-outstanding. Markon, J & Tumulty, K. “Obama suspends campaigning for a third day due to Sandy storm system, ” Accessed on 5th November 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/obama-romney-respond-to- hurricane-sandy-as-it-upends-campaign-plans/2012/10/29/5c48af54-21e3-11e2-8448- 81b1ce7d6978_story.html. Olasky, M.N. (2006). The politics of disaster: Katrina, big government, and new strategy for future crisis. New Jersey. John Wiley. Ritchie, L.A. (2010). Enhancing disaster and emergency preparedness, response, and recovery through evaluation. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. Saundra, S. (2011). Dealing with disaster public management in crisis situations. London. Sharpe. Read More