Disaster Management Issues - Assignment Example

Question 1

For some time now, there has been a long-standing debate on whether the President of the United States should have the discretion of making a declaration of a state of emergency, should there be a disaster, or whether he should be restricted to this prerogative by invoking the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistant Act which was enacted in 1988. The Stafford Act provides an avenue for provision of necessary relief assistance from the Federal Emergencies Management Agency (FEMA) when disasters do occur, with an aim of preserving life and the property of citizens (Salkowe & Chakraborty, 2009). In light of this, for a disaster to be declared worth the intervention of FEMA, a declaration request is made to the President. This only applies when a state government has been overwhelmed by the impact of the disaster. Consequently, the President will in turn direct FEMA to avail federal aid to the victims of the disaster.

Subsequently, the discretion accorded to the President to declare a state of emergency should not be motivated by political interests. According to Salkowe and Chakraborty (2009), a sitting president may or may not make a declaration due to political agendas that he or she may be aiming to accomplish. For instance, in an electioneering year, the president may declare an emergency and direct federal relief aid to the victims with an aim of convincing the voters to re-elect him or her. Furthermore, the president could be biased on the basis of party affiliations between him and the senator/governor of the respective state. In addition, the presidency could turndown a request for an emergency declaration if the state in question has comparatively low taxable resources and the government deems it uneconomic to offer relief aid to them.

Based on that, it would be a tremendous achievement for the government, if it were to adopt a strategy that would facilitate a fast declaration of emergency and in turn, the intervention from FEMA hastened. This would be more pragmatic and feasible rather than waiting for the state governments to launch a formal request to the federal government (Salkowe & Chakraborty, 2009). In addition, it would create a situation where political motives are not achieved by the government and thus, promoting equity, fairness and impartiality without regard to gender, age, disability, religion, nationality or race.

Question 3

On the 25th to the 28th of April, 2011, the United States experienced one of the deadliest tornadoes in the history of America. The four – day event saw a total of 750 tornadoes being recorded which brought the death toll to a total of 361 people. In the process, the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia were adversely affected by the natural disaster ("The April 2011 Southern Tornadoes and Severe Storms | FEMA.gov", 2017). This came to be known as the ‘Super Outbreak’ and it elicited a wide range of reactions from all stakeholders and the global partners as well.

Part of the necessary measures that were taken by the national government was the declaration of an emergency in accordance to The Stafford Act of 1988. This prompted the then sitting president, Barrack Obama to direct the Federal Emergencies Management Agency (FEMA) to provide relief aid to the victims of the aftermath which involved the activation of Emergency Support Functions (ESFs). Approximately $257 million was distributed to the surviving families as donations and low interest recovery loans ("The April 2011 Southern Tornadoes and Severe Storms | FEMA.gov", 2017). Furthermore, the agency also set aside close to $500 million as requested by the affected states, for public works and engineering. This would cater for all the rebuilding projects and repairs of state facilities for the general public. Moreover, $115 million was also allocated for state projects aimed at saving lives through mass care of the victims, assistance during emergencies, as well as shelter and housing. This proved to be very resourceful to the victims of the Super Outbreak, who have since rebuilt their lives with the hope that they don’t have to experience such a calamity again. The intervention was to a large extent quite successful as FEMA continuously remains on the frontline to offer disaster assistance comprehensively. Even so, the disaster management ought to have been based on harmonization as well as collaboration and assistance from the Federal, State and local government agencies.

Question 5

In 2011, the government, through the Department of Homeland Security, took measures aimed at curbing terrorism by replacing the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) with the National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) (Grossman, 2015). After the ascent of the Obama Administration in 2009, the terrorism threat against United States was clearly imminent and a system had to be put into place to seal any loopholes. As a result, the colour coded alert system of the Homeland Security Advisory System was eventually replaced with the NTAS which was bound to be more effective in communicating any terrorism threats in a timely and detailed manner to the general public. This move was made in full realization that the nation’s security is a collective responsibility and that all citizens should be vigilant at all times.

Even though this move was met with a lot of criticism from security stakeholders, its effectiveness over the former was questioned. It came along with its own share of shortcomings (Grossman, 2015). One of the disadvantages it had was that it had reduced the terror threat levels from the initial five to two. As a result of this, the identification and assessment of terrorism threats was considerably reduced thus, making it difficult for security enforcers and the general public to remain vigil of any looming danger. Nonetheless, it proved to be very beneficial to the security stakeholders in the sense that it created a platform for citizens to provide intelligence reports to security personnel. Considering the fact that citizens are more exposed to the looming danger, it made total sense involving citizens and relying on them to provide information in a timely manner to subdue any threats of terror.

Consequently, the Department of Homeland Security should as well establish similar communication mechanisms for other potential disasters. This is in full awareness of the fact that the United States faces a couple of disaster threats apart from terrorism. In so doing, it would go a long way in averting any threats that would interrupt the peace and harmony of the country as well as increasing the level of preparedness for any disaster.

Question 7

Just recently, in October 2012, USA experienced one of the deadliest and perhaps most destructive hurricanes in the history of the country. This came to be known as ‘Hurricane Sandy’. Affecting largely the North-Eastern Coast of the United States, the fatality number was considerably high with the death toll surpassing the 200 mark. Moreover, the hurricane also caused a huge deal of property damage that was estimated to be worth close to a $100 billion.

In 2017, the recovery phase after the disaster has not been even. As a matter of fact, the impacts of hurricane sandy are still being experienced even up to date (Petkova et al., 2017). The government has had to bear with the huge burden of managing the disaster and its aftermath through FEMA and through an initiative dubbed the “Build It Back Program”. However, the recovery has been quite gradual than it was initially expected. This has been largely contributed by three main factors which include; the health of the victims, dislocation from their dwellings and the income that a household had prior to hurricane sandy (Petkova et al., 2017). For instance, the victims that had deteriorated health before had lower chances of recovering from the hurricane. This could be attributed to their inability to access medical care at that time. Furthermore, the families that were displaced from their homes during the disaster had a difficult time recovering ever since just as the families that had a lower income, which also faced a challenge in recovering from the hurricane sandy.

In a bid to hasten the recovery process of hurricane sandy, it would be quite important for FEMA and the Build It Back Program to focus more on aspects such as the health of the victims, the level of household income and whether families were displaced, as they have proved to be the major stumbling blocks that have backtracked the recovery of hurricane sandy.

Question 9

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been on the frontline in the provision of relief aid in times of disaster with an aim of preserving life and property and to also enable victims re-establish their day to day lives. Furthermore, they have also proven to be effective in coming up with detailed and comprehensive after-action reviews and improvement planning reports after any disaster. These are geared towards assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention following a disaster and gauging whether it was successful or there was still a lot to be desired. The sole aim of this is to ensure that future disaster interventions are effective, in the sense that, the goals and objectives that are set prior are met. The agency is also important in enhancing the preparedness of the society in terms of disaster management through legislative action that ensures proper disaster management strategies are implemented in collaboration with other departments (Hurricane Sandy FEMA After-Action Report, 2017). For instance, the after-action review of hurricane sandy revealed that the intervention of the disaster still demanded the enhancement and perfection of the strategies and approaches adopted for the intervention of future disasters (Hurricane Sandy FEMA After-Action Report, 2017). With this in mind, an improvement plan is guaranteed to be developed as FEMA aims to develop a better intervention strategy for any future disaster.

In the present day, new threats are emerging and therefore FEMA should enhance its preparedness in regard to the management of disaster so as to enhance the resilience of the society. That is apart from relying on past disasters for improvement planning; FEMA could as well benchmark and learn how disasters have been managed in other countries across the world. In so doing, the organization is assured of increasing its knowledge base that would come in handy in improvement planning for any future disasters of the same nature. These improvements henceforth should be communicated effectively to the general public and to the FEMA staff, especially the precautionary measures.