Planning for Emergencies and Disasters - Essay Example

Planning for Emergencies and Disasters • Which possible disaster would you place a higher emphasis for mitigating and preparing for in your Emergency Management Plan? A severe winter storm or a tornado? Please justify your response and note the difference between risk and vulnerability in your response. You are encouraged to include appropriate references. A tornado coming into the community will greatly produce an imbalance into our safety measures, as the community is in a higher risk from it. However, as a winter storm will push through into our community and there is a high probability that it will be present in our community in a sooner period, plus the fact that it will cause a higher standard of calamities in our area, the winter storm will get the most wanted attention it could get from the community. As the law states that the welfare of the people is to be the highest law,1 it just follows through that whatever will have a greater effect into the lives of the people living in the community, the higher the importance that the solution should be found to prevent it. As compared to having tornadoes, there is a high risk, yes, but the vulnerability of the people in the community is lesser as compared to that of having a winter storm. And that makes the problem of Tornadoes the lesser evil. Risk is a concept that denotes a potential negative impact to an asset or some characteristic of value that may arise from some present process or future event.2 In everyday usage, risk is often used synonymously with the probability of a known loss. Vulnerability is the susceptibility to physical or emotional injury or attack. It also means to have ones guard down, open to censure or criticism; assailable.3 In relation to hazards and disasters, vulnerability is a concept that links the relationship that people have with their environment to social forces and institutions and the cultural values that sustain and contest them. In this area of thinking, as the community is of high vulnerability from winter storms and has probability of high casualties if it happens. While on the other hand, the community is at a high risk with tornadoes but less vulnerable. This means that although the community will suffer setback if tornadoes happen, there will be low casualties and much safer community than that if winter storms will happen. • Discuss how the key features of the NIMS will help local agencies confront the pending severe winter storm. NIMS established standardized incident management processes, protocols, and procedures that all responders (Federal, state, tribal, and local) will use to coordinate and conduct response actions. (Incident Command System)  NIMS incorporated incident management’s best practices, developed and proven by thousands of responders and authorities across America. With responders using the same standardized procedures, there will be a sharing of common focus, and will be able to place full emphasis on incident management when a homeland security incident occurs -- whether terrorism or natural disaster. In addition, national preparedness and readiness in responding to and recovering from an incident is enhanced since all of the Nations emergency teams and authorities are using a common language and set of procedures. (Communications and information management) 4 Preparedness incorporates a range of measures, actions, and processes accomplished before an incident happens.  NIMS preparedness measures includes: planning, training, exercises, qualification and certification, equipment acquisition and certification, and publication management. 5 • Briefly discuss how your decision may affect policy decisions for emergency and disaster management in this community. (It is ALWAYS important that you consider how decisions impact policy and the policy decision-making process. I realize that this a bit beyond this course; however, I want everyone in the course to begin to learn to think of the policy implications for every decision which you may be responsible for making in your There are many protocols which the emergency services use in dealing with an emergency, which usually start with planning before an emergency occurs. The planning phase starts at preparedness, where the group decide on how they will respond to a given incident or set of circumstances. Following an emergency, the groups then move to a response phase, where they execute their plans, and may end up improvising some areas of their response. Groups may then be involved in recovery following the incident, where they assist in the clear up from the incident, or help the people involved overcome their mental trauma. The final phase in the circle is mitigation which involves taking steps to ensure that no re-occurrence is possible, or putting additional plans in place to ensure less damage is done.6 This should feed back in to the preparedness stage, with updated plans in place to deal with future emergencies, thus completing the circle. In the event of a major incident, such as civil unrest or a major disaster, many governments maintain the right to declare a state of emergency, which gives them extensive powers over the daily lives of their citizens.7 If this happens, the safety of the people always comes as the first priority of the state. They should ensure the flow of the people from where the disaster has struck and to ensure that proper safekeeping and provisions were given to the inconvenienced parties. In cases wherein difficult decisions are to be made, the state should always follow one rule and that is “salus populi est suprema lex” –the welfare of the people is and should be the highest law– Read More