Emergency Management - Essay Example

Emergency Management Contents Introduction. Emergency Management and Its Phases. Views of the Emergency Managers. Risk Analysis. Components of Emergency Plans. Emergency Manager's Role in Mass-Casualty and Qualities. References. Introduction The ultimate goal of any individual is to lead life in a peaceful and comfortable manner. The advancements in the field of science and technology have added comfort to humans. Man has proved himself to be superior to any other living being. In such a situation, the threats to humans are humans and partly the natural disasters. The terrorist activities like 9th and 11th September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are ideal illustration of the havoc that can be created by terrorists. Natural disasters like floods, hurricanes etc. have claimed lives and property in huge numbers. In order to avoid these sorts of risks, there was a necessity to effectively manage these issues. Emergency Management is a resultant of such necessity. Hence, Emergency management can be thought of as the effort to avoid risks within as well as outside the country and help in cases of disasters whether natural or not (Jane, 2004). The Emergency management is very important sector which needs to be given a high priority for the kind of work they do. Emergency Management and Its Phases Emergency Management's work is to deal with risks and to avoid them. This is of great help at times of natural calamities. Emergency management can be done at various levels like country-wide, state-wide or it can also be done at group or individual level. The Emergency management process is considered as a continuous process which has four phases namely mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (IJEM, 2006). Each phase has concentration on one part of the emergency management. Mitigation is the long term phase which tries to avoid risks or minimize the risks and stop them from turning into disasters. Hence, mitigation has the lead role in reduction of risks or threats to maximum extent possible. The mitigative measures are either structural or non-structural. Structural mitigation measures are taken from technology based measures to ensure safety from disasters where as the non-structural measures are the measures like the usage of shutters at hurricane prone areas or attaching water heaters to the building walls at regions where probability of earth quakes is high. Some of the structural mitigative measures are the building of dams, flood levees etc. The mitigation phase is economic and unwasteful. The risks are identified through an assessment calculation. The equation says that the hazard specific risk is the product of hazard and the vulnerability of the people to that hazard (IJEM, 2006). The higher hazard specific risk indicates the need for immediate action to solve it. The next phase in the emergency management is the preparedness phase. In the preparedness phase the concentration is on the planning of actions to be taken after a disaster occurs. This phase of planning is carried out by the Emergency managers. The preparedness phase has a few measures that are common to any kind of rescue. These include better communication plans between the team, division of the rescue team into multiple sub-divisions, training the team and emergency services, gathering required infrastructure and building temporary shelters etc. It is always advisable that individuals have their own preparedness but this may also cause confusion among the people and the team. The preparedness phase can be aptly done only with the help of trained team of committed and hard working people. The next phase is the response phase. This phase has the first to react team like ambulance or police etc. who are later followed by a rescue team. Response as the name suggests is the immediate reaction to the disaster occurred. This is done not only by the emergency management team but also by some local organizations like the Red Cross and other public safety agencies (Jane, 2004). The efforts applied in this phase would result in the extent of help done. When maximum people are attended then the disaster management is said to be effective. In this phase, the need to be quick and correct is desired. The fourth phase in the emergency management is the recovery phase. The recovery phase is vital as its motto is to revert the affected region into its original form. This phase appears to be similar to the response phase but they are different in their areas of focus. The response phase aims at issues that need to be immediately addressed after the disaster whereas the recovery phase concentrates on rebuilding to original state which may involve works like construction of buildings, creating employment opportunities etc. Views of the Emergency Managers Most of the emergency managers spend their time in thinking about the preparedness and response phases. Mostly, the managers are concerned with the steps that they need to plan when a disaster strikes. The general thinking of managers is so because they think that the best approach in rescuing will lead to least damage. However this type of thinking is not always correct. Response is also the phase which is given high priority as the efforts they put in immediate response would decide the lives of many. Protection of people is the thing aspired in emergency management. Emergency management can be more effective when time spent on each phase varies as mentioned here. For better results time spent on preparedness and response should be high as ever without trading off the other areas of focus like mitigation. Though mitigation phase is a long term process, it should be given equal priority as the preparedness and response or even more. This is clear because the work done in mitigation is avoidance of risks (Susan, 2001). When the risk itself is avoided then there is no need to recover from. Simply the old rule still holds prevention is better than cure. Recovery should also be done properly. It is also vital process because restoring the affected area to original needs to be done for the continuation of the regularly being performed work. Risk Analysis Risk Analysis can be thought as a combination of three activities namely risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. Risk assessment tells the harm that is expected from a risk. Risk management focuses on how to manage and plan in order to minimize the affect of risk. Risk communication shows the communication between the risk manager and their team (Susan, 2001). Risk in any individual's view can be defined as the probability of having a disaster. Risk can either be high or low. High risk indicates that the probability of occurrence of a disaster is more and vice versa. Here also, risk assessment becomes really important. At times when the city manager or police chief of a small town has to plan with limited resources, he is expected to spend more time on the mitigation phase so that risk can be avoided or minimized. Awareness programs would be encouraged so that the people are prepared to face any risk without much loss. An efficient team would be prepared for the purpose of recovery and response. It is always better to conduct an actual assessment of risk rather than to eyeball risk because risks like adverse climatic conditions can be known in advance with the help of technology (William, 2000). The eyeball assessment is better in the case of risks from terrorists etc. Components of Emergency Plan Emergency management and emergency plan are of utmost importance to any community or an agency. Being prepared for any kind of risk is always better as it will always yield in lower loss. In such a plan, the most essential components would include the possession of fire extinguishers, warning devices and back up for important services or data, first aid kit etc. the plan should be clearly showing the team of people who are to react as per their allotted work like informing to the fire station or hospital etc. Safe shelters are to be made and transportation should also be taken care to shift people to a safer place at times (William, 2000). It would also contain contact information of nearest emergency management team. Emergency Manager's role in Mass-Casualty and Qualities Emergency manager's role in cases of medical care for mass casualty incident should be to take spontaneous decisions. The manager should quickly analyze whether the team is sufficient or not and the number of ambulance vehicles that need to be called. Firstly, it is essential that the manager takes care that the affected area entry is made to be restricted. Then the manager should see to it that the people who have been hurt badly are rushed to hospital and the people with minor injuries are given the first aid treatment (David, 2002). The necessities like medicines, pain killers etc. are to be brought in required number. If necessary, he can ask for more help from any other wing which he feels needs attention. Public safety agencies or infrastructure agencies are of great help at times of mass casualties as they are the people who can provide the required infrastructure or man power. Public safety agencies are helpful and add to the emergency management team. These lessen the burden of the emergency management team. More people can be rescued in less time. A good emergency manager is the person who is correct in assessing the risk factor and avoiding the risk to maximum possible extent. That person should have clear vision on the plan of action to be done in case of disaster (David, 2002). A good emergency manager should be quick in response and correct in recovery. The ideal qualities for a good emergency manager are good leadership qualities, intelligence, hard working, and spontaneous, courageous, patient. Manager should be able to coordinate, communicate and command his team. It is quite essential for him to have the skill of dynamically choosing plans to be implemented and to be flexible in adapting to new plans. It is most important that he be able to organize his team and give value to every individual's thoughts for the betterment of a plan. He needs to have many alternatives or back up plans in his repository so that he has options and never is out of ideas. He should posses the skill to tradeoff between two equally important and essential aspects. Lastly he should be having the courage to take the responsibility of every situation that results for their team's action. References 1. International Journal of Emergency Management, 2006, ISSN: 1741-5071 (electronic) ISSN: 1471-4825 (paper), Inderscience Publishers. 2. Haddow, George D.; Jane A. Bullock, 2004. Introduction to Emergency Management. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0-7506-7689-2. 3. Alexander, David (2002). Principles of Emergency planning and Management. Harpenden: Terra Publishing. ISBN 1-903544-10-6. 4. William L Waugh, 2000. Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disasters: An Introduction to Emergency management. ISBN 0765601958. 5. Susan L Cutter, 2001. American Hazardscapes: The Regionalization of Hazards and Disasters. ISBN 0309063604. Read More