Emergency Plan Analysis - Assignment Example

 EMERGENCY PLAN ANALYSIS Elements in Florida State Emergency plan By simply watching news or reading a newspaper we quickly find out that disasters of different types happen to individuals, companies and countries on virtually a daily basis throughout the world (Schneid & Collins,2001,). These disasters include fire, floods, disease outbreaks, earthquakes, and accidents among others. Due to the dangers that these situations pose planning to deal with such occurrences is necessary to swiftly deal with the disasters. 1.1. The state of Florida has not been left out in planning for the disasters that surround them. The state came up with an elaborate plan called “The State of Florida 2012 Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan”. This came about after the realization of the dangers that face them. This was informed by their unique coastal location that leaves them exposed to natural disasters like floods, tropical cyclones, tornados and wild fires. It is also vulnerable to freezing temperatures, drought and biological hazards. Technological hazards include vulnerability to prolonged black outs, leakage from nuclear reactors, spilling of oil in seas and oceans, poisoning of water reservoirs. The man-made disasters may include terrorist attacks and mass migration events because of the closeness to neighboring countries with political instability. The objective of the plan is minimize the impact of the disaster by ensuring no lives are lost and aids the quick recovery from the disaster. The plan is meant to put in place to ways to enable lives to be preserved when a disaster strikes and prevent injuries that may render people crippled or result to permanent damage to important parts of the body. Damage of infrastructure leads to massive losses and if people are able to prevent such it is very helpful. A lot of money is spent in restoring such things and that money could be put into better use to make the quality of life better for the citizens. It is also important that people fall back to their ordinary lives the soonest possible after a disaster ha struck. This is important for it makes people keep up with the rate of growth they planned for and achieve their goals in life easily. 1.2. The plan is carried out within the confines the law. This is because any activity no matter its nature must uphold the rule of the law. The legislative authority ensures that there is a swift and temporary succession in the functions of state operations during emergencies when the concerned are unavailable during such circumstances. The legislature can also appoint an “emergency interim successor” who performs and carries the duties of an office until another one is elected, appointed or the office bearer resumes office. This ensures that there is no gap that may lead to delay or failure of proper response during emergencies. This is because the gap can cause loss of life, injuries, damage of infrastructure among other effects. 1.3. Any planning activity requires putting in place proper mechanisms. This mechanisms involves the command and control structure that ensures smooth running of operations when need arises. This is meant to ensure timely intervention in case a disaster strikes. The plan has its own command and control structure and this is because of its nature. The fact that it carries out its mandate through different multiple jurisdictions requires clear structures to respond to crisis effectively. This structure avoids overlap of activities, unnecessary delays and scramble for limited resources within the various units that work towards preventing loss and damage during operations. 1.4. When a disaster strikes swift response is expected. In this plan it is carried out through a process called activation. The activation process involves three levels. Level 3 is the first stage that involves monitoring of the situation. This level involves a closer look at the normal prevailing conditions in any situation. The observations are used to chart the next course of action if situation gets out of hand. Level 2 is the second stage that involves partial activation but may not require involvement of all units in tackling the problem. This basically entails closer observation and preparation of resources needed to respond to the disaster. Level 1is the last stage that involves full activation to conduct response and recovery operations towards the disaster. This stage requires all hands on in responding to a disaster. For example, a situation involving flooding requires timely and quick response to deal with the problem. This will involve an activation process involving the three levels. First, it will involve the observation of weather patterns that may point out to an impeding downpour that could result to floods. Second, the weather patterns will be closely scrutinized to determine areas that will be affected and offer predictions and warnings. Last, there will be dissemination of information regarding advancing of the heavy rains and the expected course of action to be followed to avoid loss of life. 2. Phases of emergency management In dealing with emergencies there are four phases of emergency management namely; hazard mitigation, emergency response, disaster recovery and emergency preparedness. These phases are all important in responding to emergencies since disasters are inevitable. 2.1. Hazard mitigation involves plans to prevent or reduce the extent of damage and disorder in people’s lives. (Awasthy, 1999). In a flood situation hazard mitigation involves efforts to keep away people from the way of floods by relocating them to safer grounds that are not easily reached by floods, building of dykes in flood prone areas. 2.2. Emergency response includes a wide range of activities like issuing and distribution of predictions and warnings, removal of people to other areas, deployment of responders, salvaging and rescuing survivors. (Awasthy, 1999,) among others. This involves the actual reaction to the disaster by swinging into action to save lives and property. Before floods occur warnings are usually sent out to those living in prone areas urging them to relocate to safer grounds. Personnel are also put on standby to effectively respond to the situation if it gets out of hand to prevent loss of life and are engaged fully when situation worsens. The material resources are important in meeting needs of people affected by floods. Shelters, food, water, clothes and medical supplies are some of the very important things needed by the affected during floods. This is because everyone is involved in saving lives first and not goods. Most of these things are carried away or submerged therefore rendered useless at the time and they are important for survival and making lives easier for the affected. 2.3. “Disaster recovery includes activities related to re-establishment of pre-disaster social and economic routines, the provision of financial assistance and other services, replacement and repair of damaged and destroyed and business properties and in some instances determining who should take responsibility for the disaster” ( Awasthy, 1999,). Once floods strike they disrupt people’s lives and destroy their property. Life comes to a standstill as they are concerned with getting to safety leaving all activities they engage in. No activity basically goes on be it work, school or businesses since the premises are either destroyed or submerged under water. The recovery in floods would require draining of water, repair of buildings, restoring services like health care and education. Compensation to victims can be good to help them settle within the shortest time possible and feel no much pinch that could have arisen without compensation. 2.4. Emergency preparedness is the last phase in emergency management and comprises actions taken in advance to address predicted problems of emergency response (Awasthy, 1999,). These includes actions preparing formulating disaster policies, training of personnel to respond to crisis, holding public education forums, maintenance of standby human, material and financial resources. The procedures help to prevent loss of life and lessen impact of floods once they occur. The fact that human capital is readily available in such cases as well as material resources help in coordinating efforts to evacuate people on time, reach the affected more swiftly and provide them with material needs and services like health care to treat the injured and prevent spread of diseases that could arise during floods like outbreaks of water borne diseases. 3. Scope of operations The State of Florida 2012 Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan carries out its mandate within a certain range or scope. Among the different scopes in the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan is the scope of operations. This deals mainly with supporting local response agencies by coordinating the deployment of state, federal and interstate resources which includes 14 of the 18 state Emergency Support Functions (ESF). All plans regardless their structures have strengths and weaknesses. The plan has its strongest strength which is the delegation of duty into smaller units that are autonomous. This ensures that there is clear separation of powers and equal allocation of resources to carry out stipulated duties. The plan also has its weaknesses and the main one is the limitation whereby the Federal Government has more power than the State Government and therefore rendered powerless in calling for help in terms of relief supplies and financial assistance (Pinkowski, 2008). This points to a big flaw in the plan and can result to great loss and damage during disasters. This is because every minute counts in any emergency operation and any unnecessary delay could result to huge losses that could otherwise been prevented. For example, in New Orleans in the year 2005, the local government was apparently overwhelmed by the disaster they faced. Pleas to the government by the mayor were met with only promises and no immediate action was taken ( Pinkowski, 2008). This exposes flaws in the system whereby neither the mayor nor the governor had the powers to summon the military yet being on the ground they understood what was needed in order to save lives and minimize damage. 4. Assumptions of the plan Before the plan was drawn assumptions were formulated to aid the directing of the plan. The assumptions needed justifications as well as projected successes of the plan. Some of the important assumptions reached included; the first assumption is that emergencies are local but their respective governments but may need assistance from the Federal Government. The second assumption is that there are disasters that people can be aware of before occurrence like hurricanes and others that can happen without notice like terrorist attacks. The last one is that the greatest asset during emergencies and disasters are the survivors themselves. They are first on the scene and offer instant assistance to other survivors. The first assumption was included to empower individual states to deal with emergencies before the national government intervened and it is important because it will guarantee timely intervention. The second assumption was meant to put people on notice that disasters are imminent therefore the need to be ready. This is central because it ensures that people are always on the alert and know how to respond to emergencies. The last assumption is meant to empower locals in the area of disaster to be ready. This is because before external help arrives they are responsible for saving lives around them since they are at the heart of the disaster. 5. Communications Unit 5.1. Primary agency and primary responsibilities In responding to emergencies there are different units that work together to effectively handle any situation. Communication is one such unit that falls under Emergency Support Function. The primary agency in the communications unit is the Florida Department of Management Services and its primary responsibilities include providing telecommunications, radio and satellite support, prioritizing and providing communications resources to state and local agencies, assisting in restoring local communications networks and coordinating with communication carriers and federal agencies regarding service restoration (CEMP, 2008). 5.2. The scale of the plan is limited to disseminating information to relevant agencies or authorities. Some of the objectives of the communications unit include; making decisions to activate the Alternate State Emergency Operations Center, notification to deploy State emergency Response Team, notification to Camp Blanding Joint training Center (CBJTC) to activate Transition Team to ready the Alternate State Emergency Operations Plan and ensure the state Emergency team Liaison arrives at the Alternate State Emergency Operations Center. 5.3. The communication units works in close ties with the Logistics section and Information Technology Branch. This organization ensures that there is exchange of vital information between these units for efficiency in responding to disaster. Complications are bound to arise especially given the fact that the state communications systems are more elaborate than the federal ones. This poses a challenge in that the federal government will need authorization from the state to carry out some functions which may result to delays in handling disasters. 5.4. There are specific actions under the communication unit that involve mitigation, response, recovery and preparedness. Mitigation in communication may involve hazard warning systems, Community education and outreach necessary to foster loss reduction statewide, and post-disaster documentation of cost avoidance due to previous mitigation measures. Response during a crisis can involve setting up a toll free number for use by victims to ask for help, Disaster Recovery Centers (DRCs) are set up for victims to get information about aid and the recovery process. Recovery involves briefing of the affected communities as well as identifying and reporting local unmet human needs and assist survivors. Preparedness involves coming up with systems and applications, maintain data, and application design and development that can be used as tools for decision makers and responders to make decisions. 5.5. Having laid out strategies to respond to disasters is a plus in handling disasters when they strike. This is because people are not caught completely unawares thus saving lives and reducing impact unlike if there was none. Weaknesses are bound to be there especially in today’s world where things are changing rapidly. However hard we try we cannot effectively tackle any disaster to the core due to these emerging issues like terrorism and other technological advancements. References Awasthy, A. (2009). Disaster management: warning response and community relocation. New Delhi: Global India Publications. CEMP. (n.d.). CEMP. Retrieved June 1, 2014, from http://www.floridadisaster.org/documents/CEMP/2012/2012%20State%20CEMP%20Basic%20Plan%20-%20Final.pdf Marchand, M. (2009). Modelling coastal vulnerability design and evaluation of a vulnerability model for tropical storms and floods. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Pinkowski, J. (2008). Disaster management handbook. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Schneid, T. D., & Collins, L. (2001). Disaster management and preparedness. Boca Raton, Fla.: Lewis Publishers. The Emergency Function Support Annex. (n.d.). The Emergency Function Support Annex. Retrieved June 1, 2014, from http://www.floridadisaster.org/documents/CEMP/2010/ESF%20TOC.pdf Read More