Developing an International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
Disaster reduction is a prime concern of Colombia, as it is vulnerable to many natural disasters such as floods, landslides, earthquakes, volcanic earthquakes, and even hurricanes. Although Colombia’s commitment to disaster reduction has been going on for over three decades, there are still many gaps and deficiencies of the disaster reduction plan. The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) has been supporting Colombia since 2008 helping with modeling potential risks in the capital city, Bogota. Then in 2010, the GFDRR began to help with understanding risk and the problems in Colombia’s disaster reduction plan at a national level.
Colombia places a great deal of importance on disaster risk reduction, shown through the remarkable progress that has been made. In 2013, the former Director of Risk management, Ms. Pulido, stated that Colombia is advancing in disaster risk preparedness and financial risk transfer mechanisms. There is still the issue of overpopulation, as well as areas that are highly prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. There are still many gaps in the plan that need to be filled in order to strengthen the resilience of communities, especially those prone to natural disasters. The GFDRR has made plans for the future through several projects, such as the World Bank Country Partnership Strategy, the Second National Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project and the Barranquilla Urban Flood Management Project.
Colombia would like to add education on the international disaster reduction plan for the public that relates to the possible risks of the regions. There has already been damage occurring at the municipal level due to lack of knowledge ...
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The goal of 2011 of the National Preparedness Goal, and a month later by the National Preparedness System (NPS). ‘Prepare’, or ‘preparedness’ is a key term here, as is ‘risk’. In order to properly examine the National Preparedness System these terms… (2011 National Preparedness Goal). The National Preparedness Goal can only work in risk management planning with prudency coupled with dispensation of resources at the local levels. Depending on the budgetary issues the financial appropriation might not be enough to sustain a carefully planned risk management. The forefront for the local authorities to mitigate against risk is funding. Of the pro at the community level are the loyalties of its employees of the local government and local community, and on hand resources that amplifies its footprint with the community in making sure that there is an uninterrupted continuation of life. The local government can device a well thought out plan to activate most of its resources when the alarms are sounded of a pending
The Haitian government’s lack of preparedness for earthquakes despite the fact that earthquakes are common to the region is indicative of the governments inability and lack of resources to properly plan and protect it’s population against natural disasters. This lack of preparedness is not an isolated incident. Prior to the disaster, the World Bank and others were working with the Haitian government to incorporate disaster risk management into Haiti’s development strategy and to develop its capacity for disaster response. This capacity building was in its early stages of development when the earthquake hit, on January 12, 2010, and was mainly focused on hurricanes, which are the most common cause of natural disaster on the island (Margesson, 2010, p. 4).
Both man-made and natural disasters are often devastating, resource draining and disruptive. Having a basic plan ready for these types of disaster events is key to the success of executing and implementing, as well as assessing the aftermath. There are many different ways to create an emergency operations plan (EOP) to encompass a natural and/or man-made disaster, including following the six stage planning process, collection of information, and identification of threats and hazards. The most important aspect of the US emergency management system in preparing for, mitigating, and responding to man-made and natural disasters is the creation, implementation and assessment of a community’s EOP.
Bissell, R. (2010). Catastrophic Readiness and Response Course, Session 6 – Social and Economic Issues. Accessed at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/crr.asp
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
The Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment need the whole community to pass on information, account for population-specific factors, and acknowledge the effects of a threat or hazard. Communities have to be educated and updated on threats and hazards that they may specifically face in order to accurately plan and prepare. All situations are usually handled starting at the lowest level, however, they will also have to discuss on how the federal government will assist if needed. “By providing the necessary knowledge and skills, we seek to enable the whole community to contribute to and benefit from national preparedness.” (FEMA, 2015). Local communities recognize their risks and conclude on how they will handle the significant amount of risks. Local governments discover and address their greatest risks by finishing the Threat and Hazard
Natural Disasters can occur anywhere at anytime. Some are more predictable than others, but they all bring hardship to everyone’s life. Examples of natural disasters are Earthquakes (Haiti 2010), Tornadoes, Tsunami, Hurricanes, Wild Fires, Winter Storms, Heat waves, Mudslides and Floods. Regardless of what kind of disaster occurs, bottom line, everyone needs to be prepared mentally and physically to deal with the aftermath. Education is the first step to prepare you to deal with any major disaster. Three of the major disasters that can potentially disrupt normal day to day operations in our lives, are Hurricanes, Tsunamis and Tornadoes.
I found a lot of useful information to include in this paper. A database I found really interesting was Natural News; it had a bunch of interesting facts. According to Natural News, the number natural disasters in the past 20 years have increased by four times the amount. The Earth experiences approximately 500 natural disasters per year compared to 120 a year in the 1980’s. In the 1980’s around 175 million people were affected by natural disasters per year and now it has increased by 70 percent to nearly 255 million people. The increasing number of natural disasters has primarily hurt third world countries the most. They don’t have the resources nor are they able to recover from such devastating tragedies (Natural
In this week’s Disaster Management lecture and seminar course we discussed mainly the two phases of Response and Recovery. In these phases they cover what is vital and crucial to individuals, towns, communities, cities, states, all who have been affected by a disaster. These two phases come in hand when and after a disaster strikes an overpopulated area. In class Professor Urby introduced the class to a guest speaker Adrian Dominguez the University Safety and Risk Manager of Texas A&M International University and Jessica Perez the University Environmental Health and Safety officer in Texas A&M International University.. Dominguez explained his credentials as of working in the TAMIU safety and emergency management department. He discussed his involvement in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and how his involvement with that organization influenced his own process of risk management in TAMIU. Dominguez was able to implement the five phases of emergency management, prevention, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery into his experience into the field of
Wherever a disaster occurs and whenever humans are involved, a disaster management is put into place using a...
Introduction Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disruption time for their normal business functions. Thus, it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid out and updated regularly. Part of the plan should include a system where regular training occurs for network engineers and managers.
With the widespread, expensive, and life-threatening damage that can occur during natural disasters, including floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and other events, it is important that the responses to these events are quick and performed efficiently, with cost and resource optimization in mind. That way, resources are not wasted in areas that don’t need them. And, if this were to happen, other, high-demand areas would suffer. With the amount of damage and displacement of local populations that occur, the planning and deployment of nearby resources needs to address these concerns. If done poorly, poor planning can in fact work against its own goals and cause failures to occur that compromise millions in assets and endanger many people as well. Take, for example, the legendary failure of FEMA in its response to Hurricane Katrina. Yes, one of the main reasons that FEMA failed was its inability to gather resources and knowledge, but it also lacked the ability to mobilize its resources (whereas Walmart could do both of these things successfully) (Horwitz 1).
Most health care providers currently utilize electronic health records (EHRs), or will in the coming future. Network collapses, glitches, power outages and flaws within the system all have the possibility of occurring. Due to the plethora of sensitive information contained within the health care field, health care providers need to form backup plans. These backup plans will serve as preventative measures in order to keep the integrity of the health care data intact. Therefore, contingency plans are a clear necessity within the field.
Communities throughout the country and the world are susceptible to disasters. The environment and location of a community often predisposes a greater susceptibility to the type of disaster. For example Central Pennsylvania would not be susceptible to an avalanche however communities in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado would have increase vulnerability. Understanding the types of disaster for which the community is susceptible is essential for emergency preparedness (Nies & McEwen, 2011). All communities are susceptible to man-made disasters; terrorism, fires, and mass transit accidents and emergency preparedness are essential. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) is responsible for disaster planning.
The increase in unpredictable natural disasters events for a decade has led to put the disaster preparedness as a central issue in disaster management. Disaster preparedness reduces the risk of loss lives and injuries and increases a capacity for coping when hazard occurs. Considering the value of the preparatory behavior, governments, local, national and international institutions and non-government organizations made some efforts in promoting disaster preparedness. However, although a number of resources have been expended in an effort to promote behavioural preparedness, a common finding in research on natural disaster is that people fail to take preparation for such disaster events (Paton, 2005; Shaw 2004; Spittal, et.al, 2005; Tierney, 1993; Kenny, 2009; Kapucu, 2008; Coppola and Maloney, 2009). For example, the fact that nearly 91% of Americans live in a moderate to high risk of natural disasters, only 16% take a preparation for natural disaster (Ripley, 2006).