Emergency Management Part 1 Summary

PART I ‘Introduction to Emergency Management’ is co- authored by George Haddow, Jane Bullock and Damon D. Coppola. George Haddow is a Principal in the Washington, DC-based disaster management consulting firm of Bullock & Haddow LLC. He is the former Deputy Chief of Staff to James Lee Witt during his tenure as FEMA Director responsible for policy formulation in the areas of disaster response and recovery, public/private partnerships, public information, environmental protection and disaster mitigation. Damon P. Coppola is an accomplished emergency management systems engineer who has bridged the gap between practice and academia through his ever-expanding catalog of emergency management textbooks. Damon P. Coppola joined Bullock & Haddow

Preparedness is considered the building blocks of emergency management. This point is well justified in this chapter. Preparedness is defined as a state of readiness to respond to a disaster, crisis, or any other type of emergency situation. One of the important and disputable topic discussed here are the differences between mitigation and preparedness. The chapter also explains the need for a systematic approach to preparedness by emphasizing on the point that the management of major disaster events require navigation through extreme complexity and often requires coordination among hundreds of individuals and dozens of agencies. It goes on to explain the preparedness planning cycle developed by FEMA National Preparedness Directorate. This cycle recognizes the importance of four major components of any preparedness effort: Planning, equipment, training and exercise. An overview of the emergency management exercises, education and training programs is given. FEMA’s vision in providing these trainings has led to the creation of FEMA’s Emergency Management

The trainings and the exercises lead the experts, the volunteers and the people to make sure they can brace themselves well before an impending disaster. The author makes some very good points when he elaborates about the preparedness cycle, the government grant programs, the trainings and exercises for disaster preparedness. They give me an idea about the importance of preparedness and why we should be ready to learn and incorporate it so that the consequences of the disasters are