Recommendations. In February 2006, legislatures concluded that the term “mandatory evacuation” is unclear and inconsistent, and fails to give guidance as to what citizens can expect from all levels of government and the government expectations of citizens in general. Legislatures noted that mandatory evacuation only “implies that individuals do not have a choice, that the government will not be able to protect them and provide relief if they remain, and it generally conveys a higher level of urgency” (Colgrove et al., 2006, p. 962). All government leaders should consult legal counsel before enforcing a mandatory evacuation to help them identify and articulate legal requirements, their responsibilities, and implications that might occur during and after an emergency or disaster. Additionally, if government leaders are unsure if enforcing a mandatory evacuation is the right thing to do, they can consider recommending citizen’s evacuate rather than impose an evacuation. Most importantly, leaders must consider the least restrictive alternatives to mandatory …show more content…
If government leaders and authorities want compliance from citizens during mandatory evacuations, they must be upfront and provide as much information as available to ensure residents are aware and capable of following a mandatory evacuation order. To prevent miscommunication during mandatory evacuations, government can rely on message boards, reverse 911 systems, and if necessary loud speakers from emergency vehicles to spread the word. The success of any type of evacuation is to allow citizens to participate in evacuation planning, because if they have a say in how local and state leaders issue evacuation orders, they are less likely to resist mandatory evacuation
One of the many problems that we seem to be having is the amount of No Kill Shelters in America. No kill Shelters are shelters in which the animals there are not treated like the “pound” or “dog house.” These shelters do not kill healthy or treatable animals and even if they are not treatable they reserve euthanasia for them as the last resort to trying to save the animals. However, many understand that these some of these dogs can be a menace to society, but every single animal should be able to live. We do not have many of these in this country or if we do we are use the animals for the testing of some of our products. One of the many benefits of No Kill Shelters is the promotion of adopting dogs. Many people do not adopt dogs but they go to breeders which is not a bad idea, but we have many dogs that get killed in pounds every day. Why do we Americans have the say so in when an animals wants to die? With everything there are pros and cons and some of these cons can be the overpopulation of animals , but we do not kill humans if one race/gender is becoming overpopulated. The
In making the decisions to protect people’s lives from hazards and disasters, evacuations sometimes become necessary. Of course early in the reaction to the incident, or the response phase, this may become a decision for local and state emergency managers. The San Diego, California wildfire which occurred in October 2007 caused a large scale evacuation. This essay is an analysis, and identification of lessons learned from the evacuation incident. As well a plan of personal recommendations and improvements will be made based on information covered in the National Housing strategy, and Robert Stafford Act.
The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely
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.
Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2014). The disciplines of emergency management: Preparedness. Introduction to emergency management (Fifth ed., ). Waltham: Elsevier.
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.
When a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 the shock of the destruction quickly became evident with the storm’s aftermath. There was the need for an organized response, however the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not ready for the magnitude or the severity of damage to adequately and successfully react. FEMA was confronted with a series of events following the disaster in which the agency failed to take control and communicate in helping remedy the catastrophic situation. There was the lack of management in coordinating transportation evacuation measures, supplying needed materials and food as well as housing to the citizens, specifically in New Orleans. The failure of our nation’s Federal Emergency Management Agency to efficiently respond to Hurricane Katrina led to a serious of negative events caused by insufficient planning.
Even though it is the responsibility of the federal and state governments to aid citizens during times of disaster, the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina were not effectively facilitated as according to their rights as citizens of the United States. The government’s failures to deliver assistance to citizens stem from inadequate protection systems in place before the storm even struck. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security were the two largest incumbents in the wake of the storm. The failure of these agencies rests on the shoulders of those chosen to head the agency. These directors, appointed by then president George W. Bush, were not capable of leading large government agencies through a crisis, let alone a disaster the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. Along with the federal government, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans did not do enough to lesseb the damage caused by the storm, and forced thousands of poorer citizens to remain in cramped and unsanitary conditions for extended periods of time. The culmination of federal, state, and local government’s failures in suppressing and repairing the damage of Hurricane Katrina to a level acceptable for citizens of the United States is a denial of the rights citizens of the United States hold.
After the explosion, civilians acted to clarify what happened to their tower. There was no choice, who had lost their calm or order. Because of the confusion the building, workers had to rely family of outside, most of them call Emergency 911 operators to recognize what circumstance they are in, and what should they make the action. However, optimistic civilians soon lost hope. Each operator of instruction or information was inconsistently relied to those scared civilians.
Homeland Security was created to secure our borders against future terrorism and terrorist acts. Homeland Security was not created to provide assistance in times of natural disasters.
In addition, the strength of using the Precaution Adoption Process Model is being able to place individuals in specific stages to help them make a decision and move forward to the next stage. The constructs of this model also led to increased preparedness among household that had limited resources. In contrast, a weakness of using the Precaution Adoption Process Model is that the adoption of more complex disaster family communication requires interpersonal education. For instance, using collective efficacy or goal-formation from the Social Cognitive Theory. Implementing these constructs would help families or communities have the confidence, and the ability to set a goal to have a communication plan or disaster
The leadership during Hurricane Katrina was riddled with inconsistencies, unpreparedness, and lacking in the knowledge to deal with emergency management situations from the White House, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FEMA, the Governor’s Office in Louisiana and the City of New Orleans. This event emphasizes the importance of preparedness, response, recovery, communications, emergency plans, and political indifferences during pressing times.
Effective communication in its various forms is the substratum of crisis management. Internal and external communication is essential during times of crisis if a successful outcome is to prevail. In a crisis, people’s lives are often at risk, these are lives that can be lost or protected; however, their fate lies in the hands of information. A breakdown in communication during times of crisis will interfere in dispensing pertinent and time sensitive information to the target audience, thus placing them at a gross disadvantage in protecting their health. During a crisis, it can be extremely costly to falter in delivering accurate, detailed, and informative information.
This lack of preparation takes place in different places and involves different hazards. In the case of hurricane, only half of all respondents living in Central Florida have hurricane evacuation plan in place (Kapucu, 2008). Another finding revealed that only 8 percent of all respondent have prepared a disaster supplies kit in home. Kenny (2009) found that most residents in South Florida, hurricane-prone area, failed to take preparatory measures such as securing bottled water and food when storms strike. In another place and a different hazard, the result of study demonstrated the same finding. Paton and Prior (2008) studied bushfire preparation in Tasmania show that most respondents had undertaken some form of protective behavior only minimal and limited. They started to prepare after they were warned by disaster emergency services.
Educating the public and getting them to take preparatory actions to better protect themselves in the face of natural hazards has led to extensive study of risk communication by social scientists and disaster researchers over the past half-century (Quarantelli, 1991). Lindell et al (2006) describe the reason for risk communication as “to initiate and direct protective action” relative to a hazardous threat (Lindell et al, 2006, p. 84). Better understanding of why people take protective actions has led to better risk communication directed at preparedness measures. Research has identified key ingredients regarding the effectiveness of risk communication messages as well as conditions conducive to adoption of improved preparedness practices.