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As emergency management leaders for the 21st century, we need to develop new risk assessment and management models to factor in the “unthinkable” globally impacting ‘black swam’ type events, using satellite imagery, and all the other technology and resources available to better enable us to forecast and plan for these type of events, with the view to minimize their impacts. These technologies should be globally linked, like a global warning system similar to a Tsunami early warning system.
According to Mileti there several things that can be done to facilitate this paradigm shift in thinking in leadership in emergency management. He is of the view that there needs to be an adaptation of a global systems perspective in addressing emergency management issues. He stated that human beings need to realize that while we cannot change the course of natural hazards like hurricane, tornadoes, or earthquakes, we need to accept their responsibility for the extent of impact as result of some of our actions such as building houses in a river bed, or lack of mitigation strategies.
Mileti stressed that as emergency management managers we need to anticipate constant change in this dynamic environment. Changes such as change is atmospheric conditions, air and water quality. With over 30 years of research in Emergency Management, future leaders should look to build on the works of the previous emergency management stalwarts, skewing the plans and strategies towards the occurrence of future catastrophic events.
Similar to G7 summit that is held by countries to discuss global issues, there could be a similar forum involving all the countries of the world, to discuss and formulate joint strategies to plan and respond to ‘black swan’ event...
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...ers we know this war with these catastrophic black swan events is inevitable, and as soldiers we need to do what we know will work in order to survive. We need to think outside the box, while working in a collaborative manner with all the players within our ‘sandbox’, sharing resources, information, technologies, talents, for one common goal, and that is the survival of the human race against these ‘black swan enemies.
In conclusion these complex events called disasters are a permanent part of our reality once we continue to live on this planet, so it is our responsibility to study past events and learn from them, and perfect the preparation and mitigation of these events, through education and training, innovative thinking do our best to try at least to ensure the survival of our species and emergency management leaders we will play a key role in this process.
Drea Knufken’s thesis statement is that “As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis” (510-512). This means that humans in general, or citizens of the world, have become completely desensitized to disasters, we think of them as just another headline, without any understanding of their impact upon fellow
Modern warfare will be fought predominantly in the chaos of the urban environment. As we move into the future we must never forget our past; always keeping in mind where we seek to go. Operations such as Vigilant Resolve, which on the surface seem like a failure, are quickly turned to future success if we remember, study, learn, and grow from them.
The National response plan outlines four key actions the disaster coordinator should take. They are gaining and maintaining situational awareness, activate and deploy key resources and capabilities, coordinating response actions and demobilizing. Throughout the response it is essential that responders have access to critical information. During the initial response effort the situation is will change rapidly. Situational awareness starts at the incident site. For this reason it is essential that decision makers have access to the right information at the right time. By establishing an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) all key responders are brought ...
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.
Black Swan Events are unplanned events that has a huge impact, these events can be environmental or financial events that are unpredictable or unexplainable.
It’s important to understand that in a crisis-response organization, especially in a large-scale operational response like a natural disaster, or an industrial accident, managers will likely take on different or expanded roles. This is especially true when one is involved in a crisis response involving multiple agencies or companies. People often find themselves leading or working for those they do not often come in contact with – or, sometimes, people they’ve never met.
Due to the horrendous events of terrorist attacks that have taken place over the last ten or so years, emergency management now, not only prepares and trains for natural events, but includes planning for terrorist/weapons of mass destruction events in greater detail. New responsibilities are being placed on emergency management managers and responders. More communities, states, local governments and businesses are seeking assistance in planning for terrorist attacks.
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.
Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2010).Introduction to emergency management. (4th ed., pp. 1-26). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
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.
Finally, safety is the number one priority in order to survive and recover from any major catastrophic event. Education is the key to prevention. Know your local area and common disasters that occurs in that particular area. Knowing what they are and how to protect yourself will in terms help the recovery and healing process faster and easier for you and your family.
There are different types and causes of disasters: man-made, natural and a combination. Man-made disasters are caused by human error or human actions that cause harm to the environment, and people (Baack & Alfred, 2013). Natural disasters are caused by nature, a hurricane for example, and a combination of NA-TECH (natural-technological). Examples are earthquakes that cause structural damage such as a collapse of a bridge (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Communities must have effective emergency preparedness in place to reduce the casualties of a disaster.
In the end I would like to say that disasters are inevitable so the authorities should be prepare beforehand and when the disaster actually occurs the response should be fast and effective. There after the recovery from the loss occurred should be well planned and future planning should be done so that much better protection steps can prevent larger damage.
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).
Of the four phases of emergency management, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, perhaps the place that individuals can make the biggest difference in their own state of resiliency and survival of a disaster is in the preparedness phase. Being prepared before a disaster strikes makes sense yet many people fail to take even simple, precautionary steps to reduce the consequences of destruction and mayhem produced by natural events such as earthquakes, volcanos and tornados (see Paton et al, 2001, Mileti and Peek, 2002; Tierney, 1993, Tierney et al, 2001).