Issues In “Wither the Emergency Manager,” Niel R. Britton comments on Drabek's “Human Responses to disaster: An Inventory of Sociological Findings.” Britton describes six positive and negative issues in emergency management as it is today. In this paper, we will discuss the implications on emergency management as a field and on the individual manager. In the first positive development, Britton describes New Zealand's efforts to move emergency management into a wider area (instead of simply preparedness and response). Here emergency managers are to be more involved in land management programs, which can help to prevent massive preventable damage in a disaster. Although this moves the career field into a more diffuse mission, …show more content…
My bachelor's degree is in psychology, and I have found many lessons learned from psychology to be applicable to emergency management, especially group behavior in disasters. Emergency managers that I have met tend to be sponges, soaking up information. Britton argues that uncertainty is becoming a large part of the emergency managers mindset. Emergency managers must coordinate with others outside the field to gain insight into many situations. Britton argues that legitimacy is gained from the interface with other careers to reach a common objective. The student must be able to work outside of their comfort zones to develop this fifty-thousand foot view of all interrelated fields as they pertain to emergency management.
Issues to Resolve Britton also argues that we have six major issues as a field to resolve. We are still highly response oriented. Although the thrill of the fight is in response, lives may be saved simply by preventing them from being at risk in the first place. The recruitment of emergency managers tends to focus on those with response oriented goals. Although I personally have a good skill set when it comes to prevention, on paper I am very response oriented. Being response oriented is not necessarily a bad thing, however, emergency managers must learn the skills involved in mitigation. As the counter-terrorism field is drawn
According to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there are many factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years. These can be classified as global challenges, global opportunities, national challenges, national opportunities, professional challenges, and professional opportunities. Global Challenges include some issues like global climate change, increasing population and population density, increasing resource scarcities, rising income inequality, and increasing risk aversion. Global Opportunities has to do with increased scientific understanding of the hazards and societal responses, as well as revolutionary technologies. National Challenges involves increasing urbanization and hazard exposure, interdependencies in infrastructure, continued emphasis on growth, rising costs of disaster recovery, increasing population diversity, terrorist threats, low priority of emergency management, legal liability, and intergovernmental tensions. Due to these factors that will affect the direction of emergency management in the coming years, there is need for us at emergency management division to adjust operational plans to meet these challenges and especially changes emanating from constant changes expected in technology and other threats we face.
The various local, state, and federal emergency management systems of the United States suffered a crude awakening in the decade of the 2000s. Systems expected to hold up were put to the test and failed to prepare for disaster, mitigate the damage, and, in some instances, actually hampered responses in life-or-death situations. Worse, all failings were highlighted in an age of global communication and mass media, on display first whether a man-made incident like September 11th attacks or natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. The decade found the complacent government failing to maintain modern emergency management practices, stimulating began a series of doctrinal upgrades and training improvements. Yet, no matter the bureaucracy, writings, or money thrown at a problem, the first responder to the incident has and will continue to influence the outcome. While the individual responder stands as the most important part of
There are many ways to describe emergency management and the importance of the tasks emergency managers perform. Indeed, in
Emergency management faces many challenges in today’s modern society. In the years prior to 9/11 emergency management was primarily focused on natural disasters. That has since changed; we now face a diverse variety of risks and hazards on a constant basis. As we continue to grow in population current and newer have compounded into more problems that emergency planner must face and find solutions for.
The assessment of emergency management practices is critical to improve performance by emergency management professionals for all phases of a disaster. To highlight the importance of efficient evaluation, decision maker musts rely on this information with respect to the resolution of life or death situations.
In this week in the Disaster Management lecture and seminar course we discussed and reviewed over the class in which we discussed the overview of what topics were gone over in class and how learning this information can be used in our everyday lives as citizens in a society. In this course we discussed the overall importance the role of emergency management is in not just our everyday lives but for everyday preparation for a disaster of any kind to strike. In the course Professor Urby expressed great knowledge on the subject of Emergency Management and how the use of emergency management in one’s life may end up saving themselves. He expressed many examples and some little anecdotes for us as students to remember and never forget. In the course
Training: Training of key personnel in emergency management agencies is well accepted as an integral part of ensuring readiness for catastrophic incidents. However, the skills and capabilities of personnel assigned to "surge teams" that deploy to assist with on-site support must also be maintained and updated through training and exercises. The after-action report for the ESF-1 program for the 2005 hurricane season found the volunteers from throughout the agency to be important resources to help meet the demands of a catastrophic incident, but that some needed more training in the established ESF-1 and NRP processes.
When registering for this course, I had no idea what I was signing myself up for, nor did I know what the broad field of emergency management encompassed. Like several of my classmates, I was required to take another UNIV course for the spring semester. To be quite honest, I chose to enroll in this particular UNIV course simply because it was the only one that fit well with my schedule. I never imagined that I would get so much out of it and that I would be able to apply the material learned to my everyday life and future.
The study of leadership during times of crisis, is becoming a topic of research. As trained communication professionals- the subject of Meta-leadership in the field of emergency management is integral to the success of today’s ever-growing response to crises across industries, geographic boundaries, and within our responsibility as public servants. The use of Meta- Leadership within the communication profession, calls decision-makers to be more connected across and beyond, leading up and down within an organization.
As Drabek pursued his dreams in sociological research he was able to directly contribute to defining what we know today as emergency management in the United States. According to Drabek, emergency management is,
This emergence of social media has also changed emergency management and disaster response. Emergency management as a whole is fairly new, only creating widely recognized, integrated emergency management systems beginning in the 1970s. Furthermore, at this same time people realized that the effects disasters have on the communities they strike can be mitigated by the creation of disaster plans ahead of time, proper disaster response training, and the efforts of human actions in these situations. Because social media has enabled mass amounts of instant information sharing, it allows not only locals and disaster response teams to help with the management of crises, but also many remote citizens.
Risk for disasters is a part of life; emergency situations occur more frequently than many people believe. A wise person plans for the worse, and hopes for the best. After a disaster, how well a community can recover will depend largely on how well they prepared in advance. Risk management includes identifying any potential risks to a community and proactively planning to minimize the threat. Proactive organization of resources and people to respond to emergencies can mean the difference between a community’s ability to regroup and recover, and the loss of life. To better
This subject aims to teach students the main elements of emergency management for natural disasters and to a lesser degree terrorist attack. Students will understand the principles involved in emergency
A unique skill set is needed for individuals to assist in disaster management, as the technical, managerial and leadership skills are needed to improve public health systems. Disaster management organizations must be able to define existing and probable health problems. In order to perform this functions, individuals within the organization must know how to identify unmet needs and calculate the resources needed to meet them while establishing priorities and feasibility and determining administrative and fiscal actions (e.g., what are the funds and action plan to purify water in areas X, Y and Z). These actions must also be able to translate into policy for long term impacts.
Emergency management (or disaster management) is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it occurs, disaster response (e.g., emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, etc.), and supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred. In general, any Emergency management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards. Actions taken depend in part on perceptions of risk of those exposed.