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Emergency Management
Hazards in America
One natural hazard especially prevalent in the U.S. this year is the hazard of wildfire. Fires have already taken their toll in California, Florida, and Georgia, and the chance of continued occurrence throughout the summer is extremely high, due to drought conditions throughout the country. The impact upon the population may seem negligible at first, as relatively few homes and buildings are lost per capita in most wildfires. However, if a wildfire occurs in a densely populated area, as the fire in the Oakland Hills in 1991, numerous lives and thousands of homes can be lost. The impact on the population is not only loss of life or property; it is loss of wildland and ecological habitats due to fire. The 2006 fires in Eastern Nevada destroyed thousands of acres of habitat for wild animals and livestock, and the impact to ranchers and the land was incalculable. The impact thus is measured by dollars lost, but also in long-term impact to the environment as it takes time for the wildlands to replenish themselves. Emergency management can respond to the problem by educating people to create defensible space around their homes and to be careful with any fire in the open.
A technological hazard facing the country is flammable liquids, such as gasoline. The liquid can explode due to a spark or an accident involving a tanker or vehicle, and the material can spread as it flows away from the accident. The effect on the population can be devastating if a large amount explodes or it spreads over a wide area. Emergency management can help control and prevent flammable liquid emergencies by educating the public on the dangers of flammable liquids, responding with evacuation procedures during an event, and clean up of the toxic material after the fire and debris have been removed. Flammable liquids are so prevalent in our society that they can pose a very important threat that must be understood by all emergency management personnel. A gasoline or other flammable liquid explosion could wreak havoc on a heavily populated area, and prevention could include transportation routes that avoid these areas.
Emergency Management Disasters are political occurrences; they can either destroy or glorify politicians. The spectacular temperament of disasters calls for the involvement of these chief executives and they test their leadership merits. How politicians control these rare occurrences can frame how their whole term in office receive judgments. During his last White House Press Conference, President George W. Bush was asked about the mistake he made during his reign, and among
The Federal Emergency Management Agency institutionalized Emergency Management in 1979 (Lindsay, 2012). Since then, various local and state organizations have included emergency management in their practices. It shifted from specialized preparedness to narrowly defined or single categories of hazard to an all-hazard approach including potential threats to property and life through technological and environmental dangers and local and foreign risks. The whole idea of emergency management does not include a
Schneider Case Study #3Hurricane Katrina in LouisianaOne of the most devastating catastrophes to strike America was Hurricane Katrina that hit Louisiana�s shore on 29th August 2005. This hurricane led to significant havoc and claimed over 1,800 lives (Schneider, 2011). One especially vulnerable city was New Orleans, since it already lies below sea level, although it did have protective measures in levees and floodwalls. But after the storm struck land, the
Slide 9: Technological innovations in emergency management The starting point in the creation of a plan on how to improve our program from a technological standpoint has been constituted by the review of the it industry. The scope of this research has been that of identifying the innovations in the field and their relevance for our agency and its mission. The results of the research endeavor are briefly presented below: GIS is
M8D1: HSE and Criminal Justice: Critical Issues Communication and education are critical issues in the field of homeland security. That is why we have identified inter-agency cooperation as one of our key issues of concern: namely, the need for different law enforcement agencies to share intelligence with one another. Related to communication are issues pertaining to education, including the education of communities and first responders about how best to respond to
M1D1: Concept of Homeland Security Enterprise HSE (Homeland Security Enterprise) was designed to better coordinate the resources of all law enforcement functions that fall under the auspices of the DHS. DHA strives to provide law enforcement agencies with "the tools to identify and combat threats in their communities," including access to its information (Strengthening the Homeland Security Enterprise: Progress Report 2011, 2011, DHS). "Because state and local law enforcement are often