¶ … manmade disasters seen in the United States over the past several years have produced a demand in the public for a higher level of preparedness and competency. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a disaster as "a sudden ecological phenomenon of sufficient magnitude to require external assistance." The Joint Commission Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) has a somewhat different definition, which states a disaster is "an imbalance in the availability of medical care and a mal-distribution of medical resources vs. casualties within a community." Certainly other definitions exist. These two definitions focus on the medical aspects of a disaster, while there are indeed many other aspects of an event which might qualify it as a disaster. It is estimated that 3.4 million lives have...

It is very imperative that disaster training is implemented at both the national and international levels of society. Poor disaster training can place a huge negative impact on society as seen during the September 11th attack and Hurricane Katrina. Due to poor disaster training, both events created much havoc in the United States.
The attacks on the United States in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina placed an unprecedented strain on our disaster capabilities. Two thousand five hundred and forty-one dead or missing after Hurricane Katrina can be attributed to poor disaster training. Many more individuals could have been saved from the storm had the United States had a better…