Miami Dade Emergency Management Office

Miami Dade Emergency Management Office

Miami Dade County Emergency Management Office - Bibliography notes

This paper will present the definition of the Miami Dade County Emergency Management organization, highlighting its operations and achievements. Further more we will discuss how this institution works, monitoring the activity of a volunteer association - NVOAD. In the end, the author will present his thoughts and ideas on this matter.

The present reality is characterized by important modifications in the actual state of things, related especially to the environment but also on the man's actions targeted at the environment. Two of the most used words nowadays are 'disasters' and 'terrorism'. The human kind is faced with natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tsunami and related unfortunate events, as well as acts of terror and terrorism created by different nationalist or religious movements that militate for some ideals of theirs. In the first case, the natural events are produced by an indirect intervention and intrusion of humans in the normal state of things and events related to earth and its cycles. On the other hand, in the second case, terrorism is the result of direct human actions oriented toward citizens from other states or having different religions. Even if based on our example, the reader may understand that humans have a negative influence on the environment and the people around them, there is a group of volunteers with national action plan to say the contrary. In the next paragraphs, we shall discuss and exemplify the activity of the Miami Date County Emergency Management Organization, therein referred as MDCEM. (250)

Miami Date County Emergency Management Organization

MDCEM is an aid organization, set-up in order to help other individuals in situations were their life or their belongings are threatened, as it is the case of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and so on. The objective of this volunteer organization, as it was simply put on the official website, is to diminish the impact of disasters and potential natural catastrophes by using its resources for planning, responding and managing information so that people can be saved.

This support organization's actions are supported on two pillars - prevention and taking action. Let us discuss each at a time. The negative effects of natural catastrophes can be limited by the prevention process. The prevention includes social aspects related to finding ways to prevent the natural disaster - such as organizing public debates, studies and meetings on the topic of the pollution reduction and derived subjects. Pollution is known as the main cause for a series of environmental incidents - the fastening process of the global warning with inevitable consequences for the Earth's inhabitants. Coming back to the prevention process, the monitoring is an essential key for preventing environmental disasters. In this sense, MDCEM set up a Prevention department that individuals in need can contact. This service is offered on a twenty four hours / seven days basis and is ready to answer people's calls asking for support. Taking action is the second pillar on which the organization relies having four important action subcategories: the mitigation - limiting the causes that may produce a natural catastrophe (for example, the pollution reduction actions), getting prepared - preparing the population in case of an imminent danger, taking action - actively intervene during and shortly after the incident in order to reduce the damages, as well as in order to save human life; the final step is the recovery - correcting the negative effect of the catastrophe - for example, in case of floods helping people to rebuild their houses.

For example, in 2006 the hurricanes produced important damages for the Americans living on the Costal side of the continent. For those people, the MDCEM offered information about the evolution of the hurricanes on an hourly basis, offered them support after the incident had occurred and helped them raise funds for rebuilding their houses, and for trying to go on with their life as it was before the incident had occurred.

NVOAD (250)