Promoting Emergency Management in U.S. Since 1900

National Preparedness Goal

National Preparedness, the Presidential Policy Directive #8 (PPD-8), gives a description of the approach of the United States (U.S.) in the area of being prepared for threats and hazards posing the highest risk to American security. The whole national community shares the responsibility of national preparedness. Contribution and participation is required from every person including communities, individuals, faith-based organizations, and local, state and federal governments. The society will be described based on the core capabilities required in dealing with great risk. An integrated and layered approach shall be the foundation of the description. Success is used to mean a resilient and secure nation having the capabilities needed to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and ensure recovery from the most devastating of hazards.

The National Preparedness Goals shall be achieved by use of core capabilities in the following ways:

Prevention, avoidance, and halting threats or real terrorism acts.

Protection of citizens, visitors, residents, and assets against hazards and threats in a way that does not curtail aspirations, way of life, or interests.

Reducing the impact future attacks have so as to mitigate loss of property and life.

Quick response to ensure lives are saved, environment and property are protected, and the basic human needs are met following an attack.

Recovery by timely restoring, strengthening and revitalizing infrastructure, economy, health, housing as well as the historic, social and cultural community fabric.

National Preparedness System

The National Preparedness System is grounded on current efforts that were mostly initiated and enacted following the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act and other statutes (Bea, 2005).

Components of National Preparedness System

1. Identifying and Assessing Risk

Development and comprehension of the risks faced by the nation and our communities, and the way the information can be made use of in sustaining preparedness, are important aspects of the National Preparedness System. A system of risk assessment collects data and information on the hazards and threats, plus the projected impacts or consequences. The Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) guidance is aimed at providing a consistent and common approach in the identification and assessment of risks as well as the impacts associated with them. Strategic National Risk Assessment (SNRA) works at the national level to analyze the Nation's greatest risks. The analysis is the basis of our understanding of challenges, threats and hazards facing the Nation (Bea, 2005).

2. Finding Capability Requirements Estimate

Single threats and hazards and the wider scope of risks must be brought into consideration by every organization, community, and government levels so that the scope of the risks faced are fully understood. An estimate can be found by using risk assessment results in the context of outcomes desired for every one of the mission areas. The results obtained shall influence the planning factors (Bea, 2005).

3. Building and Sustaining Capabilities.

After doing the estimation, an analysis of the needed and existing capabilities can reveal many of the existing gaps. Based on the results to be attained, the gaps will be addressed from the highest priority to the lowest priority. The method of allocation of resources can be determined by the planners, elected leaders and government officials (Bea, 2005).

4. Planning the Delivery of the Capabilities

Entire communities contribute to the reduction of national risks. Making plans for a low-probability, high-consequence risk, such as a biological or nuclear attack or even a serious earthquake having an effect on several jurisdictions can be complex and involve a lot of people. Planning efforts made by the federal government must take into consideration the planning efforts of other levels of government, which always has a focus on smaller probable risks. This co-planning can more fully evaluate capability requirements and have a solution for addressing the risk and hazards collectively (Bea, 2005).

5. Validating Capabilities

Measuring the progress made towards the attainment of the National Preparedness Goal provides a means to decide on the optimal allocation of resources. Assessments, remedial action management programs, and various exercises can aid this. Continuous monitoring shall ensure that the key components of the National Preparedness Goal are put up and sustained. Monitoring of the process can be done using a comprehensive assessment system (CAS). The CAS has the following uses:

Identifying the performance metrics and capability goals

Systematically collecting and analyzing capability data

Reporting on the progress made in the building and the sustenance of the capabilities (Bea, 2005).

6. Making Reviews and Updates

The security of the Nation as well as its resilience shall be made stronger as the National Preparedness System components are employed. There are often changes in the sensitivity and exposure of a community arising from a host of factors like population shifts, aging infrastructure, and environmental changes. Recurrently, a review of resources, plans and capabilities should be done so as to determine whether they need updating or not. The reviews ought to be grounded on the risk assessments and make use of the gathered information as they validate the process. Also, there should be concurrent assessments on National Preparedness performed by local, tribal, territorial, state, and federal players. The reviews shall inform the determination of priorities, calibration of goals, direct preparedness actions, and impact the monitoring of programs involved in national preparedness (Bea, 2005).

National Preparedness Report

The National Preparedness Report's (NPR) goal is providing the Nation with insights and information that priorities, decision making, and resource allocation can be based on. The 2015 NPR identified national trends cutting across many of the five mission areas (Goal FEMA n.d).

Incorporation of Emergency Preparedness into Technology Platforms: public-private partnerships and businesses are continuing to incorporate emergency preparedness into their technology platforms like social media tools and Internet services (Goal FEMA n.d.).

Challenges in the Assessment of Corrective Actions Status: while agencies and federal departments assess the progress made in the corrective actions noted during real incidents and exercises, there are still some challenges in comprehensively assessing corrective actions that have wider impacts on the Federal Government (Goal FEMA n.d.).

Challenges in Response Coordination for Events not Receiving Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act Declarations: some incidents such as the recent Ebola cases can be very complex yet they do not receive the declarations of the Stafford Act (Goal FEMA n.d.).

Three new core capabilities are identified by the 2015 NPR -- Operational Coordination, Intelligence and Information Sharing, and Environmental Response/Health and Safety -- as having acceptable performance levels, yet being in need of continuous effort in maintaining the capabilities and meeting emergent challenges. The three join 5 capabilities in the 2014 report to be revisited by the National Preparedness Reports to determine if they still meet performance goals (Goal FEMA n.d.).

National Preparedness Frameworks

The National Planning Frameworks partly constitute the National Preparedness System. For every one of the mission areas there is a framework: