Handbook of Emergency Management Concepts

A Step-by-Step Approach

Michael L. Madigan

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351337472
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book provides a step-by-step process that focuses on how to develop, practice, and maintain emergency plans that reflect what must be done before, during, and after a disaster, in order to protect people and property. The communities who preplan and mitigate prior to any incident will be better prepared for emergency scenarios. This book will assist those with the tools to address all phases of emergency management. It covers everything from the social and environmental processes that generate hazards, to vulnerability analysis, hazard mitigation, emergency response, and disaster recovery.

1Emergency Management

Disaster management (or emergency management) is the creation of plans through which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Disaster management does not avert or eliminate the threats; instead, it focuses on creating plans to decrease the effect of disasters. Failure to create a plan could lead to human mortality, lost revenue, and damage to assets. Currently, in the United States, 60% of businesses do not have emergency management plans. Events covered by disaster management include acts of terrorism, industrial sabotage, fire, natural disasters (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.), public disorder, industrial accidents, and communication failures.

Emergency Planning Ideals

If possible, emergency planning should aim to prevent emergencies from occurring and, failing that, should develop a good action plan to mitigate the results and effects of any emergencies. As time goes on, and more data become available, usually through the study of emergencies as they occur, a plan should evolve. The development of emergency plans is a cyclical process, common to many risk management disciplines, such as Business Continuity and Security Risk Management, as set out below:

• Recognition or identification of risks
• Ranking or evaluation of risks
  • Responding to significant risks
  • Tolerate
  • Treat
  • Transfer
  • Terminate
• Resourcing controls
• Reaction Planning
• Reporting and monitoring risk performance
• Reviewing the Risk Management framework

There are a number of guidelines and publications regarding emergency planning, published by various professional organizations such as ASIS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Emergency Planning College. There are very few emergency-management-specific standards, and emergency management as a discipline tends to fall under business resilience standards.

In order to avoid, or reduce, significant losses to a business, emergency managers should work to identify and anticipate potential risks, hopefully to reduce their probability of occurring. In the event that an emergency does occur, managers should have a plan prepared to mitigate the effects of that emergency, as well as to ensure business continuity of critical operations postincident. It is essential for an organization to include procedures for determining whether an emergency situation has occurred and at what point an emergency management plan should be activated.

Implementation Ideals

An emergency plan must be regularly maintained, in a structured and methodical manner, to ensure that it is up-to-date in the event of an emergency. Emergency managers generally follow a common process to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond, and recover from an incident.

Preincident Training and Testing

A team of emergency responders performs a training scenario involving anthrax.

Emergency management plans and procedures should include the identification of appropriately trained staff members responsible for decision making when an emergency occurs. Training plans should include internal people, contractors, and civil protection partners and should state the nature and frequency of training and testing.

Testing of a plan’s effectiveness should occur regularly. In instances where several business or organizations occupy the same space, joint emergency plans, formally agreed to by all parties, should be put into place.

Communicating and Incident Assessment

Communication is one of the key issues during any emergency; preplanning of communications is critical. Miscommunication can easily result in emergency events escalating unnecessarily.

Once an emergency has been identified, a comprehensive assessment evaluating the level of impact and its financial implications should be undertaken. Following assessment, the appropriate plan or response to be activated will depend on a specific preset criteria within the emergency plan. The steps necessary should be prioritized to ensure that critical functions are operational as soon as possible.

Phases and Personal Activities

Emergency management consists of five phases: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (Mission Areas, FEMA.gov, 2017).

Prevention

Prevention was recently added to the phases of emergency management. It focuses on preventing the human hazard, primarily from potential natural disasters or terrorist attacks. Preventive measures are taken on both the domestic and international levels, designed to provide permanent protection from disasters. Not all disasters, particularly natural disasters, can be prevented, but the risk of loss of life and injury can be mitigated with good evacuation plans, environmental planning, and design standards. In January 2005, a total of 167 governments adopted a 10-year global plan for natural disaster risk reduction called the Hyogo Framework (Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), UNISDR, www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa).

Preventing or reducing the impacts of disasters on our communities is a key focus for emergency management efforts today. Prevention and mitigation also help reduce the financial costs of disaster response and recovery. Public Safety Canada is working with provincial and territorial governments and stakeholders to promote disaster prevention and mitigation using a risk-based and all-hazards approach. In 2008, federal/provincial/territorial ministers endorsed a National Disaster Mitigation Strategy (Emergency Management—Public Safety Canada, https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/­cnt/mrgnc-mngmnt/index-en.aspx).

Mitigation

Preventive or mitigation measures take different forms for different types of disasters. In earthquake-prone areas, these preventive measures might include structural changes such as the installation of an earthquake valve to instantly shut off the natural gas supply, seismic retrofits of property, and the securing of items inside a building. The latter may include the mounting of furniture, refrigerators, water heaters, and breakables to the walls and the addition of cabinet latches. In flood-prone areas, houses can be built on poles/stilts. In areas prone to prolonged electricity black-outs, installation of a generator ensures continuation of electrical service. The construction of storm cellars and fallout shelters are further examples of personal mitigation actions.

Disaster mitigation measures are those that eliminate or reduce the impacts and risks of hazards through proactive measures taken before an emergency or disaster occurs.

Preparedness

Preparedness focuses on preparing equipment and procedures for use when a disaster occurs. This equipment and these procedures can be used to reduce vulnerability to disaster, to mitigate the impacts of a disaster or to respond more efficiently in an emergency. The FEMA has set out a basic four-stage vision of preparedness flowing from mitigation to preparedness to response to recovery and back to mitigation in a circular planning process. This circular, overlapping model has been modified by other agencies, taught in emergency class, and discussed in academic papers.

FEMA also operates a Building Science Branch that develops and produces multi­hazard mitigation guidance that focuses on creating disaster-resilient communities to reduce loss of life and property. FEMA advises citizens to prepare their homes with some emergency essentials in the case that the food distribution lines are interrupted. FEMA has subsequently prepared for this contingency by purchasing hundreds of thousands of freeze-dried food emergency meals ready to eat to dispense to the communities where emergency shelter and evacuations are implemented.

Emergency preparedness can be difficult to measure. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (https://www.cdc.gov) focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of its public health efforts through a variety of measurement and assessment programs.

Local Emergency Planning Committees

Local emergency planning committees (LEPCs) are required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the Emergency Planning and...