| Emergency Management is
the organized community-wide planning, decision making, assignment
and coordination of available resources to the mitigation of,
preparedness for, response to and recovery from
disasters or emergencies of any kind.
Effective Emergency Management involves four major
areas of responsibility:
MITIGATION activities
which eliminate or reduce the vulnerability of the community to
damage to property or the environment, injury, and loss of life
and property resulting from a natural, or technological (man made
disaster).
PREPARATION to provide
rapid, efficient and coordinated response and recovery actions to
protect life, property and the environment.
RESPONSE to emergencies
or disasters using all systems, plans and resources available in
the community. These activities help reduce casualties and damage,
and speed recovery.
RECOVERY from emergencies
or disasters by providing rapid and coordinated restoration and
rehabilitation services.
Recovery is both a short-term and long-term process.
In the short-term, recovery operations seek to restore vital services
to the community and provide for the basic needs of the public.
Long-term recovery focuses on restoring the community to its normal,
or improved, state of affairs.
The recovery period is also an opportunity to institute
mitigation measures to lessen the vulnerability of future disasters.
The phases are cyclical - all activities and experiences lead back
to the mitigation phase. We learn to prevent or lessen the impact
of future emergencies by what we learn from past occurrences.
The Emergency Management Team
When disaster strikes, the various resource
providers in the Emergency Management Team share the responsibility
for utilizing resources to effectively respond to and recovery from
its effects. This team includes federal, state and local government
agencies, disaster relief organizations such as the Red Cross and
Salvation Army, and private sector organizations such as hospitals
and utilities. While state and federal governments have emergency
response capabilities and resources, initial response in an emergency
or disaster is the responsibility of local government.
|
