Comprehensive Emergency Management Essay

Every emergency incident that occurs varies in size and complexity based on the elements involved. However, through effective planning and use of comprehensive emergency management involved agencies can prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate incidents as part of the all-hazards approach. First, an examination of the preparedness phase will be conducted. Then, we will discuss the response phase. Next, we will analyze the recovery phase. Lastly, we will examine the mitigation phase. Overall, expert use of comprehensive emergency management enables agencies to establish an all hazards approach to address potential or actual incidents in their jurisdictions. First, let’s discuss the preparedness phase. The preparedness phase in comprehensive emergency management deals with preparing a community to respond to an incident. The first step in this phase is to look at the hazards that may impact a community by conducting a Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA). A good information source initially is to look at historical incident

Once an incident area has been stabilized a community will then begin the recovery phase. In addition, this phase can occur concurrently with the response phase such as if more than one community may be impacted by an incident, one may be in a recovery phase whereas the other may still be in a response phase (Lindell, Perry, & Prater, 2007, p. 341). Moreover, the recovery phase requires pre-planning prior to an incident to expedite the process. The recovery process is multifaceted including re-establishing housing, businesses, and governmental buildings impacted, clearing impacted roads, re-establish lost utilities (power, gas, the internet, sewer, water, etc.), and psychological recovery (Lindell, Perry, Prater, & Nicholson, 2006, p. 313). Next, let’s discuss the last phase,