Coping with Disaster

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Coping with Disaster

This paper will discuss Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Management that are city wide or larger in scope. It will first define disaster, then examine the typical stages in preparing for and coping with a disaster. Selected types of disasters will be considered, and examples reviewed, namely biological, chemical, and radiation related disasters.

What is a disaster?

A disaster is an unexpected calamity that is of sufficient magnitude that the normal societal coping mechanisms are insufficient, and extraordinary measures must be taken to remedy the situation (Kroll-Smith and Couch, 1991). It involves a significant amount of physical and/or economic suffering to the extent that a break down in the socioeconomic system occurs and the community is unable to go about their daily routines of life (National Science and Technology Council, 2005).

Disasters are difficult to define in purely quantitative terms, and there isn't one commonly used measure. One measure used by the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration's (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute training program defines a disaster as all events that cause at least 100 human deaths, or at least 100 human injuries, or at least $1 million in economic damages (Blanchard, 1999).

Disaster Management: Preparation

Disaster Management starts with preparation, without which the effectiveness of the response will be unnecessarily slow and chaotic. Planning and preparation starts by analyzing risks, which vary due to a number of factors. Different geographical areas will have different risks, for example those located in a coastal area need to consider the potential for hurricanes, but they would not be concerned about an oil refinery fire if th...

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National Science and Technology Council, Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction. (2005). Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President. Retrieved from http://www.sdr.gov/GrandChallengesSecondPrinting.pdf

Watson, J. T., Gayer, M., Connolly, M.A. (2007). Epidemics after natural disasters. Emerging Infection Diseases, (13)2. doi: 10.3201/eid1301.060779

City of Seattle, Seattle Police Department Emergency Preparedness Bureau. (2003). Seattle Disaster Readiness and Response plan. Retrieved from http://www.seattle.gov/emergency/library/Seattle_Disaster_Readiness_And_Response_Plan.pdf

Asaeda, G. (2002). The day that the START triage system came to a stop: observations from the world trade center disaster. Journal of Academic Emergency Medicine, 9(3), 255-256. doi: 10.1197/aemj.9.3.255

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