Emergency Management Principles

Emergency management is the process of creating and implementing strategies to manage emergencies or disasters. The four main principles of emergency management are preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. While management programs are often maintained on a governmental or organizational basis, they can also be used by families and small communities in order to better handle emergency situations.

One of the first keys to handling an emergency is disaster preparedness. To prepare for an emergency, an emergency management team must assess potential problems and set plans in motion that can help a community better weather a disaster. For instance, building tornado shelters and stockpiling them with water and canned goods can be one way to prepare for a possible tornado. Funding research aimed at developing advanced earthquake or tsunami warning technology could also be a means of disaster preparedness.

In earthquake-heavy California, for example, some local governments have ordered older buildings to be retrofitted to withstand an earthquake, while new buildings must be built to an earthquake-safe code. By cutting down the hazards that could arise during a disaster, emergency management teams can help reduce the level of danger.

Much of the effectiveness of emergency management lies in the ability to quickly and ably respond to a disaster. Creating a strong response plan includes crafting clear, concise instructions for how emergency responders, such as medical workers or firefighters, are to act in a crisis. Response plans may also include several sets of contingency plans, which can be activated should unforeseen circumstances prevent the use of a primary response plan. Every minute wasted in a disaster can cost lives and financial damage, so the creation of an agile and effective response plan is key to surviving any