Disaster Preparedness & Response - Term Paper Example

Disaster Preparedness And Response Emergency Management Emergency Management techniques can be very fruitful in preventing the major damages that are caused by natural catastrophes (George, 2007). Emergency management is a social science discipline that is used to help deal with and avoid risks. It involves, preparing, sustaining and rebuilding society after the disasters, natural or human made, occur. It is basically present to counteract all the damage that has been done by these catastrophes.

There are basically four steps that are involved in successful emergency management; Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and recovery (Damon, 2007). These stages are effectively planned by keeping two aspects in mind, the professional and the personal activities that are involved in these four stages. In my opinion, the effect of earthquakes can be effectively minimized by using these steps. The implementation of these stages to help in earthquake destruction is mentioned below. A) Mitigation Mitigation is the stage at which the destruction effects are tried to be completely minimized when it comes to the personal aspect.

This would involve not buying property in an earthquake prone area to minimize the disasters caused to homes. Professionally, it is the most cost-effective way to reduce the impact of hazards. Development of earthquake proof structure in earthquake prone areas is a kind of structural mitigation. Non structural professional mitigation would be insuring the property of earthquake disasters (Jane, 2007). B) Preparedness This phase is more about planning what to do when a disaster occurs. For example, construction of shelters to save from floods and hurricanes.

This aspect of the emergency management phase can be implemented in the earthquake management as well by building temporary wooden one floor shelters so that the people who are affected by the earthquake have a temporary place to live. Development of basic necessity kits can also come in handful as in some areas, the post-earthquake situation is such that there is huge shortage of food, water etc. C) Response Response is the help that is forwarded to the down-trodden people who have experienced the after math of a disaster (Damon, 2007).

This help may be forwarded by an international organization, or by the people living around or the national government. On a more personal level, this can be evacuation from the earthquake hit place and move towards a safer area in an automobile. D) Recovery When the immediate steps have been taken, the recovery phase starts. Recovery phase pertains to the long-term development of the area that is hit by the catastrophe (George, 2007). This involves reconstruction of the material and property that is extensively damaged.

In case of an earthquake, the recovery phase takes the most time if mitigation efforts had not been taken from beforehand because it results in massive destruction. 2. Effective and Timely Emergency Response When it comes to the importance of the training activities, knowledge, leadership qualities and readiness; these qualities are necessary in any kind of management in order for it to be successful. However, their role becomes increasingly important in a disaster situation. Leadership in this case is really important from the start because people are already in a panic state, they don't know how to react to the disaster.

In this situation there is a desperate need for a leader to emerge and use his or her skills to channelize the available resources according to the needs of the people at that time. Training activities can be very helpful in counteracting and reducing the effect of the disaster. When people of a certain area are trained to react to the situation that is faced during an earthquake, they might be able to react better to the situation and help others as well. Readiness or willingness to help others during a disaster can be extremely important and helpful while the whole scenario is taking place.

All in all, these qualities are really important and play a major role when counteracting and dealing with the problems post-disaster. People found in possession of these qualities respond quickly and efficiently in these situations. Works Cited George D. Haddow, Jane A. Bullock, Damon P. Copolla. Introduction to Emergency Management. United States: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007.