Disaster Preparedness - Essay Example

Disaster Preparedness Affiliation: one activity for each of these phases: preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. Relate these activities to one level of government: federal, state, or local level (county or municipal). In your own words, what do these activities mean?Preparedness activity should be training of people on how to respond in case of disasters. An activity for response should be sending ambulances to the scene or area where disaster has occurred. Recovery activity is counseling provided to the victims of the disaster to overcome trauma or treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

As for the mitigation, the best activity is to have policies and laws necessitating mandatory disaster prevention mechanisms in institutions, companies and organizations (Bradley, 2011). In every county all over the country, the above mentioned activities should be ensured. Training of all the people or at least majority of the people in a country (this is manageable as a country does not have many people and they know each other) on how to respond to different types of disasters is necessary.

As a mitigation activity, this should be accompanied by a local law making it compulsory for everybody in that county to be trained so that they can know how to prevent disasters and deal with them in case they are natural. Ambulances (several of them) should be available in the county and situated in various locations that have easier access to all parts of the county and they should be well equipped and fuelled at all times so that in case of disaster, they are ready to move. Lastly, there should be several trained counselors even if they have other careers so that in case of any disaster, they can be called upon to exercise the counseling duties to a lot of people over a period of time. 2. When there is no response action (like an EOC activation), the public usually thinks that emergency managers are doing very little.

However, this is not the case. Preparedness actions are always ongoing: preparing a plan, training to the plan, and exercising the plan. Explain how this will help a community in the long run?Ongoing preparedness plans have several advantages to the community in the long run. One of these is the fact that people do not have to rush once a disaster occurs. In most cases, once a disaster occurs, people make rush decisions, look up onto authorities adding pressure to them and laying blame on them and the outcome of this is a slow response, mangled recovery and even a lot of loss of life and property which would otherwise have been prevented.

With ongoing plan however, people have already gotten used and therefore remain cool and collected and even join forces and regroup quickly.The other advantage is that response will be planned for in advance. Advanced planning means not only allocation of the monetary resources but also of the labor and emotional resources. All the people are apportioned different areas and tasks depending on their level of training, response to the preparedness actions and natural ability. This therefore means that in case of disaster, everybody knows what is expected of them and there will be no delay due to lack of funds or waiting for other resources to come from other areas but response is immediate.

It also ensures that in case the community area does not have enough resources, they can set up mechanisms in advance to obtain them whether from allocating their budget to their purchase or seeking funds form the federal government. All this is part of preparation which is very necessary for disaster response of whatever type (Bradley, 2011). ReferencesBradley, A. T. (2011). The Disaster Preparedness Handbook: A Guide for Families. New York: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.