Public Awareness, Response and Recovery - Essay Example

Public Awareness, Security, Safety, and Response/Recovery Affiliation: What appears to be the best plan for creating an environment of situational awareness for the public? Situational awareness is the knowledge and understanding of the situations happening around and how one can predict the changes that will happen with time according to the dynamics of the environment. The best plan of action for creating situational awareness is the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) Technology. It uses other technologies such as GPS as well as networking in order to provide information about the place and time of the happenings of the situation.

It collects data from different sources to build up relevant information required to act on a situation as well as to predict a situation (ESRI white paper, 2008). The GIS aggregation of data also involves data that is useful to the emergency responders such as on the location of the essential resources, infrastructure and assets useful to respond to a situation such as the power lines, hospitals, fire hydrants and sewer as well as water lines among others. This information is important for action in public safety.

The GIS is enabled to meet the most basic of the information needs to the most advanced as the complexity of the situation increases. The downside of GIS is that it requires high memory storage only available in desktop; it works only when there is network access and requires complicated software. What appears to be the best plan for public response? The National Response Framework is the best plan in as far as public response if concerned. This is so because the framework contains information such as on how to respond to all types of disasters as well as emergencies from fire to hurricanes and tornadoes as well as terrorism activities.

It also provides comprehensive guide on the roles and responsibilities of individuals in households, communities, local and federal governments as well as the NGOs and private sector when it comes to responding to the emergencies and disasters. The framework also explains in detail how all these structures should integrate and coordinate which saves not only time of response but lives and items from destruction by the disaster. The downside of this response plan is the lack of knowledge of the existence of this framework to all these structures mentioned above such as the households and communities or what their roles and responsibilities are in case disaster or emergency strikes (Homeland Security, 2013).

What appears to be the best plan for cooperation? The Texas strategic plan for 2010-2015 has so far been the best plan to use in terms of cooperation and coordination in not only disaster time but how to minimize the damage from disasters and recovery process as well. This plan which is available to every household in Texas was brought about by the previous disasters in the state. It covers issues such as terrorism, natural disasters, public health threats, illegal entry as well as criminal enterprises (Perry, 2010-2015).

It brings together the local, regional and state jurisdiction to act together to prevent the terrorism and criminal activities, reduce the threats and vulnerability from natural disasters and minimize damage through quick and rapid recovery from the attacks and disasters through mobilization of funds. The downside of the plan is the lack of knowledge of pending national disasters or their magnitude which might delay the recovery action plan. References ESRI white paper. (February, 2008). Public Safety and Homeland Security Situational Awareness.

New York: ESRI. Homeland Security. (May, 2013). National Response Framework. Washington DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency. Perry, R. (2010-2015). Texas Homeland Security Strategic Plan. Retrieved from: http://governor.state.tx.us/files/homeland/hmlndsecurity_stratplan2015.pdf