Introduction: 110 Years of Disaster Response and Emergency Management in the United States Claire B. Rubin

2012 ◽  
pp. 9-20 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
The United States

Business continuity after catastrophic medical events: The Joplin Medical Business Continuity Report

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 321-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Carlton Jr, MD, FACS ◽  
Dottie Bringle, RN, BSN, MSHSA
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
The United States ◽  
Medical System ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Business Continuity ◽  
Do So

On May 22, 2011, The St Johns Mercy Medical Center in Joplin,MO, was destroyed by an F-5 tornado. There were 183 patients in the building at that time in this 367-bed Medical Center. The preparation and response were superbly done and resulted in many lives saved. This report is focused on the reconstitution phase of this disaster response, which includes how to restore business continuity. As 95 percent of our medical capacity resides in the private sector in the United States, we must have a proper plan for how to restore business continuity or face the reality of the medical business failing and not providing critical medical services to the community. A tornado in 2007 destroyed a medical center in Sumter County, GA, and it took more than 365 days to restore business continuity at a cost of $18M. The plan executed by the Mercy Medical System after the disaster in Joplin restored business continuity in 88 days and cost a total of $6.6M, with all assets being reusable. The recommendation from these lessons learned is that every county, state, and Federal Emergency Management Agency region has a plan on the shelf to restore business continuity and the means to be able to do so. The hard work that the State of Missouri and the Mercy Medical System did after this disaster can serve as a model for the nation in how to quickly recover from any loss of medical capability.

The social construction of disasters in the United States: A historical and cultural phenomenon

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tonya T. Neaves, PhD ◽  
T. Aaron Wachhaus, PhD ◽  
Grace A. Royer, MPAc
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Human Control ◽  
The Social

Introduction: Societal risks from hazards are continually increasing. Each year, disasters cause thousands of deaths and cost billions of dollars. In the first half of 2011, the United States endured countless disasters—winter snowstorms in the Midwest and Northeast; severe tornadic weather in the Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri; flash flooding in Nashville; flooding along the Mississippi River; an earthquake on the East Coast, wildfires in Texas, and Hurricane Irene. Fundamental disaster planning is regarded as an interdisciplinary approach to develop strategies and instituting policies concerned with phases of emergency management; as such, its needs are predicated on the identification of hazards and assessment of risks.Problem: Even if the probability or intensity of risks to disasters remains fairly constant, population growth, alongside economic and infrastructural development, will unavoidably result in a concomitant increase of places prone to such events. One of the greatest barriers to emergency management efforts is the failure to fully grasp the socially and politically constructed meaning of disasters.Purpose: This article investigates the ways in which language has been used historically in the American lexicon to make sense of disasters in the United States in an effort to improve communal resiliency. Serving as both an idea and experience, the terminology used to convey our/the modern-day concept of disaster is a result of a cultural artifact, ie, a given time and specific place.Methodology: Tools such as Google Ngram Viewer and CASOS AutoMap are used to explore the penetration, duration, and change in disaster terminology among American English literature for more than 200 years, from 1800 to 2008, by quantifying written culture.Findings: The language of disasters is an integral part of disaster response, as talking is the primary way that most people respond to and recover from disasters. The vast majority of people are not affected by any given disaster, and so it is through discussing a disaster that people make sense of it, respond, and react to it, and fit something that is overwhelming and beyond human control into the normal order of life.

scholarly journals Emergency Management Missing from the Pandemic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 149-150
Author(s):  
Attila J. Hertelendy, PhD ◽  
William L. Waugh, Jr., PhD
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Protective Equipment ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
White House ◽  
Pandemic Response

The change in presidential administrations in the United States promises new approaches to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first year of the pandemic response in the United States has been characterized by a lack of national leadership. Moreover, the message from the White House Coronavirus Task Force has been muddled at best. There have been great inconsistencies in how the States have chosen to address spreading infections and increased stress on individual Americans who are trying to protect themselves and their families. The same pattern can be found with the distribution of vaccines and management of vaccinations. Politics has often conflicted with public health concerns. The States have been left to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to medical personnel and first responders and to formulate their own guidance for protective measures.

Achieving Agility in Disaster Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
John R. Harrald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Open Systems ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organizational Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Professional Practitioners

A significant body of social science research has concluded that improvisation in distributed, collaborative, open systems is the key to success in responding to and recovering from extreme events. The evolution of emergency management in the United States since the 9-11 attacks has emphasized the development of doctrine, process, and structure. In earlier work I concluded that both the agility desired by the social sciences and the discipline created by the professional practitioners are essential. This article explores how agility can be developed within a disciplined system and concludes that the keys are the development of outcome based goals, adaptive leadership, and technology that supports collaborative sense-making and decision making in open, organizational systems.

scholarly journals Contributions of Operational Satellites in Monitoring the Catastrophic Floodwaters Due to Hurricane Harvey

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell Goldberg ◽  
Sanmei Li ◽  
Steven Goodman ◽  
Dan Lindsey ◽  
Bill Sjoberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Infrared Imaging ◽  
High Spatial Resolution ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Flood Monitoring ◽  
Flooded Areas ◽  
Flood Maps

Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category-4 storm in the United States on 25 August 2017 in Texas, causing catastrophic flooding in the Houston metropolitan area and resulting in a total economic loss estimated to be about $125 billion. To monitor flooding in the areas affected by Harvey, we used data from sensors aboard the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Satellite (SNPP) and the new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16. The GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) observations are available every 5 min at 1-km spatial resolution across the entire United States, allowing for the possibility of frequent cloud free views of the flooded areas; while the higher resolution 375-m imagery available twice per day from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the SNPP satellite can observe more details of the flooded regions. Combining the high spatial resolution from VIIRS with the frequent observations from ABI offers an improved capability for flood monitoring. The flood maps derived from the SNPP VIIRS and GOES-16 ABI observations were provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) continuously during Hurricane Harvey. According to FEMA’s estimate on 3 September 2017, approximately 155,000 properties might have been affected by the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey.

Victim Assistance in the United States: The End of the Beginning

1990 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene A. Young
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Violence Prevention ◽  
Crisis Intervention ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Aid ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Victim Assistance ◽  
Supportive Counselling ◽  
Future Focus

This article emphasizes the bond of victimization that is based on the similarities in the injuries endured by victims. Such injuries are financial, physical, emotional or social. At the same time, the paper stresses that each victimization is unique due to the attributes of an individual and the nature of the trauma suffered. Program elements of victim assistance are outlined as: crisis intervention; supportive counselling and advocacy; and support during investigation, prosecution, and after-case disposition. Several areas are identified for future focus: violence prevention, emotional first aid, comprehensive outreach to all populations, research, community-wide disaster response, trauma mitigation, international networking and the need to make rights real.

Utilization of Health Care Coalitions and Resiliency Forums in the United States and United Kingdom: Different Approaches to Strengthen Emergency Preparedness

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Walsh ◽  
Allan Graeme Swan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Emergency Preparedness ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Care Systems

ABSTRACTThe process for developing national emergency management strategies for both the United States and the United Kingdom has led to the formulation of differing approaches to meet similar desired outcomes. Historically, the pathways for each are the result of the enactment of legislation in response to a significant event or a series of events. The resulting laws attempt to revise practices and policies leading to more effective and efficient management in preparing, responding, and mitigating all types of natural, manmade, and technological hazards. Following the turn of the 21st century, each country has experienced significant advancements in emergency management including the formation and utilization of 2 distinct models: health care coalitions in the United States and resiliency forums in the United Kingdom. Both models have evolved from circumstances and governance unique to each country. Further in-depth study of both approaches will identify strengths, weaknesses, and existing gaps to meet continued and future challenges of our respective disaster health care systems. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:161–164)

U.S. Floods

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverly A. Cigler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
Natural Hazard ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Property Losses ◽  
State And Local

Floods are the costliest natural hazard events in the United States in terms of lives and property losses. The financial costs of flood disasters are unsustainable, especially for the national government, which assumes the most costs while state and local governments have the greatest ability to avoid great losses due to their influence over land use, economic policy, and other areas that can help mitigate floods and reduce the high costs of relief and recovery. This article summarizes the types, causes, and occurrence of floods in the United States and their unsustainable economic and social costs. It explains that the growing burden to taxpayers from disaster response and recovery has resulted in increased interest by national decision makers in shifting more disaster responsibilities and costs to state and local governments. The article reviews the broad tool kit of mitigation strategies available to local governments and their residents in taking greater responsibility for the impacts of flood events.

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