Emergency Management Introduction

1. Emergency ManagementIntroduction Md. Shamsuzzoha Assistant Professor and Chairman Department of Emergency Management Faculty of Disaster Management Patuakhali Science and Technology University

2. Emergency Management • Emergencymanagement is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the organization within their planned lifetime1.

3. Four Phases of Emergency Management2

4. Four Phases of Emergency Management2 • Mitigation - efforts to reduce hazards or its impacts • Preparedness - efforts to prepare for a likely hazard • Response - actions taken to respond to an emergency or disaster • Recovery - actions taken to restore the community to pre-disaster condition

5. Phases and Professional activities3

6. Phases and Professional activities3 • The mitigation is mainly about knowing and avoiding unnecessary risks. This includes an assessment of possible risks to personal/family health and to personal property. • The preparedness focuses on preparing equipment and procedures for use when a disaster occurs, i.e., planning. Preparedness measures can take many forms including the construction of shelters, implementation of an emergency communication system, installation of warning devices, creation of back-up life-line services (e.g., power, water, sewage), and rehearsing evacuation plans.

7. Phases and Professional activities3 • The response phase of an emergency may commence with search and rescue but in all cases the focus will quickly turn to fulfilling the basic humanitarianneeds of the affected population. This assistance may be provided by national or international agencies and organisations. Effective coordination of disaster assistance is often crucial, particularly when many organizations respond and local emergency management agency (LEMA) capacity has been exceeded by the demand or diminished by the disaster itself. • The recovery phase starts after the immediate threat to human life has subsided. During reconstruction it is recommended to consider the location or construction material of the property.

8. Phases and Professional activities3 • The nature of management depends on local, economic and social conditions. • Some disaster relief experts such as Fred Cuny have noted that in a sense the only real disasters are economic4. Experts, such as Cuny, have long noted that the cycle of Emergency Management must include long-term work on infrastructure, public awareness, and even human justice issues. The process of Emergency Management involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. • Recently the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have adopted the terms "resilience" and "prevention" as part of the paradigm of EM. The latter term was mandated by PKEMA 2006 as statute enacted in October 2006 and made effective March 31, 2007. The two terms definitions do not fit easily as separate phases. Prevention is 100% mitigation, by definition5. Resilience describes the goal of the four phases: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change5.

9. Phases and Professional activities3 • New Zealand uses unique terminology for emergencymanagement to the rest of the English-speaking world. • 4Rs is a term used to describe the emergencymanagementcycle locally. In New Zealand the four phases are known as6: • Reduction = Mitigation • Readiness = Preparedness • Response • Recovery

10. Emergency Response Management The organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all aspects of emergencies, in particularly preparedness, response and rehabilitation. Emergency response management involves plans, structures and arrangements established to engage the normal endeavors of government, voluntary and private agencies in a comprehensive and coordinated way to respond to the whole spectrum of emergency needs. This is also known as disaster management7.

11. Emergencies, Disasters, and Catastrophes are not gradients, they are separate, distinct problems that require distinct strategies of response. Disasters are events distinguished from everyday emergencies by four factors8 : • Organizations are forced into more and different kinds of interactions than normal; • Organizations lose some of their normal autonomy; • Performance standards change, and; • More coordinated public sector/private sector relationships are required.

12. References • Haddow, George D.; Jane A Bullock (2003).Introduction to emergency management. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN0-7506-7689-2 • http://www.stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=97 • From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Link-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_management • Cuny, Fred C. (1983). Disasters and Development. Oxford:Oxford University Press. • Merriam-Webster Dictionary • National Civil Defence Emergency Management Strategy 2007, page 5. Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand 2008. Digital edition. Retrieved 3 August 2008. ISBN 0-478-29453-0. • Standing Orders on Disaster (2010), Disaster Management Bureau, Ministry of Food and Disaster Management Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. pp.5. • Quarantelli, E.L.. "Emergencies, Disasters, and Catastrophes are Different Phenomena". Preliminary Papers. University of Delaware Disaster Research Center. Retrieved September 26, 2011.

13. Thank You