Transcript Basic Principles of Emergency Management

Basic Principles of Emergency
Management
Rick Bissell, PhD
UMBC Department of Emergency
Health Services
Core Tasks
• Minimize injuries, deaths, suffering and losses
due to sudden destructive events.
– Prevent or decrease events
– Minimize destructiveness
– Prepare and provide a coordinated response to
events
– Prepare and provide a coordinated after-event
recovery program
New Addition
• DHS/FEMA has added “Protection” as a new
core task.
– Helps merge emergency management and
“homeland security” approaches to protecting the
public.
– What all might “protection” mean?
Brief History
• Organized response to disasters may have
started with the initiation of the Red Cross in
the Crimean War (1850s). Focus on response.
• Civil Defense/Civil Protection: Europe and US
in WWII and Cold War.
• Gradual development of “emergency
management” in disaster-prone US
• 1979 formation of FEMA
Learning in the 1950s
• Post-WWII relief of large groups of the
starving and dispossessed: management
• Cold War: funding for research
– Sociologists: complex social sequelae, and
complex response coordination issues
– Economists: long-range downstream impacts of
disasters
– Political scientists: short-term policies fail to
address bigger problems
Multi-disciplinary EM
• Multiple actor types: SAR, law enforcement &
traffic management, first aid and EMS,
hospitals (clinics), public health, housing,
food, water, power, roads maintenance,
transportation, communication, logistics,
supplies, social services, mental health, etc.
Barriers to Management
• Stove piping (economic and cultural)
• Cross-disciplinary misunderstandings, trust
issues, and the reality of the political animal
• Event-specific characteristics
Phase Scheme
•
•
•
•
•
Mitigation
Preparedness
(Protection)
Response
Recovery
• Brings understanding that functions are timerelated
Functional Approach
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Transportation
Communications
Pub Wks & Eng
Firefighting
Emergency Mgmt
Mass Care
Logistics/Resource Sup
Health&Medical
Search & Rescue
•
•
•
•
•
•
10. Oil and Hazmats
11. Ag & Nat. Resources
12. Energy
13. Pub. Safety & Sec.
14. L-T Recovery
15. External Affairs
Legal Issues
• Assumption that legal responsibility lies first
with locality, then county, then state, then
feds. This adds an additional few layers of
confusion.
• Feds can’t act unless requested by states.
• Assumption that locals “manage” the
response resources even if they come from
feds or other states. Conflict.
• Posse comitatis
Management Disconnects
• No central authority over all actors
• Presumption that lowest jurisdiction has
primacy (and fewest capabilities)
• Actors move in and out of activities
• Tasks change, sometimes rapidly
Incident Command/Mgmt System
• Fire service base
– Standardized vocabulary and command structure
– Prescripted communications pathways
– Presumption of authority over personnel and
finances
– Poorly integrates volunteers or those in other
power structures. Government centric.
– Applies well to some types of scenarios and
phases but not others
– Ignores up- and downstream complexities
EM Models
• US: Each jurisdiction has an EMA up and down
governmental levels. EMAs own few resources
but are supposed to coordinate many.
• Europe (not universal): Central/national gov
organizes EM (CD/CP). Military is often used
as a response agency, but not prep/mitigation.
EM can command resources.
• LA: military CD. FDs may be a part of CD.
Conclusions
• Many tasks, phases, and disciplines make EM
very challenging. Response is only part of the
challenge, but receives most attention.
Recovery is most expensive, but poorly
coordinated. Mitigation would be the most
efficient, but is often ignored or underfunded.
Preparedness often leaves out nongovernment players. Challenging.