Emergency Management

Emergency response activities are conducted during the time period that begins with the detection of the event and ends with the stabilization of the situation following impact. FEMA (1998b, p. 12) indicates the goal of emergency response is “to save lives and property by positioning emergency equipment and supplies; evacuating potential victims; providing food, water, shelter and medical care to those in need; and restoring critical public services”. In many cases, hazard monitoring systems ensure authorities are promptly alerted to disaster onset either by means of systematic forecasts (e.g., hurricanes) or prompt detection (e.g., flash floods detected by stream gages), so there is considerable forewarning and consequently a long period of time to activate the emergency response organization. In other cases, such as earthquakes, pre-impact prediction is usually not available, but prompt assessment of the impact area is feasible within a matter of minutes to hours and can quickly direct emergency response resources to the most severely affected areas.
Some of the more visible response activities undertaken to limit the primary threat include securing the impact area, evacuating threatened areas, conducting search and rescue for the injured, providing emergency medical care, and sheltering evacuees and other victims. Operations mounted to counter secondary threats include fighting urban fires after earthquakes, identifying contaminated water supplies, or other public health threats following flooding, identifying contaminated wildlife or fish in connection with a toxic chemical spill, or preparing for flooding following glacier melt during a volcanic eruption. During the response stage, emergency managers must also continually assess damage and coordinate the arrival of converging equipment and supplies so they can be deployed promptly to those areas with the greatest need.
Emergency response activities are usually accomplished through the efforts of diverse