Tragic events that cause damage to property and life may destroy the social, cultural and economic life of a community. Communities must be engaged in the various phases from prevention to recovery to build disaster resilient communities. In order to do this, there must be a disaster preparedness plan in place that involves multiple people in various roles.…
Hurricane Katrina remains one of the most prominent natural disasters to afflict the United States in decades. Its damage is estimated to be over $81 billion dollars leaving over 1,800 people dead and left millions stranded without homes (Zhang, 2011). While disasters like this are naturally occurring the truth is that much could have been done to better protect those who suffered at the hands of it. Many key leaders were directly involved in the heroics and the underachievement that made up the planning process of this Category five hurricane. Many were hailed as heroes using their innate leadership to make pivotal decisions while others failed under the weight of their own inability and thick bureaucratic roadblocks.…
By the end of the 1990’s, the turn of a new century, the Y2K bug hit. Computer attacks and computer bugs were yet another oversight on the part of the government, yet FEMA took control of the Y2K situation in such a manner that it was known as the most preeminent emergency management system in the entire world. Leaders from across the globe wanted to emulate the example that FEMA had set forth and copy its reactionary plans and actions. (7).…
In the presentation given by Megan Vandekerkhove she spoke about what happens when there is a natural disaster and what private sectors and the government do for these. She had an internship at the Lenawee County Health Department Emergency Preparedness, where she learned about who, what, and when things are deployed when a natural disaster or catastrophe happens. In her presentation she pointed out that since the economy has dropped there has been lots of funding that has been count down which concerns her because if something like hurricane Katrina happens again we will not have the resources to help people in need or maybe even ourselves. Her presentation was also about how you can help yourself out even without anybody help and she gave some suggested websites to visit to help people learn what the best things are to have in stock and what to do in case of a catastrophe. Also on Megan’s presentation she talked about when cuts are being made to help all of these potential disasters there are many things that it can hurt such as; increase in outbreaks of diseases and not having the best resources to help us thrive in a poor environment.…
In the case of a natural disaster, we rely on our government to inform us about the severity of the disaster. Without this guidance, chaos and death may become prevalent. Kathy Zeitoun is one of the many people…
How would you feel if your town where you were born was flooded and never built back again? In the summer of 2005, in the city of New Orleans, a hurricane, which was named Katrina, destroyed the city, leaving people homeless and source less, and because of that, the government and the town’s council started thinking if they should really re built the city or not, because of possible future disasters. New Orleans is an important city because it was the home of many people, and without it they would need to find some other place to start their lives again, the city contains some great history that cannot be forgotten and if it was to be rebuilt it would be rebuilt in a way that would prevent any future disasters. With that said, even if New Orleans was destroyed by the hurricane, it should still be rebuilt and it should still be turned into a stronger city. I think that if New Orleans was in my hands I would for sure start rebuilding it, get the possible help from anyone, and making sure next time the city will be prepared to fight against future disasters, because it is just part of history, it can’t be let go.…
Federal intervention in the aftermath of natural disasters began after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. This 8.3 magnitude earthquake killed 478, and left over 250,000 homeless. While the disaster itself was obviously unavoidable, the subsequent fires that burned throughout the city were a result of poor planning. (1, 17) In an effort to consolidate existing programs, and to improve the nation’s level of preparedness, President Carter created FEMA in 1979. Initially, FEMA was praised for improving communication between various levels of government, and multiple agencies during a crisis. (1,19)…
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter formed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by consolidating several government organizations. That same year Congress appropriated funds to transfer the Civil Defense Staff College (CDSC) and United States Fire Administration (USFA) and National Fire Academy (NFA) into FEMA.…
on the ground. It was amateur hour at its finest and blame was spread throughout with the Federal Governments head relief agency FEMA, bearing the brunt for failure.…
Once again as highlighted in the first discussion for the week, in my profession we must adhere to the specific Department of Defense guidelines regarding the subject (social media access). My profession does not consist of sitting behind in a desk in a nice comfortable environment. We, live and work in austere conditions in Iraq or Afghanistan, and reside off base when working for the US Army in Kuwait. Operational requirements would therefore restrict our accessibility to social media websites. Working as a Personal Security Officer for FEMA, compute access was non-existent, our role was protection of FEMA assets to include personnel and property.…
They ought to build up a coordinated public communications plan to better inform, direct, and console the American people before, during, and after a disaster. The Department of Homeland Security ought to empower this arrangement with operational capacities to convey coordinated public affairs teams during a…
BC Early Learning Framework: Relationships The most important relationship in a child’s life is the connection between a child and their parents, however strong attachments to caregivers encourage social confidence and support the understanding of a child’s relation to others and their community (BC Early Learning Framework, 2008, pg. 10). The British Columbia Early Learning Framework (2008) is a resource that outlines imperative learning principles that guide the success of all early learning centers in British Columbia (pg. 2). The framework is intended for children from infancy through to kindergarten is easily accessible for early childhood educators and parents through the government of British Columbia ’s website (Government of British Columbia, para. 1). Like the framework for early childhood educators, these educators provide the same type of resource to support the child’s development.…
Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster that had never been experience in the history of the United States. Therefore, we as Americans could only hope that we had efficiently plan for the worst, and expect the best outcome. As it turns out, August 29th, 2009 the worst did in fact happen, and America as a whole was less than prepared. A Category 5, Hurricane Katrina ultimately devastated the lives of millions of Americans, costing billions of dollars in damage and changing the way we viewed our reliability on our countries disaster relief forever.…
In this analysis, the role of the government and it’s response to Hurricane Katrina will be examined. This is a complex subject which raises many questions, such as: (1.) the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina resulting from the layered government administration, (2.) several types of errors in policies causing neglect in decision making, (3.) the political manipulation of disaster declaration and relief aid to win votes, (4.) the problems of acquiring timely and accurate solutions, (5.) Glory seeking by government officials, (6.) the short sightedness effect causing a one-sidedness in governmental decision making.…
This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong decisions, which is indicated by Republican Sen. David Vitter’s words “Instead of spending millions now, we are going to spend billions later” (Grunwald and Glasser).…