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HM510WK1DQ.docxHM510
Week 1 DQ
Topic #1:
Mitigation, Preparedness, and Resilient Communities
What is the difference between mitigation and preparedness? How does mitigation play a role in the development of resilient communities? Why is this important to community sustainment? Provide examples of where this has occurred.
Reply to Student #1
Aston Smallwood
Mitigation, Preparedness, and Resilient Communities
In its classical meaning, mitigation refers to a sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate risk to people and property from hazards and their effects. Mitigation activities address either or both of the two components of risk, which are probability (likelihood) and consequence. By mitigating either of these components, the risk becomes much less of a threat to the affected population. In the case of natural disasters, the ability of humans to limit the probability of a hazard is highly dependent on the hazard type, with some hazards such as hurricanes or tornadoes impossible to prevent, while avalanches, floods, and wildfires are examples of hazards for which limiting the rate of occurrence is possible (Bollock al., et, 2017).
In general, however, mitigation efforts for natural hazards tend to focus on improved consequence management. In terms of man-made disasters, however, there is a much greater range of opportunities to minimize both the probability and the consequences of potential incidents, and both are applied with equal intensity. Mitigation in terms of terrorism, which is a much more complicated process, is discussed later in this chapter (Bollock al., et, 2017).
Preparedness can be defined as a state of readiness to respond to a disaster, crisis, or any other type of emergency situation. In general, preparedness activities can be characterized as the human component of predisaster hazard management. Training and public education are the most common preparedness activities, and, when properly applied, they have great potential to help people survive disasters. Although preparedness activities do little to prevent a disaster from occurring, they are very effective at ensuring that people know what to do once the disaster has happened (Bollock al., et, 2017).
Resilient Communities: A disaster resilient community is one that works together to understand and manage the risks that it confronts. Disaster resilience is the collective responsibility of all sectors of society, including all levels of government, business, the non-government sector and individuals. If all these sectors work together with a united focus and a shared sense of responsibility to improve disaster resilience, they will be far more effective than the individual efforts of any one sector (Bollock al., et, 2017).
Application of a resilience-based approach is not solely the domain of emergency management agencies; rather, it is a shared responsibility between governments, communities, businesses and individuals. The purpose of the Strategy is to provide high-level guidance on disaster management to federal, state, territory and local governments, business and community leaders and the not-forprofit sector. While the Strategy focuses on priority areas to build disaster resilient communities across America, it also recognizes that disaster resilience is a shared responsibility for individuals, households, businesses and communities, as well as for governments. The Strategy is the first step in a long-term, evolving process to deliver sustained behavioral change and enduring partnerships (Bollock al., et, 2017).
Reference
Bullock, J., Coppola, D. & Haddow, G. (2017). Introduction to Emergency Management. 7th. Ed. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Reply to Student #2
Diego Salgado posted
Mitigation and Preparedness
Mitigation is the action to reduce or eliminate risk to individuals and property from hazards created by natural or man-made hazards and their effects. In general, mitigation efforts for natural hazards tend to target consequence management. On the contrary, man-made hazards have a much more extensive range of opportunities to decrease potential incidents' probability and consequences (Haddow et al., 2021).
Preparedness is the local, state, or federal emergency management state readiness to efficiently respond to any type of disaster, crisis, or any other emergency. Training and public education are considered the most common preparedness activities, which can help communities survive disasters when done correctly (Haddow et al., 2021).
Threats and hazards continue to play a major risk to people and their property. Therefore, by minimizing the overall impact of disasters and manage risk and vulnerabilities, community residents can feel confident knowing they live in safer, more secure, and resilient communities. The development of resilient communities is essential to community sustainment because community resilience increases the typical preparedness approach by encouraging actions that build community readiness while promoting robust community systems that address and reduce the negative impacts of disasters (Homeland Security, 2016).
The most common example is the devastating effects that Hurricane Katrina had on the city of New Orleans. The many failures of the local, state, and federal governments to address the known risk exposed a long list of hazards that could have been addressed before the hurricane through a mitigation and hazards reduction plan.
Reference
Homeland Security. (2016). National mitigation framework (2nd ed.). https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/National_Mitigation_Framework2nd_june2016.pdf
Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2021). Introduction to emergency management (7th ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann publications.
Reply to Student #3
Antonio Custodio posted Sep 23, 2021 8:04 PM
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Mitigation and preparedness from my understanding are almost the same thing with the same goals within emergency management, the differences between the two is mitigation is the all around effort in preventing a disaster and/or relieving the impact of a disaster and these efforts can be done before, during, and after a disaster. (Perry, R. W. & Lindell, M. K., 2003) Preparedness is being prepared for not only mitigation efforts but mostly the response for a disaster, as the preparedness part of emergency planning I feel specifically addresses a community, company, or departments ability to respond to such disaster and their ability to handle such responses. Communities who are prepared and participate in mitigation help create resilient communities as these efforts help save lives and property especially within communities who are prone to disasters every year like earthquakes or hurricanes. (Trask, J., A. 2015)
References:
Perry, R. W., & Lindell, M. K. (2003). Preparedness for emergency response: guidelines for the emergency planning process. Disasters, 27(4), 336–350. https://doi-org.libauth.purdueglobal.edu/10.1111/j.0361-3666.2003.00237.x
Trask, J. A. (2015). An academic approach to climate change emergency preparedness. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 9(2), 119–128.
Topic #2:
Natural and Technological Disasters
Both natural and man-made hazards can lead to disasters. Depending on your geographic location you may have a high risk/frequency of vulnerability to such disasters. Identify specific natural and or man-made hazards that you are most vulnerable to in your community, as well as the most recent significant event that was the result of a natural/man-made hazard. Was your community prepared? Why, or why not? Outside of your community, has a technological disaster resulted from a natural disaster?
Reply to Student #1
Travis Reed
Hello Y’all
Both natural and man-made environmental hazards have the potential to cause a disaster. The State of Texas is vulnerable to winter storms. A winter storm is a natural hazard involving a weather event where the process of precipitation is dominated by freezing rain, snow, or sleet. Moreover, these events are accompanied by below-freezing temperatures and strong winds. The weather condition in Texas makes it among the communities in the United States that are more vulnerable to winter storms. In February 2021, the Texas area experienced a severe winter storm, which caused rolling blackouts, water shortages, and made several roads impossible to navigate in certain areas (Hauser & Sandoval, 2021). Moreover, the most affected regions had older homes that had poor insulation.
No, my community was not well prepared for this disaster since I had not been declared a major disaster. Thus there was no sufficient funds allocation to cater for the mitigation and preparedness of the community. However, upon the declaration of this event as a major disaster by President Biden, Texas people are now eligible to access federal disaster assistance, which will factor in preparation for these events in any future occurrence. Technological disasters such as industrial fires, accidents of hazardous materials, and oil spills can result from natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes. For example, in 2017, Texas experienced several oil spoils, which is a technological disaster that was caused by Hurricane Harvey, a natural disaster (Krausmann et al., 2019). This disaster was devastating as it led to the loss of many lives in Texas.
References
Krausmann, E., Girgin, S., & Necci, A. (2019). Natural hazard impacts on industry and critical infrastructure: Natech risk drivers and risk management performance indicators. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 40, 101163.
Hauser, C., & Sandoval, E. (2021, March 17). Winter storm 2021. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/series/winter-storm-power-outage/
v/r
Reed
Reply to Student #2
Antonio Custodio
Where I live in Northern California we are prone to earthquakes year round and they can be unpredictable and quite difficult to predict, a lot of areas within my community and surrounding communities have high risk vulnerabilities that if struck by an earthquake can be devastating to the communities infrastructure and life safety. Another risk we are prone to that are both man made and natural are California’s wildfires which have been arguably progressively getting worse and worse every year. Although wildfires have been a part of natural disasters I do feel in the last few years more and more man made wild fires have been occurring such as power transformers failing, camp fires getting out of control, or other electrical power failures causing wildfires. This has been the result of a technological disaster with a few years ago a transformer sparked and caused a wildfire in a rural area of Northern California resulting in a wildfire that was named The Camp Fire that destroyed a town called Paradise and claimed the lives of 85 individuals and injured several firefighters. (Mass, C. F., & Ovens, D. 2021) Every year we prepare as a state for these fires and earthquakes and in my opinion we have been prepared to a certain degree yet it feels the state and surrounding communities are often not prepared for how large and fast some of these fires can be with climate change being one suspect with hotter and dryer summers becoming more frequent. Although lately the main reason in the past few years has been technological failures from power companies such as Pacifica Gas & Electric making wildfires as of late being a manmade disaster lately. (Romo, V. 2020)
References:
Mass, C. F., & Ovens, D. (2021). The Synoptic and Mesoscale Evolution Accompanying the 2018 Camp Fire of Northern California. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 102(1), E168–E192. https://doi-org.libauth.purdueglobal.edu/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0124.1
Romo, V. (2020) . NPR, PG&E Pleads Guilty On 2018 California Camp Fire: 'Our Equipment Started That Fire'. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/879008760/pg-e-pleads-guilty-on-2018-california-camp-fire-our-equipment-started-that-fire
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Reply to Student #3
Kimberly Ord
Since I live in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, the biggest and most frequent natural hazard we have is flooding. We are right in the middle of many streams, creeks, and even a small river. That is followed by winter storms and summer storms. This information comes from personal knowledge but is also backed up by the most recent hazard mitigation plan for the county (Michael Baker International, 2020).
As for vulnerabilities to man-made hazards that could become disasters, our county has several high-risk dams, including the one mentioned in my topic one post – Raystown Dam – a 224 high by 1,700 feet wide earthen dam. The others are much smaller. Then we have the mainline of Norfolk Southern that traverses the county from a west-east path that carries everything imaginable under the sun, especially hazardous materials. Then along the railroad, we have U. S. Route 22 that carries many trucks, also many with hazardous materials.
Our most recent significant event was moderate to major flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida. We had 5-7 inches of rainfall on the county that all streams, creeks, and the Juniata River overflowed their banks in certain areas. Our community was prepared for most folks, all of whom have been through this before, and take steps before the storm. Though a few travelers were unprepared and tried to drive across flooded roads (around barricades) and got stuck. No injuries, except their vehicles, including a Mercedes SUV.
One thing that occurred both locally and across Pennsylvania as a result of Hurricane Ida’s remnants flooding areas was power outages in many areas. Some were caused by trees that fell, while others had damage to substations and the like. Locally, the rain caused our local hospital to lose power for four hours due to water getting in their basement (and they are up on one of the hills in town). It was just so much rain that seeped into the ground and found its way into many homes’ basements, including mine.
Reference
Michael Baker International. (2020). Multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan update: 2020 Huntingdon County. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1phFIDRgS9XJex7D8QZgbE2rAmajmY__z/view
