explain what preparedness means

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Lecture Notes: Preparedness

Preparedness in the field of emergency management can best be defined as “a state of readiness to respond to a disaster, crisis, or other emergency situation.” General, or long-term preparedness encompasses the marshalling of resources in the areas of prediction, forecasting and warning against disaster events. It also involves education and training initiatives, and planning to evacuate vulnerable populations from threatened areas. It often takes place against a background of attempts to increase public and political awareness of potential disasters and to garner support for increased funding of mitigation efforts. Short-term preparedness means to prepare for certain disasters once they have begun or begin to occur. In this latter sense, preparedness means to prepare as much as possible for known disasters, and the best preparations are always about what we know best. The best preparation is to get ready, plan, organize, set up, and practice some drill or test. Good preparedness means proper planning, resource allocation, training, and simulated disaster response exercises. It is important to conduct exercises to ensure that skills, equipment, and other resources can be effectively coordinated when an emergency occurs. Exercises also provide a good opportunity to identify organizational and departmental shortcomings and take corrective action before an actual event takes place.

Airports, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities must conduct an exercise once every 2 years to maintain their certification or license to operate, and many employers are required by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration to have an emergency action plan that is in accordance with OSHA Guidelines for Emergency Response in the Workplace. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) requires nuclear power plants test their disaster plans yearly and conduct a full-scale exercise every two years. The U.S. Department of Justice - Office for Domestic Preparedness maintains HSEEP (Homeland Security Exercise & Evaluation Program) which is “both policy and doctrine” for how state-level Departments of Homeland Security ought to engage in exercise planning and management.

There are five (5) kinds of exercises that can be conducted in the name of emergency preparedness: (1) orientation; (2) drill; (3) tabletop exercise; (4) functional exercise; and (5) full-scale exercise. The difference between the last two is that a full-scale exercise usually involves people playing the role of victims, and the word “scenario” is usually applied to any exercise which has lots of enhancements or props to make it seem realistic. Good planning for the exercise may take up to three months prior to the event, but recommendations or “lessons learned & Best Practices” should be finished no later than three weeks afterwards.

The simplest example of a preparedness exercise would be an evacuation drill, or more precisely, an orientation on the location of escape exit routes with estimated clearance times. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) sells manuals on how to conduct evacuation drills. A good drill would include the routes people should take, where stockpiles of medical supplies are stored, how emergency and medical personnel should deploy, and a test of hospital capability to handle certain patients or injuries. FEMA also supports simulation exercises, and in fact has a Master Curriculum Guide at the EMI (Emergency Management Institute) website, and also collects “Smart Practices” that exemplify good local preparedness activities. Some of the lessons learned from conducting disaster simulations at the national or international level include the following:

· expect shortages of needed supplies, parts, and vaccines

· expect communications interoperability problems

· don’t make unified command overly complicated or formal

· prepare to deal with issues associated with sharing of (sensitive) information

· better notification and alert procedures may be needed

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