Discussing emergency management

Emergency Management: A Crucial Aspect of the Economy

Since the economy is vulnerable to natural disasters like earthquakes and flooding, emergency management is crucial in many facets of the economy. Resources are always on the line when a risk occurs. Therefore, they should be managed carefully to minimize the hazards’ unfavorable effects. The phases of emergency management, the resources used, and the stakeholders touched by these resources are all covered in this paper. Additionally, it explains how catastrophe management will alter how future resources are used.

The Phases of Emergency Management

The Department of Homeland Security lists five phases for emergency management: “prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery” (2016). The first phase, prevention, involves measures taken to hinder destruction of resources upon occurrences of risks. The diagram above illustrates the nature of prevention. A health facility located in an area prone to earthquakes, has the following available resources; capital and equipment, personnel, electricity and the community at large (Murphy 2007). The community is a resource since its goodwill is beneficial to the organization. The shareholders and personnel in the organization are therefore directly affected by the community’s goodwill. Electricity and equipment affect the firm directly since they contribute to the firm’s performance. Personnel provide services directly to clients hence affect the latter directly and shareholders indirectly. Preventive measures may include evacuating personnel and clients from the building and mounting equipment to the wall in case it is located in an earthquake-prone region. The firm can also train employees on measures to take in case of an earthquake to reduce the rate of destruction. Mitigation is similar to prevention since it involves taking preventative measures against the occurrence of risks. Completion of these preventive measures marks the end of this phase.

Preparedness: Reducing the Effects of a Disaster

Preparedness deals with the assembling of machines or following of steps to be used in case tragedy strikes. They are mostly used to reduce the effects of a disaster. This can be in form of putting up solar panels or windmills to serve as alternative sources of power during blackouts or investing in profitable investments to ensure that the firm has adequate capital in times of many bad debts. The firm can also have employee’s family and emergency contact information to prevent loss of life.

Response and Recovery: Safeguarding Wellbeing and Returning to Normal

Response may involve actions taken to safeguard the wellbeing of affected resources after the occurrence of a risk. It is the most crucial phase since it seeks to save life. The firm can get internal or external help from other concerned organizations. This phase highly depends on the goodwill of the community since it can volunteer to ’clean up the mess’ (Murphy 2007). Reallocation and efficient allocation of internal and external resources reduces the loss caused by the occurrence of the risk (Chen 2008). Worker’s strike is best responded to when a firm gets temporary personnel from other firms to cater to the needs of clients, in this case patients, while a return to work formula is formulated. The recovery phase begins immediately after human life is no longer threatened. It seeks to return things to normal. The firm can replenish and deploy resources according to their demand and availability. External resources can be retained or returned depending on the firm’s agreement with donors. It can now begin to devise new and efficient preventive measures that expose it to a smaller percentage of risk if none.

Conclusion: Effective Disaster Management for a Safer Future

Emergency management of resources is essential to reduce the effects caused by the occurrence of risks. Managers are expected to adopt effective disaster management strategies since their actions affect their clients, workers, and the community at large. Resources are fully utilized in the response phase since human life is at risk and every effort to save lives may lead to positive outcomes. Governments, organizations, and households should ensure that they prepare for unpredictable disasters so that they can avoid unnecessary loss of lives.

References

Chen, R., Sharman, R., Rao, H. R., & Upadhyaya, S. J. (2008). Coordination in emergency response management. Communications of the ACM, 51(5), 66-73.

Department of Homeland Security. (2016, May 7). Mission Areas. Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/mission-areas

Murphy, B. L. (2007). Locating social capital in resilient community-level emergency management. Nat Hazards, 41, 297-315.