To become relevant to disaster management, nature must collide with human activity [ 10 ]. Hazards can be quantified simplistically as the probability of an event occurring, causing harm [ 11 ]. And there is no separating hazard from risk and resilience [ 12 ]. So the hazard is the oncoming storm and the potential for harm to the village it approaches Figure 2. Hazard, risk, and vulnerability illustrated. Risk is connected choice and probability [ 11 ]. Choice by the decisions we make. We build in flood zones, we develop seaside resorts, and we ignore all but the most active fault lines when looking at real estate.
We buy fire insurance or not. We upgrade the old building to comply with seismic billing codes or not. We run disaster drills or not. Probability is the other face of risk.
Risk is an abstract concept, forever in the future, always uncertain. Risk is a complex and, at the same time, curious concept. It represents something unreal, related to random chance and possibility, with something that still has not happened. It is imaginary, difficult to grasp and can never exist in the present, only in the future. Vulnerability will create harm from the hazard. A predisposition to be harmed, intrinsic to the organization or organism is its vulnerability [ 11 ].
Poverty, age, gender, racial identification, geography, and many social, economic, and political factors are all parts. The vulnerability can accumulate until recovery is complete [ 12 ]. Resilience is woven through all aspects of disaster management—from preparation through mitigation, response, and recovery [ 12 , 14 ].
Resilience alters the disaster threshold. The more resilient a system, the more harm can be absorbed before the system is overcome [ 13 ]. More resilience means less susceptibility to disaster. Preparation and planning, mitigation, response, and recovery are the basic principles of emergency management [ 15 ]. It is called emergency management, but should really be called disaster management.
Both planned and improvised actions should be included [ 16 ]. Preparation occurs before the disaster and includes preventative measures [ 17 ]. Disaster preparation, then, can also raise the disaster threshold if the disaster is thus avoided. At least, effects are minimized through planned measures. In our example settlement, prevention of a storm may not have been possible, but prevention of harm was through city planning, weather warning systems, and flood-resistant housing and infrastructure.
Food and fuel stores could only be built up before the flooding. Mitigation also includes a component of prevention but is closer to the event than planning. Anything to minimize harms that are not prevented could be considered mitigation.
In Tucci, they could build up walls of sandbags to protect their homes. They could moor their boats securely. They could evacuate, or they may have been able to if they had made adequate plans and preparations. Clearly, all these components are intricately connected. The response may be what we typically think of when we envision a disaster. This is the responders—firefighters, paramedics, police, military, municipal forces, and volunteers—dousing the flames, treating the wounded, rescuing the stranded, and searching for victims.
Recovery entails returning, rebuilding, restoring. It is regaining a sense of normalcy, if not returning exactly to the pre-disaster state. Tucci will never be the same. The coastline will be altered.
Attitudes may change forever. Lives may be lost. Houses will have to be repaired or rebuilt. Few residents will rebuild their houses exactly as they were before the storm. Recovery should focus on learning from the disaster and improving those liabilities made apparent by the wind and waves.
This applies not only to the repairs to physical structures but to emotional health and economic stability. Preparation, planning, mitigation, and recovery are all important management principles for crises of any magnitude.
As complexity increases towards disasters, we focus on the response at the front lines. This is because this phase sees the most variation and inconsistency [ 18 ].
On the front and back ends, in planning and recovery, the skies are clear. There is time to think. Not so in response. The response is the result of planning and facilitates recovery. To be prepared for an emergency should be routine. Preparedness for a disaster does not automatically follow. By definition, local resources are sufficient to respond to an emergency. When these resources are overwhelmed, either by supply nature of the event or demand response capabilities , the situation is a disaster [ 19 ], Ch1.
Outside help is needed. Intra-agency communication and coordination are required, usually without the benefit of established relationships and protocols. As complexity increases, more emphasis must be placed on flexibility and coordination between teams. When the crisis moves from emergency to disaster, flexibility becomes increasingly important in planning, preparation, and response. In disaster planning, people should be prepared not to respond to specific circumstances, but to be able to adapt to the unanticipated.
Training for disaster, then, ideally trains flexibility, communication, and the ability to work across organizational boundaries [ 20 , 21 ]. Some structure is necessary to create the ability to adapt the structure to the situation.
At first, the people that asked this were given sympathetic smiles and apologies. Now, if anyone dared ask, it was only met with grunts and grumbles. There were only a handful of people who still had any battery life left on their phones, and no one had reception.
All but a few of the townspeople were crammed into the school for the night. It was loud. Fifty quiet conversations, a few crying babies, the howling wind, and the incessant rain added up. And the air was thick with sweat and sewer the toilets had all overflowed. A dozen people were standing in a circle in the middle of the gym, sorting through a pile of walky-talkies.
The side door flew open with the outside coming inside, and a group of bodies in rain gear, dripping from head to toe. It was a crew from Uah, an even smaller town down the coast. They had got their whole village out last week and came here on a few all-terrain vehicles to lend a hand. Apparently, there was a team coming from the city to take everyone out.
If the rain ever stopped…. The same standards employed in day to day operations, or even in an emergency when an organization has the capability to manage it , will consume valuable assets time, supplies, personnel, cognition when the system is asked to perform beyond capacity. Awareness of the difference between disaster standards and the standards applied to usual operations will facilitate effective disaster planning and response Figure 3.
Principles in management when emergency becomes disaster. Natural hazards alone do not result in disaster, but rather the vulnerability of the populations of countries impacted [ 24 ].
The complexity and chaos of disasters make management challenging in many ways. Even the best plans will be unable to address each difficulty encountered in a disaster [ 25 ]. In resource-poor environments, the challenge is greatly magnified.
The environments most often impacted by a lack of resources are those of a lower socioeconomic status. Poverty and disasters are strongly associated [ 19 ]. Developing countries are repeatedly subject to disasters resulting in reduced or negative development [ 19 ]. There was a lot of talk about fixing houses, repairing roads, upgrading the bridge. Most would never be able to afford anything more than patching the holes.
But that was so utterly inconceivable. Some would have to leave. Hard to live in a fishing village if your boat got washed away and you got no other way to make a living. More impoverished communities are more vulnerable to natural disasters due to a mixture of social, political, cultural and economic factors [ 28 ]. Residents within these poorer communities tend to live in environments more prone to hazards such as rural areas with limited access to resources.
The reduction in resources results in a more extended reconstruction period and can further delay developmental lag [ 19 ]. These financial setbacks to developing countries can create a cyclical impact of further delayed development lag and economic growth. Beyond the economic impacts, developing countries also face higher casualty rates. Disasters may bring about harm to poor, developing countries in many ways beyond death, injury and destruction [ 19 ].
Recent findings: The incident command system has become the accepted standard for all disaster response. Functional requirements, not titles, determine the organizational hierarchy of the Incident Command System structure. All disaster management teams must adhere to this structure to integrate successfully into the rescue effort. Increasingly, medical specialists are determining how best to incorporate their medical expertise into disaster management teams that meet the functional requirements of the incident command system.
Summary: Disaster management teams are critical to the mass casualty incident response given the complexity of today's disaster threats. When a disaster is identified, an appropriate team will be formed to assess and respond to the situation. Administration or designated Disaster Assessment Team Leader : To make decisions involving required personnel and closure of facilities once notification occurs.
For emergency situations that affect the organization's facilities e.
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