Disaster Response Activities

Disaster Response Activities
 

Warning. 

               This is the dissemination of information concerning the threat and danger that is likely or will occur. Warnings are ruined by delay and for that reason they require rapid release to all concerned. The result is to set-off preparation activities. The dispersion could be through radio, TV, mass texting and social media.

Evacuation.
              Evacuation means removing people from the area of risk, under imminent danger or been affected by a disaster the lives, emergency medical services being the source of urgency. In Kenya evacuation was recently seen with the evacuation of Kenyans from Sudan after clashes begun. During the floods in western Kenya small evacuations happen and migrations can be seen. The recent Westgate Mall terror attack made the country realize that training for such situations needs to be intensified to help evacuate people and quickly resolve terror related attacks.

From Bbc.

For evacuation to work some conditions are.

1. Accurate and timely warming system.
2. Clear escape routes.
3. An existing policy that requires all to comply with orders to vacate.
4. Public awareness of the evacuation plan.
Interestingly the evacuation of people from where drought or floods are ravaging is called crisis induced migration. We have seen these in western during floods and in norther Kenya where drought in almost an annual problem.

From Bbc

Disaster Management Awake: Response and Recovery.

Disaster Management: Response and Recovery.

      Responding to disasters is not a single institutions mandate and is rather the cumulative actions taken by several institutions and people against a disaster. It starts with mitigation warnings or emergency plans in action in the absence of a warning. When the disaster happens recovery and response has the primary function of meeting the basic needs of those affected until a solution is found. The solution should be permanent or sustainable and with the target being the sustainable livelihoods of the affected as a solution is sort for. The solution should promote faster recovery.

Disaster Response.

      Emergency response seeks to provide aid in maintaining life, health and mental health of the affected. The response can be in evacuation from hostile war zones, emergency health care, temporary shelter and relief food. This response has a main function of meeting the needs of the stricken until a solution is developed.

Aims of Disaster Response

The IFRC defines its primary aims in disaster response as rescue of people from immediate danger and stabilization of physical and emotional states of survivors with an extension of body recovery and restoration of power, water and basic needs.

The main aims of disaster response can be summed up as.
1.   To restore self-reliance and essential services quickly from those at greatest risk and under privileged.
2. Ensure the survival of the maximum number of affected.
3. Facilitate the repair/replacement of damaged infrastructure and encouraged the resumption of economic activities.
4. In the care of was and civil unrest the ago would be ensuring the protection of the civilians esp. with the collaboration of the ICRC and standing international conventions that must be complied.

Benson Mutahi Githaiga

Functional Annexes ..... Cont:of Development of the EOP

 Functional Annexes  

     This part of the development provides the specifications to roles and the responsibilities for the responders and gives direction on operations. Key to it is also is the inclusion of general terms that cut across responders. This helps in quick response in the event of a disaster or emergency.
     EOPs address matters of authority,direction and control, how information is to be exchanged and the communication path and the placement of early warming systems. It also deals with orders of evacuation, mass care, health and medical services and how resources will be managed. Other functions like emergency services, search and rescue and damage assessment are also clarified and the EOP can also have other miscellaneous activites of disaster management.
Exercising the EOP
     EOPs must be tested in development for obvious reasons. One such way is through preparatory training to orient staff of procedures and functions during a disaster. Another way which i think is more thorough is a table-top exercise that focuses mainly on responders and allows them to familiarize themselves with their functions/roles in the emergency system. This method involves them talking through different scenarios. The next phase would be to take the talk into a controlled mimicked emergency operation at an operation center. It involves verbal and written communications, telephone,radio and social media messaging.This moves to the Near-to Real exercises called field drills and there involve participants performing work orders. From here their is a full scale exercise, with all participants responding to the emergency with equipment and support like a real emergency. Next we shall look into publicizing the plan.

Thank you for reading my small research work into this field. I have now attained 1000 plus views. I will keep up the blog and keep hoping it stays relevant to you. 

Benson Mutahi Githaiga

Developing the Emergency Operation Plan.

        Emergency operation plan sets out the scope of activities required for community preparedness and response and has a declaration of what the community can realistically manage to do for themselves. EOP's are short term, and flexible to deal with likely changes that comes from the potential or real situations of emergency. Please not you are unlikely to have the mitigation strategy, administrative plan or the standard operating procedures contained in it. So how do we come up with an EOP? Well for one we need the following contained in it. A description of the plan, abstract, of contents, table of contents, Implementation, purpose of its section and the plans distribution. The document is to be assented by the head of the authority setting out the plan and thus giving it the validity, and authority it needs. The foundation of the plan is to be the prevailing laws and by-laws of the land.

Structure of the EOP

The EOP is specific in its layout as follows:

a)      Statement of Purpose – This is what the Plan seeks to achieve for citizens.

b)      Situation and assumptions – Statements of the emergency events, actual and potential, and describe the warning methods and any situations that may be peculiar/unusual to the community.

c)      Organization and assignment of responsibilities – Dealing specifically with how the jurisdiction will assign the emergency functions to carry out the Plan by roles of local officials in the emergency management structure.

d)      Concept of operations – This section describes the roles and relationships of government agencies, the private sector and how they interact with each other.

e)      Administration and logistics – The management of resources, general support requirements, and availability of services and support for all phases of emergency management and the policies set up to make these activities occur.

f)       Plan development and maintenance – This involve activities to keep the plan current and reflect changes that result from actual experiences in emergency management, changing emergency situations and assumptions, and modifications in the community’s profile.

g)      Authorities and references – These authorities and references apply to those statutes, executive orders, regulations, and formal agreements that pertain to any type of emergency.

h)      Definition of terms – This provides for a common understanding of the terms that will use in communication, directing and control in disasters.

(Courtesy of the VUSSC)

Develop and Test Warming Systems.

Develop and Test Warming Systems.

Disaster Risk Reduction

         Nations prone to natural disaster hazards need to understand that the hazard does not have to translate into disasters and with mitigations' preventative action especially when their is knowledge on the disaster and the sharing of the knowledge to the general public. To reduce risk we must talk about vulnerability again. In this case human vulnerability is the lack of capacity of a community to anticipate cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a hazard. They are factors that contribute to this vulnerability like population increase, rapid urbanization, poor planning, lack of knowledge, poverty and so forth (for others visit). Poverty is the most crippling of these. 

http://bit.ly/1htaPoo

                      Disaster Risk Reduction is at the heart of disaster preparedness forming plans pre-disaster, during and post disasters. Risk reduction is defined as physical measures to reduce the vulnerability and exposure of infrastructure to natural hazards as well and to provide coping and adaptive infrastructure in case of a disaster event. Some DRR Recommendations for countries which do don’t have a robust disaster preparedness plan are.   The measures above reduce risk and keep a nation or community functional. Some DRR measures a nation can take are key into their planning and policy are 

Ø  Appropriate planning to mitigate flooding in flood susceptible regions and alternative infrastructure like roads for the provision of food and clean water and other vital services and supplies.

Ø  Provision of raised flood shelters.

Ø  The upgrading of water supply systems in rural areas to provide sufficient drinkable water supply during floods or droughts.

Ø  The construction and utilization of drainage pumps as an example of amplification of the capability to cope with floods.

Ø  Develop or further strengthen community-based disaster preparedness by focusing more on the roles of the different components of the community.

Ø  Improve communication through better use of available technologies and a mover from manual systems to digital platforms.

Ø  Educate farmers to diversify the range of crops they produce as a strategy to survive in the event of disaster.

These are just a few examples. I am very sorry for the absence of a post in November.

Disaster Management Cycle. Preparedness.

Disaster Management Cycle. Preparedness.

 
         Let’s get ready for it! We aim to get a satisfactory level of readiness to able us to respond to any emergency that may arise. The preparedness measures can be logistical with rehearsals, public education, developing the long and short term strategies and building warning systems. The second manifestation is in the form of food reserves like for the periodically drought stricken areas of Kenya (I am hoping that the decentralization of some services in Kenya will empower these areas to have reserves of their own.), equipment (Sadly the Kenya fire department has one engine that serves the entire Nairobi with its 4million plus residents), water, medications and other essentials are available and maintained in case of events. The measures include.

courtesy of The Disaster Management blog

• Preparedness plans
• Emergency exercises/training
• Warning systems
• Emergency communications systems
• Evacuations plans and training
• Resource inventories
• Emergency personnel/contact lists
• Mutual aid agreements
• Public information/education

                          The top-bottom rule applies here just like in mitigation. We must include the national and regional development plans. Emergency preparedness demands the government be able to successfully deliver its responsibilities. Those involved in preparedness require a holistic approach, taking into account mitigation, response, recovery and the business side of preparedness. Mitigation and preparedness go hand in hand with mitigation policies reducing vulnerability and bolstering and creating resilience. The preparedness includes for example to ensure there is equipment is in available and maintained to be used in case of an emergency or educating people in slums on how to manage fires since the fire engines are not able to access them. The collective capability of a community to deal with catastrophes when they occur is a measure of their preparedness. In no way am I daring to water down the importance of mitigation but if one is to pick then preparedness would be the better choice with communities being empowered with causes of action to take in case of an emergency. A clear importance is emerging now that the formal authorities must be on the frontline of preparedness. It was for example the Kenya Defense Forces were not ready for a terror hostage event. They clearly would need more training to resolve such events with better skill. The IFRCRCS states that disaster preparedness requires global, national, community and individual inputs. It incorporates efficiency, effectiveness and impact of disaster emergency response mechanisms in the greater community.

Benson Mutahi Githaiga

Disaster Management Enthusiast

References

Emergency Management: the American Experience,1900-2010. ed. Claire B.Rubin  

 http://www.un-spider.org/about-us/news/en/6627/2013-04-25t154700/odi-report-disaster-risk-management-and-development

http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.col.org%2FSiteCollectionDocuments%2FDisaster_Management_version_1.0.pdf&ei=TU0fUu2pCcPD7AaN5YCwBw&usg=AFQjCNFTu0x4d83emTdP7PeqNce5_tocqw&bvm=bv.51495398,d.ZGU

http://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CFkQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gobookee.net%2Fintroduction-to-disaster-management%2F&ei=TU0fUu2pCcPD7AaN5YCwBw&usg=AFQjCNGfJUQc_bdnzhgRaoFoKkVLME69bw&bvm=bv.51495398,d.ZGU