Ethical Issues In Emergency Management

Since its inception, FEMA has dealt with quite many disasters. In all these disasters, at least, people’s lives and property have been saved. Public opinion on the performance of FEMA is quite divergent. However, there is a feeling that FEMA has several weaknesses that if corrected will help the agency achieve its objectives and even exceed public expectations about its performance. In particular, FEMA’s responses to 9/11 attacks and

There is only so much that government agencies can do to educate the public, and there comes a point where society must take ownership for their own emergency preparedness. However, it has been found that these public education initiatives have been surprisingly effective at encouraging people to prepare for disaster. FEMA has found that an awareness of vulnerabilities to natural disasters motivates people to prepare. People need to feel as though they themselves can be adversely affected by a disaster, and that disasters are not merely events which happen elsewhere. More importantly, FEMA has found that messaging should be targeted to specific hazards, since “all-hazard messaging may dilute critical differences in preparedness and response protocols.”

Building credibility is an important task to complete when implementing a Risk Communication Program. In order to build credibility one must show effective job performances with minor incidents such as “minor incidents, such as minor floods, that cause damage and disruption of normal activities” (Lindell, Perry, & Prater, 2007). Credibility is built also by “effective performance in public hearings or in meetings with neighborhood associations and civic organizations” (Lindell, Perry, & Prater, 2007) Credibility can also come from helping the community understand, caring, and considering the outrage factors. Another piece to implementing a Risk Communication Program is to understand and use the varieties of channels to spread hazard information. Communicating with the community is the largest part to implementing an effective program. Also when implementing a Risk Communication Program, communicating with the community about which adjustments are being planned and implemented so the community is always up to date. And lastly, evaluating the program effectiveness is a big step in the right direction of implementation. Describing the adjustments to the households to everyone involved will also help with implementation. Informing people of what they can do to protect themselves and reduce damage will make the implantation easier. Setting goals and meeting goals will help in the effectiveness of the program. Seeing a rise in the number of households with “hazard insurance, family emergency plans, earthquake-prone homes with water heaters strapped to the foundations, and hurricane-prone homes with window shutters” (Lindell, Perry, & Prater, 2007), shows that the program is

However, public shelter are usually activated together with an evacuation order (Wolshon, 2001; Lindell, 2013) to provide evacuees a temporary safe place (Quarantelli, 1995). Even so, a hurricane evacuation behavioral study by Mileti, Sorensen and O’Brien (1992) reported that the usage of public shelter was usually under 15% and was occupied by ethnic minorities, vulnerable households (e.g., low income family and elders), and later departures. Baker (2000) also found a similar percentage of public shelter usage in Hurricane Floyd while this percentage was much lower as 5.5% in Hurricane Bonnie (Whitehead, 2003), 3% in Hurricane Lili (Kang, Lindell, and Prater, 2011), 3% in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (Wu et al., 2012), and less than 1% in Hurricane Ike (Wu et al., 2013). On the other hand, over 60% of evacuees were more likely to stay with their friends or family (Baker, 2000; Whitehead, 2003; Kang, Lindell, and Prater, 2011; Wu et al., 2012;

Well said! I could not agree more. Working in the Emergency Department, many of my conversations are centered around patient advocacy as well. The family, many times, goes against the wishes of their loved one when the loved one can't speak for him/herself. I tell my children, almost daily, that when I can not speak for myself I expect them to respect my wishes and follow what I have asked them to do.

Every emergency management plan must have a diagram that leaves room for recovery. Recovery takes efforts that must combine every leader of the community, from every level. This idea is crucial when dealing with the aftermath of a disaster. Knowing how to respond is one thing, but knowing how to recover properly and promptly is critical for any community after a disaster. This brings up the assistance programs that the government has to offer. This are plans designed to help people and communities, as individuals and as a whole. These programs must be utilized when dealing with recovery. Not to mentioned that these plans are designed to bring the public back to a normal aspect of their lives after a disaster. The times of recovery are difficult or threatening in many ways, therefore every program designed to support the recovery stage of a disaster must be considered by leaders of the community. This paper focuses on Public Assistance Programs designed to do just that, to help the public. A disaster can really damage a community and make the environment un-safe for the public, these programs help to make a bad situation or condition functional. The government’s intention and involvement after a disaster is to attempt to relive some of the stress brought by disasters, these programs support such believe. That’s what this project will analyze, it will focus on finding how FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Programs functions, the idea behind them, and

The term social vulnerability is defined as the threat to a community’s ability to cope with an emergency or disaster (Lindell, Prater, Perry, & Nicholson, 2006, p. 153). This threat level can vary between community segments as well as through each phase of the emergency management process. First, within the pre-impact condition scope, social vulnerability is not much different the definition of the term itself. It is the ability for communities to anticipate, cope, mitigate, and recover from an incident prior to the incident occurring (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 155). However, it is important to note this factor level changes from community to community, household to household, and based on location to hazard-prone areas which make it difficult to determine who may be impacted due to the unequal distribution of vulnerability. Next, within the incident event condition scope, emergency managers could see a wide variety of social impacts (psychosocial, demographic, economic, and political). Though not considered to be long-term, psychosocial impacts could prompt citizens to respond with fatigue, nausea, and/or inability to concentrate in the face of disaster (Lindell, Perry, & Perry, 2007, p. 164). In addition, disaster events cause people to leave the area for temporary shelter. This is only temporary however, communities could experience demographic

After a disaster, many survivors have to deal with the task of finding family members, neighbors, and friends who could potentially be lost or deceased. They often turn to emergency responders to assist them in this difficult task. Dealing with deceased victims after a disaster can be overwhelming and complicated. The lack of coordination amongst emergency responders, other authorities, and family members could lead to legal issues. It is important to understand and be sensitive to the deceased victim’s family members by acting morally and ethically. I discuss some of the moral and ethical implications that emergency responders can take into consideration, when dealing with dead body management, and within a risk management plan.

As global climate continues to change, emergency managers must prepare communities around the world for frequent catastrophic focusing events. Specific disasters vary from location to location; consequently, many emergency preparedness plans in many jurisdictions are ineffective. As a result, government officials and emergency managers under evaluate and wrongly assess areas of vulnerability. I present some of the special needs groups that emergency managers can include in vulnerability assessments. Lastly, I explain how emergency managers can collect resources to create concrete assessments for responding effectively to vulnerable populations before and after disasters.

Data obtained by assessing social vulnerability must be implemented within each phase of the emergency management process; mitigation, response, and recovery. First, to effectively respond and recover from incidents emergency management agencies must concentrate on the mitigation phase to prevent incidents from happening in the first place. This is achieved through a thorough hazard/vulnerability analysis (HVA). This type of analysis assesses the risk of physical, economic, and social vulnerability within all communities of a given jurisdiction (Lindell et al., 2006, p. 165). Additionally, the basis of the HVA allows emergency managers to effectively plan for disaster by creating pre-planned responses to disasters (rather than improvised response) and staging resources to locations with the highest probability of risk; ultimately contributing to the mitigation and response phases.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical dilemma regarding a new nurse practitioner working at the emergency room (ER) in a small town. Mary Ann was taking care of the two individual who happened to be married and came separately to the ER with different problems; Amber came and discovered that she was pregnant, while her husband Mike came several weeks later complaining of a recurrence of thrush due to the fact that he is HIV positive.

In conclusion, Hurricane Katrina taught the emergency management field several valuable lessons. First and foremost, review the risk in communities and stay proactive with the goal of decreasing losses of property and the preservation of lives. Next, provide preparedness plans before an incident occurs, where possible. Then, setup open two-way communications throughout the leadership structure before, during and after the incident. Furthermore, leaders need to be aware of the economical culture and the geographical layout of the affected areas to deliver specific needs to the communities involved. Lastly, emergency management professionals need to utilize the “Whole Community” to be

To identify three principles in emergency management as being more important than others would take away years of research and evolution of current emergency management operating procedures. If I were to pick just three, it would be the ability to be comprehensive, progressive, and flexible. Being able to consider and actively take into account all phases, stakeholder, hazards, and impacts relevant to disasters allow emergency managers to be more successful in disaster mitigation and response. Being progressive is the ability to anticipate future crises and effectively produce prevention and preparation strategies, thus allowing managers and responders to construct disaster-resilient communities efficiently. The third important principle

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of any plan is in making sure to engage all stakeholders. Stakeholders are those individuals most likely to suffer in the event of a disaster, in this case,

However, more often than not, bystanders and victims of disasters are the first to engage in response activities. Another misconception is that all community stakeholders go through a fight-or-flight response due to a disaster, and often act irrationally. Moreover, a disaster often leads to antisocial behavior amongst victims, causing an increase in looting and higher crime rates (Kapucu & Özerdem, 2013). Researchers have found that crime rates decrease and looting rarely occurs in response to disasters. There is also a misconception that public agencies are unreliable and will only look after their own families, and not provide proper medical, shelter, and transportation for victims. Additionally, there is a misconception that when public agencies tell communities to evacuate, everyone leaves the area. However, convincing people to leave their homes is the hardest part of disaster