As an Emergency Manager, how would you:

Preventing corruption in the aftermath of a disaster; managing compound emergencies; ensuring equality in assistance and relief distribution
Select one.

Instructions:

The responses should consist of at least three substantive paragraphs that are well developed, referenced, and properly formatted. â€Substantive†means that the writer has contributed to the conversation with referenced facts or relevant personal experience, resulting in a reasoned argument that advances the scholarly discussion. Answers to discussion questions must include at least one non-assigned reading reference.

References to authoritative resources and official websites are provided. It must be available online. Use New Times Roman 12 font with 1†margins and APA formatting.

The required reading and one example from another student are attached, but please do your own work.

Points for Discussion:

The topic for this week’s discussion is special considerations. The reading assignment addresses some unique issues, and I’d like to address a few more that aren’t covered in the text. The first is for people with special needs. To begin, defining a special needs population is a significant challenge. As an Emergency Manager, how would you describe special needs? Children? What about the elderly? People who have disabilities? State wards, such as prisoners, children in foster care, and so on? Residents of a nursing home? Who else is there? What percentage of the population could be classified as having special needs? In recent years, special needs populations have been renamed to be more inclusive of “people with access and functional needs.” The underlying objectives, however, remain the same regardless of title. How can we provide appropriate care for these groups in an emergency? How do we make the difficult decision(s) of allocating potentially scarce resources to a small subset of the population as Emergency Managers? Isn’t the goal of emergency management to do the most good for the most people? How would you reconcile any fallout from the perception of not managing special needs populations appropriately?

The following special consideration to discuss is more of a situation, and it is the concept of evacuation. It’s a term that’s thrown around a lot, and there are a lot of different ways to do it, but at best, it’s an extremely difficult task. The first difficulty is determining when an evacuation should take place. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that can be used to determine when an evacuation should take place. While some circumstances, such as fires or chemical releases, provide an easy determination for small-scale evacuations. The decision to conduct large-scale evacuations becomes much more difficult, as does determining why, when, and how. So, what are some of the factors to consider when planning an evacuation? Why are we fleeing? What is the root cause of evacuation? Is it a natural disaster, a man-made disaster, or a technological disaster, and how does the cause affect the evacuation?

Let us consider a few questions and discuss this scenario. You are the Emergency Manager for a county on the ocean’s edge. A Tropical Storm has been upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, and current forecasts show the storm strengthening to a Category 3 or 4 hurricane over the next two days. The storm is expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of your county and then track north before heading out to sea. What are your current thoughts on evacuation?

Some facts about your county. Your county has a population of 250,000 people, a county prison with 120 inmates, two hospitals, and a small university. Is this information changing your mind about evacuating? If so, what other options do you have for protecting all of the different populations? There is also a topic that, in my experience, is frequently overlooked when discussing evacuation: where are the evacuees being relocated. Is it necessary to track specific populations? If so, how does this happen?

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the complexity of evacuation and possibly open the discussion to other options that are less complex but will require an equal amount of planning.

What other special considerations have you encountered or would like to discuss further?