A natural disaster is a disaster with links to natural hazards. A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves economic damage in its wake. The severity of the damage depends on the affected population's resilience and on the infrastructure available. Examples of natural hazards include: avalanche, coastal flooding, cold wave, drought, earthquake, hail, heat wave, hurricane, ice storm, landslide, lightning, riverine flooding, strong wind, tornado, typhoon, tsunami, volcanic activity, wildfire, winter weather. Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned. A disaster is a result of a natural or human-made hazard impacting a vulnerable community. It is the combination of the hazard along with exposure of a vulnerable society that results in a disaster.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders on April 1, 1979. The agency's primary purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the state in which the disaster occurs must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. The only exception to the state's gubernatorial declaration requirement occurs when an emergency or disaster takes place on federal property or to a federal asset—for example, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or the Space Shuttle Columbia in the 2003 return-flight disaster.
Seismic risk refers to the risk of damage from earthquake to a building, system, or other entity. Seismic risk has been defined, for most management purposes, as the potential economic, social and environmental consequences of hazardous events that may occur in a specified period of time. A building located in a region of high seismic hazard is at lower risk if it is built to sound seismic engineering principles. On the other hand, a building located in a region with a history of minor seismicity, in a brick building located on fill subject to liquefaction can be as high or higher risk.
Earthquake preparedness is a set of measures taken at the individual, organisational and societal level to minimise the effects of an earthquake. Preparedness measures can range from securing heavy objects, structural modifications and storing supplies, to having insurance, an emergency kit, and evacuation plans.
Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actually focus on the management of emergencies, which can be understood as minor events with limited impacts and are managed through the day to day functions of a community. Instead, emergency management focuses on the management of disasters, which are events that produce more impacts than a community can handle on its own. The management of disasters tends to require some combination of activity from individuals and households, organizations, local, and/or higher levels of government. Although many different terminologies exist globally, the activities of emergency management can be generally categorized into preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery, although other terms such as disaster risk reduction and prevention are also common. The outcome of emergency management is to prevent disasters and where this is not possible, to reduce their harmful impacts.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is a program created by the Congress of the United States in 1968 through the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. The NFIP has two purposes: to share the risk of flood losses through flood insurance and to reduce flood damages by restricting floodplain development. The program enables property owners in participating communities to purchase insurance protection, administered by the government, against losses from flooding, and requires flood insurance for all loans or lines of credit that are secured by existing buildings, manufactured homes, or buildings under construction, that are located in the Special Flood Hazard Area in a community that participates in the NFIP. U.S. Congress limits the availability of National Flood Insurance to communities that adopt adequate land use and control measures with effective enforcement provisions to reduce flood damages by restricting development in areas exposed to flooding.
The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is a 1988 United States federal law designed to bring an orderly and systematic means of federal natural disaster assistance for state and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to aid citizens. Congress's intention was to encourage states and localities to develop comprehensive disaster preparedness plans, prepare for better intergovernmental coordination in the face of a disaster, encourage the use of insurance coverage, and provide federal assistance programs for losses due to a disaster.
Butch Kinerney is Chief of Communications for the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and an expert in risk and crisis communications. He served as acting press secretary for FEMA in 2005–2006, rising to the position immediately following landfall of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. During Katrina and the ongoing recovery in the Gulf Coast, he was quoted more than 30,000 times in the press, from Katrina's first landfall in Florida throughout the tumultuous fallout from FEMA's response efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Saint Lucia's National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) is responsible for disaster preparedness and disaster response co-ordination.
Mitigation is the reduction of something harmful or the reduction of its harmful effects. It may refer to measures taken to reduce the harmful effects of hazards that remain in potentia, or to manage harmful incidents that have already occurred. It is a stage or component of emergency management and of risk management. The theory of mitigation is a frequently used element in criminal law and is often used by a judge to try cases such as murder, where a perpetrator is subject to varying degrees of responsibility as a result of one's actions.
Preparedness is a research-based set of actions that are taken as precautionary measures in the face of potential disasters. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.
Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is an applied science, information and technology center, working to reduce disaster risks and impacts on life, property, and the economies worldwide.
Andrew Velasquez III is the former Regional Administrator for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Region V. He coordinated preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation activities for the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Prior to his appointment as Region V administrator he served as Director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Executive Director of Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communication.
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services is a California cabinet-level office responsible for overseeing and coordinating emergency preparedness, response, recovery and homeland security activities within the state. The agency was created by AB 38 (2008), superseding both the Office of Emergency Services (OES) and Office of Homeland Security (OHS).
Emergency management software is the software used by local, state and federal emergency management personnel to deal with a wide range of disasters and can take many forms. For example, training software such as simulators are often used to help prepare first responders, word processors can keep form templates handy for printing and analytical software can be used to perform post-hoc examinations of the data captured during an incident. All of these systems are interrelated, as the results of an after-incident analysis can then be used to program training software to better prepare for a similar situation in the future. Crisis Information Management Software (CIMS) is the software found in emergency management operation centers (EOC) that supports the management of crisis information and the corresponding response by public safety agencies.
The Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University is located in the Stephenson National Center for Security Research and Training at LSU.
The Waffle House Index is an informal metric named after the ubiquitous Southern US restaurant chain Waffle House known for its 24-hour, 365-day service. This restaurant's drive to always remain open has given rise to an informal but useful metric to determine the severity of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery. It was coined by former administrator Craig Fugate of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The metric is unofficially used by FEMA to inform disaster response.
Due to the common occurrence of hurricanes in the coastal state of North Carolina, hurricane recovery in North Carolina is a large component of the state's emergency management efforts. Recovery from these tremendous storms at the local and state level is a large part of the aftermath of a hurricane. Gavin Smith and Victor Flatt stated that "Disaster recovery remains the least understood aspect of hazards management, when assessed relative to preparedness, response, and hazard mitigation." Smith and Flatt also went on to state that the role of the states is even less understood. The review of the plans and policies that instruct recovery, agencies involved, funding processes and budgets, and the environmental effects of a hurricane creates a better understanding of how North Carolina recovers from a hurricane.
In Emergency Management, higher learning institutions must frequently adapt broad, varied policies to deal with the unique scope of disasters that can occur in on-campus settings. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and wildfires are among some of the most common natural disasters that possess the capacity for large losses of life and property, with the potential to effectively destroy a university community. Man-made crises also can pose a serious threat to life and property, as was evident in the case of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. In order to preemptively reduce or prevent the severity of emergency situations, universities must coordinate and implement policies to effectively eliminate unnecessary risks' and decrease potential losses.
Disaster preparedness in museums, galleries, libraries, archives and private collections, involves any actions taken to plan for, prevent, respond or recover from natural disasters and other events that can cause damage or loss to cultural property. 'Disasters' in this context may include large-scale natural events such as earthquakes, flooding or bushfire, as well as human-caused events such as theft and vandalism. Increasingly, anthropogenic climate change is a factor in cultural heritage disaster planning, due to rising sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns, warming average temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events.
