Disaster
- For the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, see Disaster (TNG episode).
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A disaster (from Latin meaning, "bad star") is the impact of a natural or man-made event that negatively affects life, property, livelihood or industry often resulting in permanent changes to human societies, ecosystems and environment. (Note that the event itself is not a disaster; it is the impact which is called a disaster.) Disasters manifest as hazards exacerbating vulnerable conditions and exceeding individuals' and communities' means to survive and thrive. Most events included herein are compiled from United States Federal Emergency Management Agency and Department of Homeland Security. [1][2]
The word's roots imply that when the stars are in a bad position, a disaster is about to happen. The Latin pejorative dis and astro, star (L. aster), creating the Italian disastro, which came in to the English language in the 16th century (OED 1590) through the French desastre.
Natural disasters
A natural phenomenon can easily cause a natural disaster. Appearing to arise without direct human involvement, natural disasters are sometimes called an act of God. A natural disaster may become more severe because of human actions prior, during or after the disaster itself. A specific disaster may spawn different types of events and may reduce the survivability of the initial event. A classic example, is an earthquake that collapses homes, trapping people and breaking gas mains that then ignite, and burn people alive while trapped under debris. Human activity in risk areas may cause natural disasters. Volcanos are particularly prone to causing other events like fires, lahars, mudflows, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
Avalanche
An avalanche is a slippage of built-up snow down an incline, possibly mixed with ice, rock, soil or plantlife in what is called a debris avalanche. Avalanches are categorized as either slab or powder avalanches. Avalanches are a major danger in the mountains during the winter as a large one can run for miles, and can create massive destruction of the lower forest and anything else in its path. For example, in Montroc, France, in 1999 300,000 cubic metres of snow slid on a 30 degree slope, achieving a speed of 100 km/h. It killed 12 people in their chalets under 100,000 tons of snow, 5 meters deep. The Mayor of Chamonix was charged with manslaughter. Avalanches are also predominant in the North American Rocky Mountains, as well as the Alps, the Himalayas, and the Andes. Most of the world's major ski resorts are just as prone to avalanches as Montroc was, and the seriousness of such a disaster is taken into precaution well. Some slopes are closed off due to excessive snow piling that could result in an avalanche. [3]
Drought
A drought is a long-lasting weather pattern consisting of dry conditions with very little or no precipitation. during this period, food and water supplies can run low, and other conditions, such as famine, can result. Droughts can last for several years and are particularly damaging in areas in which the residents depend on agriculture for survival. The Dust Bowl of the 1930's is a famous example of a severe drought. Some droughts can last from several months to several years, even decades if weather is prominent until then.
Earthquake
An earthquake is a sudden shift or movement in the tectonic plate in the Earth's crust. On the surface, this is manifested by a moving and shaking of the ground, and can be massively damaging to poorly built structures. Some cities such as Tokyo and San Francisco (considered the most prone city to earthquakes) have strict codes to high-rise skyscrapers on how they are designed to withstand tremors. But even the most powerful earthquakes can destroy the best built of structures. In addition, they can trigger secondary disasters, such as tsunamis, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Earthquakes occur along fault lines, and are unpredictable. They are capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people, such as in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 in San Francisco, the 1964 earthquake that rattled Anchorage, Alaska, and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. An earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area again in 1989 and collapsed double-decker highway structures in San Francisco and Oakland. Kobe, Japan also experienced a modern and deadly shockwave in 1995. Earthquakes can happen basically anywhere within random distances from a faultline, but the severity depends on the inscription depicted on the Richter Scale. The majority of the world's earthquakes occur around the Pacific Ring of Fire along the rims of the Pacific Plate.
Famine
Famine is a natural disaster characterized by a widespread lack of food in a region, and can be characterized as a lack of agriculture foodstuffs, a lack of livestock, or a general lack of all foodstuffs required for basic nutrition and survival. Famine is almost always caused by pre-existing conditions, such as drought, but its effects may be exacerbated by social factors, such as war. Particularly devastating examples include the Ethiopian famine, which lasted for many years, and the Irish Potato Famine, which was human-induced by economy-related powers.
Fire
A fire is a natural disaster that may destroy ecosystems like grasslands, forests causing great loss of life, property, livestock and wildlife. Bush fires, forest fires and mine fires are generally started by lightning, but also by human negligence or arson, and can burn thousands of square kilometers. One example of a past severe forest fire is the mine fire started near Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1962 that decimated the town and continued to burn down the surrounding region. Some of the biggest city-related fires are The Great Chicago Fire, The Great Fire of London in 1666, and the 1989 fire outbreak in Oakland, California. Fires are most constant in the American West and Australia, and are almost a common-sight. If a fire intensifies enough to produce its own winds and "weather", it will form into a firestorm. Some fires can be quite small compared to these, but either way fire is unpredictable. One example of this fact is when a small bush fire that seemed contained in southeastern Australia in 1997 ignited and blazed towards downtown Sydney: thankfully the fire was defeated by the luck of fair weather and fire brigade efforts. [4]
Flood
A flood is a natural disaster caused by too much rain or water in a location, and could be caused by many different sets of conditions, either human-induced, weather-related or simply abnormally. Floods can be caused by prolonged rainfall from a storm, including thunderstorms, rapid melting of large amounts of snow, or rivers which swell from excess precipitation upstream and cause widespread damage to areas downstream, or less frequently the bursting of man-made dams. A river which floods particularly often is the Huang He in China. One particularly damaging flood was actually a series that induced the Mississippi River region of the American Midwest in 1993: the Mississippi tends to overflow yearly. In 1998, Bangladesh, a heavily flood-prone region, experienced several massive floods that covered almost three quarters of the nation and left behind a waste of disease and famine. One man-made flood example is the collapse of the Vaiont Dam in northern Italy in the 1960's, where a landslide causd by loose soil slid into the dam's reservoir, sending a wave of water over the dam's crest and into the densely populated valley below. Some floods can be minor, yet it takes only 2 feet of floodwater for an automobile to be lifted and carried away by driven currents.
Hail
A hailstorm is a natural disaster where a thunderstorm produces a numerous amount of hailstones which damage the location in which they fall: they may tend to be at random and in some of the oddest locations. Hailstorms can be especially devastating to farm fields, ruining crops and damaging equipment. A particularly damaging hailstorm hit Munich, Germany on August 31, 1986, felling thousands of trees and causing millions of dollars in insurance claims. Skeleton Lake in the Himalayas was named so after 300-600 people were killed by a hailstorm between the 12th and 15th centuries. Some hailstones have been recorded as large as grapefruits (approximately 5 pounds).
Heat
A heat wave is a disaster characterized by heat which is considered extreme and unusual in the area in which it occurs. Though seemingly dull compared to any earthquake or tornado, heat waves kill more people than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, hail, and lightning combined. Heat waves are rare and require specific combinations of weather events to take place, and may include temperature inversions, katabatic winds, or other phenomena. The worst heat wave in recent history was the European Heat Wave of 2003, which clutched Western and Southern Europe in a state of extreme high temperatures.
Hurricane
A hurricane is a low-pressure cyclonic storm system which forms over the Atlantic Ocean and makes landfall with the Americas. It is caused by evaporated water which comes off of the ocean and becomes a storm. The Coriolis effect causes the storms to spin, and a hurricane is declared when this spinning mass of storms attains a wind speed greater than 74mph. Hurricanes are known as cyclones or typhoons in other regions of the world: the former occur in the Indian Ocean, while the latter occur in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The most damaging hurricane in the United States was Hurricane Katrina, which hit the United States Gulf Coast in 2005 and inundated a heavily populated New Orleans, Louisiana. Another devastating storm was Cyclone Tracy that struck Darwin, Australia in 1974, causing immense damage. Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all considered highly by locals who are affected by annual storms as threats and prepare long before the storm makes landfall. Once it does, it loses power and slowly begins to die into a series of small thunderstorms or just clouds.
Hypernova
A hypernova is the universe's most extreme and cataclysmic force. A hypernova is when a hypergiant star (a star at least 95-210 times bigger than our own Sun) explodes suddenly. A hypernova may have been the cause of the Ordovician-Silurian extinction events. When a hypergiant exploded, it sent a large gamma-ray burst to Earth destroying 90-95% of all living species on Earth at that time. A hypergiant star within at least 1500-2000 lightyears from Earth, when it explodes to a hypernova, is an automatic Earth extinction event. All species would be wiped out. The nearest hypergiant that could explode within 10000 to 2 million years from now, is Eta Carinae.
Impact event
Impact events are caused by the collision of large meteoroids, asteroids or comets (generically: bolides) with Earth and may sometimes be followed by mass extinctions of life. The magnitude of the disaster is inversely proportional to its rate of occurrence, because small impactors are much more numerous than large ones. The Tunguska event of the early 20th century is one example of what scientists believe was a close-call major impact event. There are also theories that the great dinosaurs as well as around 97.9% of Earth's life was extinguished 65 million years ago by a large impact in Mexico.
Landslide
A landslide is a disaster closely related to an avalanche, but instead of occurring with snow, it occurs involving actual elements of the ground, including rocks, trees, parts of houses, and anything else which may happen to be swept up. They can be just as dangerous as avalanches, and even more with the help of debris. Landslides can be caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or general instability in the surrounding land caused by deforestation or lack of porous soil. Mudslides, or mud flows, are a special case of landslides, in which heavy rainfall causes loose soil on steep terrain to collapse and slide downwards (see also lahar); these occur with some regularity in parts of California after periods of heavy rain. Rockslides are basically the same concept, only with loose rocks and boulders instead of mud. They can be a hazard for drivers in many mountainous regions of the world. The landslides that were produced by the 1964 Earthquake of Alaska caused a menagerie of family homes in Turnagain Heights to collapse into the shore below; some regions of the Alaskan coastline dropped as much as 20 feet below sea level.
Limnic eruption
A limnic eruption is a sudden release of asphyxiating or inflammable gas from a lake. Three lakes that are examples of limnic eruptions include Lake Nyos, Lake Monoun, and Lake Kivu. A 1986 limnic eruption of 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 from Lake Nyos suffocated 1,800 people in a 20 mile radius. In 1984, a sudden outgassing of CO2 had occurred at Lake Monoun, killing 37 local residents. Lake Kivu, with concentrations of methane and CO2, has not experienced a limnic eruption during recorded history, but is suspected of having periodic eruptions every 1,000 years. Due to liminc eruptions, some regions are even evacuated of citizens to avoid more deaths.
Mudslide
A mudslide is a slippage of mud because of poor drainage of rainfall through soil. An underlying cause is often deforestation or lack of vegatation. Some mudslides are massive and can decimate large areas, and are predominant in regions such as California, Peru, and Italy. In 2005 four blocks of the city of La Conchita in Southern California was buried by a massive mudslide in over 30 feet of earth. Ten people were killed by the slide and 14 were injured. Of the 166 homes in the community, fifteen were destroyed and 16 more were tagged by the county as uninhabitable. Some of the state's fine real estate are recently being considered as unstable and could collapse in a future mudslide. The deadliest recorded mudslide occurred in 1985 in Armero, Peru, when a volcanic eruption caused snow melt to pile up and destroy the town below, killing over 25,000 people.
Sinkhole
A sinkhole is a localized depression in the surface topography, usually caused by the collapse of a subterranean structure, such as a cave. Although rare, large sinkholes that develop suddenly in populated areas can lead to the collapse of buildings and other structures. Florida experiences the majority of America's severe sinkholes.
Solar flare
A solar flare is a violent explosion in the Sun's atmosphere with an energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs. Solar flares take place in the solar corona and chromosphere, heating the gas to tens of millions of kelvins and accelerating electrons, protons and heavier ions to near the speed of light. They produce electromagnetic radiation across the spectrum at all wavelengths from long-wave radio signals to the shortest wavelength gamma rays. Solar flare emissions are a danger to orbiting satellites, manned space missions, communications systems, and power grid systems. It is expected that the next extreme solar strom may occur in the year 2011. [5]
Storm surge
A storm surge is an onshore rush of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically a tropical cyclone. A storm surge is caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea level. Storm surges are particularly damaging when they occur at the time of a high tide, combining the effects of the surge and the tide. The highest storm surge ever recorded was produced by the 1899 Bathurst Bay Hurricane, which caused a 13 m (43 feet) storm surge to pummel the small Australian town. In the US, the greatest recorded storm surge was generated by Hurricane Katrina, which produced a storm surge of 9 m (30 feet) that slammed against the Gulf Coast.
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm is a form of severe weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its attendant thunder, often accompanied by copious rainfall, hail and on occasion snowfall and tornadoes. Thunderstorms can happen practically anywhere, and the severities of each can differ according to the present conditions. Notable landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Empire State Building of New York City are known to be struck by lightning over 200 times a year.
Tornado
A tornado is a natural disaster resulting from a thunderstorm of severe conditions, and is a large funnel of extremely high pressure winds cycling and twisting at random. Tornadoes are measured in power according to the Fujita scale: an F1 being the least powerful and an F5 being the most powerful. Though normally within the American Midwest in a region known as "Tornado Alley", tornadoes can occur almost anywhere. Tornadoes can occur one at a time, or can occur in large tornado outbreaks along a squall line. The most powerful tornado ever recorded in terms of wind speed was the monster which swept through Moore, Oklahoma in 1999 and reached windspeeds of up to 318 mph..one mile below the maximum F5 speed ever considered. Tornadoes do not just stay within rural regions of the world: major cities have had small yet terrifying tornadoes touch down in their downtown sectors before, such as the 1997 waterspout in Miami, Florida, the small twister which touched down in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1999, and a 2001 tornado hitting Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Tsunami
A tsunami is a giant wave of water which rolls into the shore of an area with heights that can be anywhere from 15 feet to even 50 feet in height. It comes from Japanese words meaning "harbor wave". Tsunamis are caused by undersea earthquakes or landslides, and are not noticed until reaching the shore, where the wave lifts form the rising sea floor. In the 1950's an earthquake in Lituya Bay, Alaska caused a massive landslide to fall into the bay's rear, forming the highest recorded wave in history when the wave past through the bay's head: over 1720 feet in height. Only 5 people were killed. The tsunami generated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake currently ranks as the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. The tsunami was caused by a 9.2 Richter earthquake caused by a massive shift in pressure between two plates near Sumatra. Currently, the Cascadia Fault along the Northwest coast of the Americas is experiencing the same amount of extreme pressure and may have the same outcome in the near future: a tsunami threatening coastal cities such as Vancouver and Seattle.
Volcanic eruption
A volcanic eruption is the point in which a volcano is active and releases its power, and the eruptions come in many forms. They range from daily small eruptions which occur in places like Kilauea in Hawaii, or extremely infrequent supervolcano eruptions in places like Lake Toba in Indonesia or Yellowstone in Wyoming. Some eruptions form pyroclastic flows, which are high-temperature clouds of ash and steam that can trial down mountainsides at speed exceeding an airliner. The eruption of Mount Pelee of the Caribbean in the 19th century incinerated the entire town of Martinique below. The more famous example is of Mount Vesuvius, which buried the city of Pompeii, Italy in 79 A.D. and its resident in heaps of ash, and the remains were later recovered preserved and intact. Recent large volcanic eruptions include that of Mount St. Helens in Washington and Krakatoa in Inodnesia, occurring in 1980 and 1883, respectively. The latter was one of the loudest eruptions in the world. Mount St. Helens spewed ash all across the Western states, and even caused the sun the appear green in areas. Some volcanoes are dormant, or "sleeping", but may erupt soon, such as Mount Rainier in Washington and Mount Fujiyama in Japan.
Waterspout
A waterspout is a tornadic weather phenomenon normally occurring over tropical waters in light rain conditions. They form at the base of cumulus-type clouds and extend to the water surface where winds pick up water spray. Waterspouts are dangerous to boats, planes and land structures. Most of the time waterspouts are produced in semitropical regions of the world, but the majority of them occur in the Bermuda Triangle and are suspected of being the cause of the many missing ships and planes in that region. One unruly waterspout made its way into downtown Miami, Florida in 1997 and caused quite a scare with the locals.
Winter storm
A snowstorm is a winter storm in which the primary form of precipitation is snow. When such a storm is accompanied by winds above 32 mph that severely reduce visibility, it becomes a blizzard. Hazards from snowstorms and blizzards include traffic-related accidents, hypothermia for those unable to find shelter, as well as major disruptions to transportation and fuel and power distribution systems. The Blizzard of 1888 that diminished the Northeast coast of the United States produced snowpiles around 10-15 feet in height, sometimes even more. a later one struck Syracuse, New York and the Northeast again in 1975, and left drivers stuck inside their snow-covered vehicles along interstates. Another force of the cold is an ice storm which is basically rain that freezes instantly at contact with a surface. One devastating ice storm struck the city of Montreal, Canada in 1998 and destroyed communications and transportation systems.
Man-made disasters
Disasters having an element of human intent, negligence, error or involving a failure of a system are called man-made disasters. Man-made disasters like power or telecommunication outages may be caused by thunderstorms, tornados or earthquakes and though the root cause is a natural phenomenon, they are considered to be man-made disasters.
Aviation
An aviation incident is an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations, passengers or pilots. The category of the vehicle can range from a helicopter, an airliner, or a space shuttle. One of the more devastating events occurred in 1993, when an airliner en route to Egypt incinerated over the Atlantic Ocean near Nantucket, killing all passengers. A much later example was in the 1970's on the island of La Palma of the Canary Islands, when a miscommunication between air traffic control and pilot caused two filled jets to collide head-on, killing over 500 of the combined passengers.
Arson
Arson is the criminal intent of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. The definition of arson was originally limited to setting fire to buildings, but was later expanded to include other objects, such as bridges, vehicles, and private property. Arson is the greatest cause of fires in data repositories. Sometimes, human-induced fires can be accidental: failing machinery such as a kitchen stove is a major cause of accidental fires. [6]
CBRNs
A catch-all initialism meaning Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear. The term is used to describe a non-conventional terror threat that, if used by a nation, would be considered use of a weapon of mass destruction. This term is used primarily in the United Kingdom. Planning for a CBRN event may be appropriate for certain high-risk or high-value facilities and governments. The usage of any of these weapons is astronomically disastrous: the only true example used on humans is not terrorist-involved, but in the end was catastrophic: in the 1940's, nearing the end of World War II American pilots dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantly killing over half the cities' populations in plumes of fire and radiation.
Civil disorder
Civil disorder is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance. Examples of disastrous civil disorder include, but are not necessarily limited to: riots; sabotage; and other forms of crime. Although civil disorder does not necessarily escalate to a disaster in all cases the event may escalate into general chaos. Rioting has many causes, from low minimum wage to racial segregation. There were riots in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California in 1968 and 1992. The 1992 riots which started at the intersections of Florence and Normandee streets started immediately after the Rodney King verdict was announced on live TV. About 50 people died in the 1992 riots.
Power outage
A power outage is an interruption of normal sources of electrical power. Short-term power outages (up to a few hours) are common and have minor adverse effect, since most businesses and health facilities are prepared to deal with them. Extended power outages, however, can disrupt personal and business activities as well as medical and rescue services, leading to business losses and medical emergencies. Extended loss of power also interferes with law enforcement, creating opportunities for crime, including vandalism, looting, arson and violent crime, even leading to civil disorder, as in the New York City blackout of 1977. One other example happened in New York City and in the rest of the Northeast United States in 2003, and this time hampered millions of commuters' routes back and forth to work and home. Thousands were seen jumbled in the city's streets, confused and baffled. Only very rarely do power outages escalate to disaster proportions, however, they often accompany other types of disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, which hampers relief efforts.
Public relations crisis
A public relations crisis may threaten the long term survival of an organization. For this reason, many organization's business continuity planning include PR crisis responses to control the delivery of bad news, the initial statements made to media and thereby control first impressions. A successfully managed PR crisis may actually improve public opinion about an organization. A poorly managed PR crisis may eventually bankrupt an organization.
Radiation contamination
When nuclear weapons are detonated or nuclear containment systems are otherwise compromised, airborne radioactive particles (fallout) can scatter and irradiate large areas. Not only is it deadly, but it is also a long-term affect on the next-generation for those who are contaminated. Ionizing radiation is hazardous to living things, and in such a case much of the affected area could be unsafe for human habitation. In the 1940's United States troops dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: as a result, the radiation fallout contaminated the cities' water supplies and food sources, and half of the populations of each city were stricken with disease. The Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus are part of a scenario like this after a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered a meltdown in 1986. To this day, several small towns and the city of Chernobyl remain abandoned and uninhabitable due to fallout. in the 1970's a similar threat scared millions of Americans when a presumed failure occurred at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania, which only turned out to be a minor problem and as a result no contamination occurred.
Space disasters
Space disasters, either during operations or training, have killed around 20 astronauts and cosmonauts, and a much larger number of ground crew. These disasters include either malfunctions on the ground or in orbit with technology, or of natural forces. Not all are space disasters result in human fatalities: unmanned orbiting satellites that drop to the Earth can incinerate and send debris spewing across the sky. One of the worst manned space disasters, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion of 1986, costed all of the lives on board. The shuttle exploded several seconds after taking off from the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Another example is the Space Shuttle Columbia which disintegrated during a landing attempt over Texas in 2003, with a loss of 7 astronauts on board. The debris field extended as far as from eastern New Mexico to Mississippi.
Telecommunication outage
A telecommunications outage is not immediately a disaster, however, an extended telecommunications outage can strain a company's ability to stay solvent by cutting them off from their clients, vendors and business partners. For this reason, business continuity planning normally addresses the possibility of an outage on the organization's core functions. A telecommunication outage at the same time as another disaster may exacerbate the serverity of the incident by hampering disaster response teams. One cause of a loss of telecommunications is by a solar storm, which can also wipe out all electronics in the region of the storm's path.
Terrorism
Terrorism is a controversial term with multiple definitions. One definition means a violent action targeting civilians exclusively. Another definition is the use or threatened use of violence for the purpose of creating fear in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological goal. Under the second definition, the targets of terrorist acts can be anyone, including civilians, government officials, military personnel, or people serving the interests of governments. In the early 21st century, terrorism has been considered a constant threat to all people of the world, after the worst disaster of its kind struck in 2001 (predominantly known as September 11th, 2001, the date of the attack), in which four airliners were hijacked from American international airports: two were sent into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, causing both to collapse, another into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a final into a small field outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A total of over 3,000 lives were lost that day. In 2004, a series of bombings struck several waiting passenger cars in a Madrid, Spain train station, and in 2005 the transportation systems of London, England were bombed in three synchronized locations.
War
War is conflict, between relatively large groups of people, which involves physical force inflicted by the use of weapons. Warfare has destroyed entire cultures, countries, economies and inflicted great suffering on humanity. Other terms for war can include armed conflict, hostilities, and police action. Acts of war are normally excluded from insurance contracts and disaster planning.
Surviving a disaster
Chances of survival after a disaster are greatly improved when people, local governments and emergency services, businesses and national governments prepare survival plans and assemble survival gear beforehand. What constitutes sufficient preparation is highly dependent on the location and the disasters that are likely to occur in the area.
Personal and family disaster preparation
People and families should make an assessment the likely threats in their location and prepare emergency supply kits, learn basic first aid and decide on 'safe' meeting places.
Young children should be trained to:
- recognize the warning signs for dangerous situations
- respond safely to different threats
- evacuate to a safe place
- know their full name
- know their parent's full name
- know their telephone number
- know their address
- know the names of their relatives
Emergency supply kits should include the basic items recommended in the links provided below in addition to any special needs like diapers for babies, prescribed medicines or glasses for those who need them.
Local government and emergency services disaster preparation and management
Local governments and emergency service organizations maintain disaster response plans to minimize further death and property loss with quick and efficient action. A predetermined command structure containing the functions, names, telephone numbers, and addresses needed for a disaster are used to mobilize local police, fire and medical forces (occasionally supported by military forces). A disaster command structure attempts to quickly establish control over a disaster scene to rescue victims, clear casualties and where possible, subdue the threat. Governments may also provide basic humanitarian assistance.
Business disaster preparation and management
To minimize losses and the death or injury of staff, businesses can create a business continuity plan and restore key business functions quickly. Like local government, business should maintain a predetermined command structure in addition to the steps required to restore data and resume business operations.
Businesses also must consider non-traditional threats like liquidity shortages, public relations, power outage and telecommunication outage as a part of their plans.
National disaster preparation
National governments maintain disaster response plans to support local governments and to isolate an event's effects to a localized area. Naturally occurring diseases, biological terrorism, and crop blights are examples of events that may be containable to a small area. A predetermined command structure which may include specialized agencies like the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency aids disaster relief and support of the local governments and emergency services.
Since nations have direct command control over military forces, they may choose to deploy personnel as requested or needed to assist in rescue, treatment of victims, humanitarian aid, and the maintaining of civil order. Generally speaking, national governments can coordinate the deployment of emergency services personnel from unaffected areas to reduce the administrative burden on local command structures. Also, national governments generally have more resources and funds to assist local governments with relief efforts.
Humanitarian disaster preparation
For larger disasters that overwhelm the affected governments, international non-governmental humanitarian agencies may mobilize to offer water, food, housing and medical and psychological treatment of disaster victims. Humanitarian aid may also include long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Information security disaster preparation
Adherence to accepted information security principals require disaster recovery plans. A disaster is the start of a 'crisis' where predefined crisis management plans activate. During the development of the crisis management plan, minimum thresholds are established against which a disaster's effect can be compared. Once a disaster sufficiently interrupts key functions and processes, recovery activities can be initiated to control expectancy loss.
See also
- Car accident
- Civil protection
- Data recovery
- Disaster movie
- Disaster recovery
- Disaster relief
- Disaster tourism
- End of civilization
- Existential risk
- Hypothetical disaster
- List of disasters
- List of major flops
- Prevention
- Worst natural disasters
- List of songs about disasters
References
- United States Department of Homeland Security
- United States Federal Emergency Management Agency
- University of Delaware Disaster Research Center
- [7]
- Barton A.H. (1969). Communities in Disaster. A Sociological Analysis of Collective Stress Situations. SI: Ward Lock
- Quarantelli E.L. (1998). Where We Have Been and Where We Might Go. In: Quarantelli E.L. (ed). What Is A Disaster? London: Routledge. pp146-159
- [8]
- Word Detective
External links
- Department of Homeland Security
- London Prepared
- Disaster Psychiatry Outreach
- Preparing an emergency survival kit
- United States Citizen Corp Guide
- United States DisasterHelp Egov reference
- United States Federal Emergency Management Association
- United States Federal Emergency Management Association designated hazards
- United States Ready Egov reference
- EM-DAT: The International Disasters Database includes information on man-made and natural disasters, basic definitions and a database of disasters occurrence and impact from 1900 to today
- Disasters factsheet
- Assisting Children and Adolescents in Coping with Disasters
- Natural disaster risk map of the United States