Disaster Management Continuum

Mark Steven A Hernando

 Introduction

Disaster management is an applied science

which seeks by systematic observation and
analysis of disasters to improve measures
relating to prevention, mitigation,
preparedness, emergency, response and
recovery.
 Introduction
A disaster is a situation in which the community is incapable of
coping.

It is a natural or human-caused event which causes intense negative

impacts on people, goods, services and/or the environment,
exceeding the affected community’s capability to respond;
therefore the community seeks the assistance of government and
international agencies
 Disaster Management Cycle
Mitigation: Measures put in place to minimize the results from a
disaster. Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses;
public education.

Preparedness: Planning how to respond. Examples: preparedness

plans; emergency exercises/training; warning systems.

Response: Initial actions taken as the event takes place. It involves

eff orts to minimize the hazards created by a disaster. Examples:
evacuation; search and rescue; emergency relief.

Recovery: Returning the community to normal. Ideally, the aff ected

area should be put in a condition equal to or better than it was
before the disaster took place. Examples: temporary housing;
grants; medical care.
 DISASTER MANAGEMENT CONTINUUM
DISASTER MANAGEMENT

MITIGATION RESPONSE LONG TERM

MEASURES

Risk Analysis Rescue

Prevention Preparedness
Rehab

Vulnerability Warning and

Structural Evacuation Reconstruct.
Analysis Relief
Measures &
Planning of Recovery
Hazard Note
Assessment Disaster
Non-Structural
Response Being done efficiently
Measures
Risk Needs better Planning
Assessment No Substantial Work
done so far
 Stage 1: Disaster Mitigation

Structural mitigation – construction

projects which reduce economic
and social impacts i.e. dams,
windbreaks, terracing and hazard
resistant buildings.

Non-structural activities – policies

and practices which raise awareness
of hazards or encourage
developments to reduce the impact
of disasters
Disaster Mitigation includes
 Reviewing building codes.
 Vulnerability analysis updates.
 Zoning and land-use management and planning.
 Reviewing o f building use regulations and safety
codes.
 Implementing preventative health measures
 Political intervention and commitment
 Public awareness
 Strategies Government
Establishments
Government Based mitigation

Various mitigation strategies or

Top –Down approach

Bottom-Up approach
measures- For instance,
varieties of crops that are more
wind, fl ood or drought
resistant can often be
introduced in areas prone to
fl oods, drought and cyclones,
Economic diversifi cation.

Community based
Mitigation
 Disaster mitigation and Infrastructure
Investment in infrastructure to support sustainable socioeconomic
development
Investment in infrastructure for reconstruction and recovery.

i. A backup generator is available in case of

powerfailure and that a battery-operated
radio .
ii. The preliminary
A backup copy ofdesign should
all critical take into consideration
information
iii. the prevalent hazards and methods to avoid or to
minimize the eff ects of the extreme natural events.
iv. Strengthening vulnerable areas such as
roofs, exterior doors, windows, and garage
doors
 Disaster and Development
• Disasters set back
development programming,
destroying years of
development initiatives.
• Rebuilding after a disaster
provides signifi cant
opportunities to initiate
development programmes
• Development programmes can increase
an area’s susceptibility t o disasters
• Development programmes can be designed
t o decrease the susceptibility t o disasters
and their negative consequences
 Development initiatives for
countries faced disaster
• Partnership-close collaboration among
donors, governments, communities,
nongovernmental organizations, the
private sector, and universities

• Flexibility-. Development agencies

must be effi cient and fl exible;
adaptable to local environments and
capable of adjusting to changing
conditions and seizing opportunities
when they arise.

• Selectivity-resources are the public asset

that must be invested prudently to
achieve maximum impact.
The United Nations (UN) Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) works to reduce the
risk of disasters and improve preparedness for responding to them. The UN's efforts

include:

Developing national strategies Developing national strategies

Strengthening early warning systems

Promoting risk governance

Integrating disaster risk reduction

Supporting sustainable development

Developing national strategies Developing national strategies

The UNDRR helps countries develop strategies to reduce disaster risk.

These strategies include reviewing national laws and standards, and ensuring that
climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies are aligned.

The UNDRR helps countries develop strategies to reduce disaster risk.

These strategies include:

1. Reviewing national laws and standards
2. Ensuring that climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies are
aligned.
Strengthening early warning systems Strengthening early warning systems

The UNDRR helps countries strengthen their early warning systems to reduce the risk of
disasters.
Promoting risk governance Promoting risk governance

The UNDRR promotes risk governance through global and regional platforms.

These platforms assess progress on implementing the Sendai Framework.

The UNDRR promotes risk governance through global and regional platforms.

These platforms assess progress on implementing the Sendai Framework.

Integrating disaster risk reduction Integrating disaster risk reduction

The UNDRR integrates disaster risk reduction into humanitarian action and strategies to
prevent disaster displacement.

The UNDRR integrates disaster risk reduction into humanitarian action and strategies to
prevent disaster displacement.
Supporting sustainable development Supporting sustainable development

The UNDRR supports disaster risk reduction as an element of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development.

The UNDRR supports disaster risk reduction as an element of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development.
The UN's efforts to reduce disaster risk include:

1. Identifying, assessing, and monitoring disaster risks

2. Reducing the underlying risk factors
3. Strengthening disaster preparedness
4. Increasing the capacity of individuals, communities, and authorities to deal with
disasters
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
Promote and develop public-private partnerships

Leverage sectoral private sector expertise and

strengths

Foster a collaborative exchange and dissemination

of data

Support national and local risk assessment

Support the development and strengthening of

national and local laws, regulations, policies and
The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) is a global plan to reduce disaster risks, adopted
by the United Nations, with the primary goal of building resilience in communities and
nations by significantly decreasing disaster losses in lives, social, economic, and
environmental assets by prioritizing disaster risk reduction (DRR) through understanding
risks, raising awareness, reducing risk factors, and preparing for effective response
actions;

essentially outlining a comprehensive approach to disaster management

five key priorities for action:

"Make DRR a priority,"
"Know the risks and take action,"
"Build understanding and awareness,"
"Reduce risk,"
"Be prepared and ready to act.".
Key points about the Hyogo Framework for Action:

Focus on Resilience
The HFA emphasizes building resilience of communities and nations to disasters,
not just immediate response. The HFA emphasizes building resilience of communities
and nations to disasters, not just immediate response.

Five Priority Areas:

The framework outlines five key areas of action to achieve disaster risk reduction:
Make DRR a priority
Know the risks and take action
Build understanding and awareness
Reduce risk
Be prepared and ready to act
Community Involvement:
The HFA stresses the importance of community participation and engagement in
disaster risk reduction efforts.

Global Adoption:
This framework is a globally recognized standard for disaster risk reduction, adopted by
UN member states.
Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability Analysis (HRVA)

A study that identifies potential hazards, their consequences, and how to mitigate them.

HRVAs are a key part of emergency management plans and help communities prepare for
emergencies.
What does an HRVA do?

Identify hazards: Assess the likelihood of hazards that could cause an emergency

Evaluate consequences: Consider the potential impact on people, property, the

economy, and critical infrastructure

Develop plans: Create strategies to reduce risk and prepare for emergencies

Educate the public: Engage the community to increase awareness and preparedness

Allocate resources: Prioritize actions based on risk mitigation and preparedness

How is an HRVA used?

Emergency planning: HRVAs support the development of effective emergency

management plans

Business continuity planning: HRVAs help inform business continuity processes for
municipal operations

Public education: HRVAs can help educate the public about hazards and how to prepare

Resource allocation: HRVAs can help prioritize actions to reduce risk

Who uses HRVAs?

Local authorities, such as fire departments, governments, and Regional Districts

Emergency response agencies

Hazard specialists

Community members
End of Topic 1
 Stage 2: Preparedness
Preparedness measures include:
 Preparedness plans
 Emergency exercises/training
 Warning systems
 Emergency communications

systems
 Evacuations plans and training
 Resource inventories Emergency
 Personnel/contact list.
 Mutual aid agreements
 Public information/education
 Important Activities
• Develop and test warning systems regularly and plan
measures to be taken during a disaster alert period to
minimize potential loss of life and physical damage.
• Educate and train offi cials and the population at risk to
respond to the disaster.
• Train fi rst-aid and emergency response teams.
• Establish emergency response policies, standards,
organizational arrangements and operational plans to be
followed by emergency workers and other response entities
after a disaster.
 Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
• It forms the action plan to be
implemented before, during and
after disasters.

• The IFRCRCS (International Federation

of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies) defines risk reduction 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.
 DRRM Recommendations
• Policy, planning and
capacity building in
disaster
management
• Physical prevention;
example, building sea-
walls against storm
surge or fl ood shelters
during fl ood events
• Capacity building at
institutional and
systemic level in
disaster
preparedness.
• Continued provision of
 Emergency Operation Plan (EOP)
• EOP allows the community to respond
to threats.
• Engages responders in the short-
term recovery
• Must be flexible to be valuable in real
and potential emergencies.
• It doesn’t include the administrative plan,
the mitigation strategy, the long term
recovery or the Standard Operational
procedures.
General Preparedness
Communication Plan
Personal and Home Survival
End of Topic 2
 Stage 3: Disaster Response
Aim of Disaster Response
 Evacuation, Migration,
administrating first-aid, transportation of
affected people to hospital
 Discuss the restoration of essential services.
 Rescue work
 Ideal Command Centre
 Modern and traditional methods of response
 Evacuation, Migration, administrating first-aid, transportation of
affected people to hospital
 Discuss the restoration of essential services.
 Rescue work
 Ideal Command Centre
 Modern and traditional methods of response
 The mission of the response phase is to meet the basic needs of the people
until more permanent and sustainable solutions are formulated.

 There is growing awareness of costs associated with improper management

of disasters and hence communities and government are trying hard to
improve the first responder efforts.

 Disaster response is aimed at providing instant support to maintain life and

health of the affected population.

 There is a wide array of response activities carried out after disaster like first-
aid, transportation, shelter and food, initial repairs to damaged
infrastructure.
 The level & kind of disaster response depends on a number of
factors – the scale of disaster, the nature and number of affected
people and site-specific conditions.

 Response comprises the decisions and actions taken to deal with

an urgent situation that has adversely affected life and property.

 It calls for collaboration, coordination and communication between

agencies involved in administrating rescue and relief operations.

 The main aim of response is to save and protect human life.

 The other aims of response are-
1. To guarantee the continued existence of the maximum possible
number of affected population and ensuring that they are in the best
possible physical and mental health in the circumstances.
2. To reinstate critical services and provide food, clothing and water.
3. To restore or replace demolished or damaged infrastructure.
4. To make alternate housing arrangements in camps.
5. To help in relieving suffering.
6. To protect the health and safety of responding personnel.
Triaging
AN
AN INTELLIGENT
INTELLIGENT CITY
CITY KNOWS
KNOWS WHAT
WHAT ISIS HAPPENING
HAPPENING AND
AND
WHAT
WHAT TO
TO DO
DO WHEN
WHEN PEOPLE,
PEOPLE, BUILDINGS
BUILDINGS AND
AND
INFRASTRUCTURE
INFRASTRUCTURE ARE
ARE THREATENED
THREATENED
 RISK ASSESSMENT
ACCEPTABLE RISK
•NATURAL HAZARDS
•INVENTORY RISK
•VULNERABILITY UNACCEPTABLE RISK
•LOCATION

GOAL: DISASTER
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
COMMUNITY
DATA
DATA BASES
BASES
AND
AND INFORMATION
INFORMATION

FOUR PILLARS OF
RESILIENCE

HAZARDS: •PREPAREDNESS
GROUND SHAKING
GROUND FAILURE •PROTECTION
SURFACE FAULTING •EMERGENCY RESPONSE
TECTONIC DEFORMATION
TSUNAMI RUN UP •RECOVERY IENCE
AFTERSHOCKS
 Disaster Medical Response Phases
• • Disaster communications
Notification (recognition)
• • Record keeping
Search and rescue
• • Transportation and
Triage
• evacuation
Medical care of disaster
• Debriefing/CISD
victims
• Recovery
Disaster Response

The benefits and drawbacks of:

• Internal (Local) Response
• External (National or International)
Response
Disaster Response
• Local response
• most effective first 24 hour
• EMS driven
• External response
• ultimate responsibility
• may designate lead agency
• health, foreign affairs, public works, agriculture, education
Internal Response
Management
Strengths
• Rapid response
• Socially and culturally appropriate
• Family and community support
• Assists in immediate recovery
• Reduces dependency
• Builds upon local response mechanisms
• Develops internal capacity
 Internal Response
Management
Limitations
• Limited capacity
• Limited experience and planning
• Lack of large scale sectoral ability
• Lack of coordination on large scale
• Lack of large scale funding
• Lack of monitoring
• Limited ability to address prevention and preparedness
 External Response
Management
Strengths

• Large scale assistance

• Expertise in disaster response
• Dedicated disaster funding
• Sector specific support
• On site organization and coordination
 External Response
Management
Limitations
• Duplication of services
• Draws from local capacity building
• Non-sustained funding and dependency
• Culturally and socially problematic
• Lack of standardization of NGO response
• Difficult to coordinate and monitor
• Unrealistic expectations of donor assistance
• Local partners overloaded
• Program is poorly conceptualized
 Control Process and Measurement
 Controlling is a systematic efforts by which it is ensured that plans
are strictly followed and actual performance is measured and
compared with that standard performance.

 At the planning level, the tasks and roles are clearly stated and
responders are made aware of their responsibilities.

 This helps them to control their behavior and priorities their tasks.
 Control Process and Measurement

 The control process is a three step process-

1. Setting performance standards.
2. Measuring actual performance.
3. Comparing actual performance with standards.
 Security Issues
 Itis vital to ensure the security of the most vulnerable
population that is women, children and the elderly.

 Generally,it is seen that security is not always a priority issue

after a disaster because rescue and relief operations are
considered paramount.

 Along with police, military personnel are also deployed to

respond to a disaster.
 Security Issues

 Given the state vulnerabilities of the

of affected physical security and
community, public disaster-affected areas
order inthe
should be established.
 It helps prevent the public order from
turning into an undesirable state of panic and
chaos.
 Evacuation and Migration

 Evacuation involves the relocation of individuals and

members of the affected community from risk-zone to a
safer location.

 Evacuation can help individual and communities avoid

the aftermath of disasters such as building collapse,
outbreak of diseases, etc.
 Evacuation and Migration
 People are reluctant to evacuate even in the most
dangerous situations because of inadequate social
or economical resources.
 The three pre-requisites of effective evacuation are:

1. A Plan of action and place to relocate the evacuees.

2. Clear identification of escape routes.
3. A timely and accurate warning system to inform about the
exact turn of events.
 Evacuation and Migration

 Evacuation is immediate and urgent movement of people

away from the threat or actual occurrence of a rapid onset
of a disaster.

 This type of migration is temporary in nature and after the

crisis is over the families return to their homes.
 Administering First-Aid
 The process of addressing the needs of
a
person who is physically injured
psychologically or is
first-aid. distressed is referred
to as
 Though first-aid is not substitute for
professional medical help, but still it can make
a difference between life and death.
 Administering First-Aid

 When addressing the first-aid after disasters, there are certain

aspects that need to be taken care of –
1. Check the surroundings.
2. Seek help whenever necessary.
3. Remain with the victim.
4. Stay Calm.
5. Determine responsiveness.
6. Help to stop bleeding first.
7. Psychological support.
 Administering First-Aid
 Training in first-aid should be made
compulsory at School and College level.
 The kind of first-aid differs according to the
nature of disaster.

 First-aidtraining must be packaged in a way

that ‘clearly outlines its aims, mechanism,
when it is used, where it can be applied and
who benefits from its use, who can deliver it’.
Mobilization and Restoration of Essential
Services
 To ensure effective command and control of an
emergency situation, it is crucial that essential services
are organized.

1. Telephone Lines
2. Electricity and power supply
3. Drinking water supply & non-perishable food
4. Alternate roads
Search and rescue Work

 Disaster response activities begin with the detection

of the crisis and end with the normalization of the
situation following impact.

 The response activities entail triggering search and

rescue mechanism to find the injured, providing
emergency medical care and transferring them to
safe places.
 Search and rescue Work

 The response phase differs from other phases of

disaster management in the sense that there are two
important aspects namely, uncertainty and urgency.

 The emergency response actions should be well

coordinated with disaster recovery as they form the
foundation for carrying out recovery activities.
Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
 The responses to disasters may utilize a mix
of methods from traditional to modern.

 The situation and nature of the affected

population play a decisive role in choosing an
effective response mechanism.

 Traditional
methods of response have been
used since long and they are the most
common and practical methods of response.
Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
 They entail assistant provided in the form
of food, shelter materials, blankets, etc.

 Money is also provided so that affected people

can buy things according to their needs.

 Charitable organizations offer help

to communities that have suffered a
disaster.

 New technologies can be very useful

and powerful in disaster response.
Modern and Traditional Methods of Response
 These basically form the basis of the modern
methods of disaster response.

 Mobile phones can act as warning devices.

 SMS provided by operators can prove to be

useful medium to send warning signals of
immediate threat.

 GPS for tracing location of victims.

Modern and Traditional Methods of Response

 The disaster management team also uses the potential

of mapping technologies, such as geographic
information system (GIS), remote sensing (satellite
imagery) and global positioning system (GPS), to aid
emergency response operations.
Modern and Traditional Methods of Response

1. Remote Sensing: the scanning of the earth by satellite or

high-flying aircraft in order to obtain information about it.
1. Visible and Reflective Infrared remote sensing.
2. Thermal Infrared Remote sensing.
3. Microwave Remote sensing.
2. GIS – GIS is a system that collects, displays, manages and
analyzes geographic information.
3. Other Methods – Social Media & Social networking.
 A Model of an Ideal Command Centre
 Incident command center is a standardized, on-
scene, all-hazard incident management concept.

 The primary role of this center is the coordination of

efforts for effective and efficient management of
incident.

 When any disastrous event occurs, they first

identify and assess the situation.
A Model of an Ideal Command Centre

 The functions of an Incident Command Centre are:

1. Development of objectives.

2. Preparation of Incident Action Plan to meet

incident objectives, collection and evaluation of
information.
A Model of an Ideal Command Centre
 The functions of an Incident Command Centre
are:

3. Maintenance of resource status and

incident documentation.

4. Providing logistics support to

meet operational objectives.

5. Financial administration to monitor

costs, accounting, procurement and cost
analysis.