FEMA Emergency Management

1 FEMA Emergency Management Every time there is a flood, major earthquake, or hurricane, FEMA normally arrives at the scene to offer disaster relief to the victims. FEMA is an abbreviation for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency's job is to coordinate the federal government's role in disaster preparation, prevention, and relief. Major disasters that normally take place in the United States put FEMA under serious public scrutiny, often resulting in a scathing criticism of the effectiveness of response efforts of the agency. Disaster relief is expensive, logically complicated, in addition to relying heavily on public support. The increasing incidences of natural disasters in the country partly due to climate change prompt us to find more about FEMA emergency management.

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2 FEMA Emergency Management FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security of the United States and is organized into 10 regions, with each region headed by a Regional Administrator. Each region consists of a number of states. Part of FEMA’s mission involves preparing states and local governments for possible emergency and disaster situations (Sledge & Thomas, 2019). To build a culture of preparedness, the agency works with a variety of stakeholders to ensure effective emergency management across the United States.

1. Individuals and Communities According to FEMA, individuals and communities can work together to enhance preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters. In building a culture of preparedness, the agency works with faith-based organizations, neighborhood-based community groups, nongovernmental partners from all sectors, as well as youth, children, and daycares (FEMA, 2020). a. Faith-based Community Preparedness Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires, active shooters, and arson can all adversely affect houses of worship when they occur. Thus, many houses of worship are coming up with and updating plans and procedures that can help them ensure the security and safety of their facilities, staff, and congregations. The disaster preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities of community, voluntary, and faith-based organizations, volunteers, and staff can be enhanced through training and planning exercises. FEMA provides planning resources specific to security, bomb prevention, active shooters, and natural disasters that can help houses of worship to plan better for potential emergencies by coming up with an efficient emergency operations plan (Sledge & Thomas, 2019). b. Voluntary and Community-based Organizations

3 FEMA Voluntary Agency Liaisons support the significant contributions of voluntary, faith-based, and community stakeholders active in disaster by developing relationships with and across partner organizations and other government agencies (FEMA, 2020). In addition to information sharing, VALs provide guidance on integrating activities across various subject areas as well as the full disaster life cycle. Such kinds of undertakings encourage stakeholders and communities to increase their capacity, capabilities, and delivery of inclusive, equitable services. VALs also offer information, guidance, and support on mission assignments, planning, preparedness, mitigation, and information sharing. They also support response and recovery, community services programs and voluntary, faith-based, and community efforts. c. Children and Emergency Planning Children make roughly 25% of the population of the United States (FEMA, 2020). In addition to being positive influencers, FEMA acknowledges that children can become future leaders. Including them in emergency management is one way of engaging the whole community. Besides facing unique vulnerabilities, children and youth can also play an essential role in the minimization of emergencies. It is necessary for children to know what is required of them in an emergency. This can only be achieved if all disaster planning, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts consider children’s unique needs and abilities. FEMA provides organizations with resources that can help them provide services that assist families with children. d. Community Emergency Response Team FEMA’s Community Emergency Response Team program offers training to volunteers on disaster preparedness for the hazards that may adversely affect their residential areas. It also trains volunteers in such basic disaster response skills as disaster medical operations, team

4 organization, light search and rescue, as well as fire and safety (Sledge & Thomas, 2019). The Community Emergency Response Team provides a consistent, nationwide approach to volunteer training and organization, which can be relied upon by professional responders during disaster situations. e. Preparedness Research FEMA has a division called the Individual and Community Preparedness Division that supports the agency's mission by connecting individuals, organizations, and communities with research and tools to develop and sustain abilities to prepare for any emergency or disaster. The division carries out research to have a better understanding of effective preparedness actions and ways to encourage the public to embrace such actions. It develops and shares preparedness resources in addition to coordinating comprehensive disaster preparedness initiatives that encourage communities to prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from a disaster (Sledge & Thomas, 2019). The achievement of such a mission is through a close working relationship with the federal, state, local, and tribal agencies and coordination with FEMA Regions. It entails working together with non-governmental partners from all sectors through neighborhood-based community groups.

2. National Preparedness FEMA works to help people and communities in the United States be more prepared by building the capabilities required to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and control all hazards. The agency's common goal is to achieve a secure and resilient nation. It has developed an organized approach for the whole community and offers resources and tools required to achieve the said goal. To build and sustain preparedness, FEMA has ongoing efforts

5 for research and development, public outreach, community-based and private-sector programs, providing grants, technical assistance, and other preparedness support.

3. Risk Management For effective risk management, FEMA provides various resources to help identify, assess, and prioritize possible risks and reduce potential losses. It provides information on how individuals can protect themselves from earthquakes, reduce the impacts of windstorms, dam safety, as well as tools to assist in hurricane evacuation planning and response. It also provides information on how to build safe spaces.

Conclusion A large part of FEMA's job entails assisting individuals to recover after the occurrence of a disaster. FEMA provides federal grants to disaster victims to help them with funeral and medical expenses, loss of personal property, emergency home repairs, temporary housing, among others. The agency is putting a lot of effort into enhancing the quality and speed of its response to major disasters that occur across the country. Disaster relief by the agency is normally met by a variety of challenges. For instance, there were multiple problems with relief efforts when Katrina struck New Orleans and the surrounding environment. People overwhelmed shelters and services. The local and federal agencies could not communicate well, and the emergency response teams were poorly trained and were unable to communicate with other rescue teams and agencies (Pierre & Stephenson, 2017). FEMA was significantly criticized for ineffective management of the disaster. Such shortcomings reveal that much still needs to be done to enhance our national preparedness.

6 References Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 2020. Individuals and Communities.

Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/individuals-communities Pierre, J. K., & Stephenson, G. S. (2017). After Katrina: A Critical Look at FEMA's Failure to provide housing for victims of natural disasters. La. L. Rev., 68, 443.

Sledge, D., & Thomas, H. F. (2019). From disaster response to community recovery: nongovernmental entities, government, and public health. American journal of public health, 109(3), 437-444.