Crisis Management and Disaster

Those Americans who have grown up in the shadow of natural disasters - earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes - have always known that it is essential to be prepared at all times for the worst to strike at a moment's notice. The rest of the country, in the months since 9/11, has also learned to think this way - although arguably many communities remain ill-prepared for even relatively small-scale disasters. This paper presents us with the opportunity of creating the kind of crisis management agency - that we have here called First Response and Beyond - that every significantly sized city should have but can rarely afford.

When people consider what they want from a crisis team they are likely to think first of those people who are called first-responders - firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical personnel, police. Most communities have people who are already during much of the work that needs to be done immediately after a crisis such as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. When establishing a crisis response center, it is not necessary to duplicate all of these same services and personnel; rather, it is imperative that a crisis response agency coordinate with existing agencies (including police and sheriff departments and fire houses) and have communications set up with a designated person during each shift at those hospitals that have trauma centers. The role of a crisis services agency must be to provide a coordinating mechanism among all those other agencies and orga

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Category: Business - C