Emergency Management: Best Practices

Definition

Emergency management is defined as the process which involves the ability to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies, crises, and/or disasters.

Introduction

Since the beginning of recorded history, disasters have occurred, and there is no person, community, or organization immune to the adverse impacts of disasters. Unfortunately, when disasters occur, there is a general lack of proper preparedness, response, and recovery actions and capabilities, even when the hazards are chronic and frequent. When a natural disaster does occur, people, communities, and organizations respond vigorously to address the negative impacts caused by the event. Additionally, the hope is that the same vigor displayed during a response to an emergency is also evident during lessons learned meetings to help reduce the possible damage from any future disasters. Research has shown that immediately following recovery from a disaster, there is a sense of normalcy, translating into...