Topic 1: Introduction to emergency management operations
Overview
In the first part of this emergency management course, you concentrated mainly on the planning aspects of emergency management i.e. hazard analysis and risk assessment, developing emergency management plans, procedures and exercises. In this next stage of the course, you now have the opportunity to analyse an actual emergency/disaster event, utilising the emergency management planning knowledge you have previously gained, complimented by additional emergency operations management knowledge presented during this subject.
As part of your analysis you will be required to review the plans and procedures that were relevant to an emergency/disaster event of your own choosing. This review will enable you to arrive at some conclusions as to whether the plans and procedures were appropriate and had a positive or negative impact on the management of that event. For example, if they are found to be deficient - in that they may have contributed to the poor management of the event - you will need to make some recommendations as to how this problem can be overcome. In this particular subject, which deals with the time before the event occurred and the time period when the event occurred (we refer to these times as the pre-impact and impact phases of the event), your review will provide you with detail on the pre-disaster/emergency arrangements that were in place, including information on the emergency management structures, legislation, communications and resources. It is important that you check that the information you are researching and analysing was relevant prior to and at the time of the event occurring.
This topic is designed to provide you with sufficient advice and guidance to enable you to:
- select an emergency/disaster event
- undertake your analysis,
- present your assignments with confidence to meet the assignment criteria, and
- complete it in the allotted time frame.
Subject aim
The aim of this entire subject is to provide you with the opportunity to objectively analyse the management of an actual emergency or disaster event that has occurred, specifically looking at the pre-impact and impact phases (that period of time leading up to and including the impact of the event). The selection of a emergency/disaster event is to be of your choice.
Learning outcomes
After completing the work for this topic, you should be able to:
- define the meanings of emergency and disaster;
- define the terms: pre-impact phase/impact phase and post impact phase as they relate to emergency management;
- select a previous emergency event which you can analyse and evaluate the management of for this subject and the following EMG208 subject;
- apply the definition of the phases of an emergency event to a selected emergency event;
- explain the parameters of the pre-impact, impact and post-impact phases within a selected emergency event;
- explain and evaluate the availability and quality of information resources related to a selected emergency event;
- establish a clear set of parameters for the pre-impact and impact phases of your event that will clearly establish the time frame that your analysis will cover;
- provide a resumé of the history relevant to your selected event.