Learn About Disasters, Emergencies, and Be Ready

Emergencies impact everyone. This section is dedicated to those who plan for and respond to emergencies. Professionals train constantly to prepare for unexpected events to be ready at a moments notice. Disasters are emergencies of larger impact which can be man made or natural. In just the past 10 years technology has highly changed the way we plan and respond. Learn more about emergencies, disasters, and more.

What Is A Emergency?
The definition of an emergency is any situation that poses a immediate risk to either life, property, or the environment that require intervention of some kind to prevent or minimize the impact. Emergency services include communications, security, fire protection, military, and law enforcement. Other similar organizations may include utilities emergency service units, recovery units, and third party responder organizations that support the actual emergency service organizations. Many emergencies are obvious, while others require trained professionals to determine whether an emergency exists or not.

Planning for an emergency starts with preparedness. When an actual emergency occurs, the second step is response. After response takes place there is often a recovery phase where taking steps to get back to normal occur. Soon after this phase, mitigation usually takes place in an effort to prevent the same occurrence from happening again. Time is always of the essence in any emergency as the example used for emergency medical care known as the 'Golden Hour' (gaining patient access and transport to hospital medical care, complete care within 60 minutes time) shows us that even during a emergency, time should be managed effectively. What you do and what professionals do in a emergency may be the difference between life and death.

Modern Disaster-Emergency Operations
Check out the history of emergency operations to learn how the United States formally organized emergency response into the modern system it is today. The emergency operations community has a long history of utilizing new technologies. Protocols are constantly changing and require professionals to constantly keep up on training. A modern world with growing populations and extensive amounts of property require specialized attention to protect life and assets. Emergency operations are a critical system vital to any nation or business.

Natural & Man-Made Disasters and Emergencies
Disasters happen all the time whether they are man made or natural. Examples of natural disasters can often be seen almost daily. Across the earth, flooding, tornadoes, wind damage, and fires from lightning can be common almost daily. Somewhere on earth, there are frequent thunderstorms, tectonic activity, and natural processes. Depending on where you live, your location can make you more likely to experience one natural disaster over another, although nearly any disaster is possible. We also learned that disasters can be man made such as the 9/11 event in 2001.

The impacts from these events are enormous, especially for unexpected events that occur without proper planning or response in place. In order to better understand disasters and emergencies, we must study their history, expect the unexpected, apply what we learn from the past, and plan for the future. Start by learning about disasters and emergencies right here.

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