Sample Portion of an Emergency Plan New York



Sample Portion of an Emergency Plan New York

Introduction

Planning is a crucial task for emergency & disaster management. Since the beginning of human civilization, Homo sapiens have streamlined their efforts for emergency management. With the technological advances, emergency planners can develop comprehensive emergency plans. The planners have to keep a number of factors in mind while developing an emergency plan. Time, uncertainty & risks are some of the significant elements. Before starting with the plan, it is essential to elaborate the description of emergency situations. On a broad level, emergency refers to the state of a situation. That means, emergency is a situation which exposes human lives to certain risks. There can be a number of risks, associated to an emergency situation. For instance, there is a risk of injury, wound, or death (Mathew, 2011). Also, the risk can be associated to human psychology. In a nutshell, emergency situations elaborate the risk associated to the human lives, health, and property. Such situations put the well-being of society/individual/group to immediate risk.

Different emergency situations have different consequences. For instance, some emergency situations can be damaging for the property or the environment. However, there are a number of situations for multiple risks. A terrorist attack can have multiple risks including lives, property, and the environment. The nature of emergency can be natural. The natural disasters also expose the human civilization to a number of risks. Earthquakes, storms, and floods are some of the natural disasters. In this regard, it is essential to have an emergency plan in place.

Emergency planning has been central to the governments. In today's world, there is a dedicated department for emergency management. This assignment documents a sample portion of an emergency plan for the city of New York. The discussion presents a sample portion for Communications in the emergency planning. Towards the end, the assignment presents conclusion.

Discussion

Alexander (2002) explained, “An emergency is defined as an exceptional event that exceeds the capacity of normal resources and organization to cope with it” (p. 1). In this description, one can identify the rationale for developing emergency plans. The planning is essential as the emergency events “exceed the capacity of normal resources”. Therefore, it is essential to have a plan which addresses such situations. The scope of situation can vary from an individual to national level. An individual level emergency can be a car accident. On the other hand, a national emergency can be a natural disaster of earthquake. Further, it is notable that the situation needs classification through distinct dimensions. The situations can be classified on the basis of the time period. It can be short-term or long-term (Alexander, 2002). An emergency can be natural or technological. Therefore, one can get another way to classify emergency plans (Kirvan, 2010). Figure 1 illustrates a number of natural, social and technological emergency situations.

Figure 1: Emergency Situations (Source: Google Books)

It is notable that the impact of emergency situations is highest in the largest cities of the ...