Disaster Response and Recovery

Disaster response and recovery cost the state of Wisconsin millions of dollars each year.  By utilizing hazard mitigation activities which would help to lessen the impact that these hazards have and thereby reduce costs.  Hazard mitigation would also have a positive impact on the community as a whole; allowing the community to be better prepared to respond and recover in the face of a disaster.  The purpose of this plan is to identify Wisconsin's major hazards, complete a risk assessment and vulnerability of area for the potential for each type of hazard, and ultimately recommend any actions deemed necessary to mitigate the occurrences of such hazards (Wisconsin Emergency Management, October 2011).

This special edition on disaster management had its genesis in the
devastating impact of a runaway wildfire that started one Sunday
morning on the slopes of Table Mountain in April this year.
The confluence of the ongoing effects of climate change and that
of the fire-prone biome of the Cape Floral Kingdom of the Western
Cape resulted in devastating loss and damage to the University of
Cape Town’s library collection. The aftermath of that fire meant
that those responding to the event had to deal with a situation that
those of us who work in the field of heritage collection care hope
never to experience – the impact of a major disaster on heritage
collection materials. Although this special edition is centred around
an attempt to set down the experiences and lessons learned in the
aftermath of that fire, it is also a start to creating a vital reference
source with South African specific information about disaster
preparedness, planning and response.

Throughout the years, various presidential administrations have responded to the needs of American citizens in distress after the devastation caused by natural and technological disasters. This paper traces the history of natural disaster policy as it has developed, mostly in reaction to natural disasters or public outcry from a failure of government officials to address local, regional or national distress, in a series of three historical stages. Understanding the phases and principles guiding each stage in the evolution of disaster management is important so that policies are not reestablished that create similar situations as those that have occurred in the past. Specifically, attention is devoted to the historical development of current policy and federal responses during times of disaster, and current policy's implications on future disaster policy.

This study elaborates on the physical and socioeconomic impacts of catastrophic disaster like floods due to limited ability to respond to disasters. Using the case of recent flood occurred in Jammu and Kashmir, the paper foregrounds how communities are marginalized inevitably to bear the repercussions of fulfillment of their needs in the post-disaster relief and recovery phase. This happens not necessarily due to natural hazard but also because of deficient disaster recovery process. The study highlights the role of flood recovery management planning as a tool for resilience not only to facilitate sequenced post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation but also to provide an opportunity for sustainable development by "rebuilding better".

We use a co-auto-ethnographic study of Hurricane Harvey where both authors were citizen responders and disaster researchers. In practice, large-scale disaster helps temporarily foster an ideal of community which is then appropriated by emergency management institutions. The advancement of disaster research must look to more radical perspectives on human response in disaster and what this means for the formation of communities and society itself. It is the collective task as those invested in the management of crises to defer to the potentials of publics, rather than disdain and appropriate them. We present this work in the advancement of more empirically informed mitigation of societal ills that produce major causes of disaster. Our work presents a departure from the more traditional disaster work into a critical and theoretical realm using novel research methods.

Effectively managing disasters and emergencies is the responsibility of local and state government, with the federal government serving as a source of support. In Oregon, state law requires the establishment of emergency management agencies. These agencies must: create and maintain current emergency operations plans; establish “an incident command structure for management of a coordinated response by all local emergency service agencies”; and “integrate effective practices in emergency preparedness and response as provided in the National Incident Management System (NIMS).” Multnomah County Office of Emergency Management (MCEM) is responsible for ensuring these required minimum functions are accomplished through leveraging the breadth of knowledge, skills, and abilities of all County staff. MCEM is divided into two divisions, Operations and Planning. While the Planning Division contributes tremendously to disaster resilience through hazard mitigation efforts, planning frameworks for both response and recovery efforts, this capstone focuses on the role of the Operations Division in ensuring an integrated and coordinated disaster response. 
During emergency and disaster response, counties rely on mutual aid agreements with other counties and traditional first responder organizations. During disasters that impact a small or local geographic area, these agreements bring in assistance from neighboring jurisdictions and supplement the existing workforce. However, when disasters span large geographic regions, these neighboring jurisdictions are engaged in disaster response themselves and are unable to provide assistance. Regardless of the emergency or disaster, Multnomah County government is required to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity of county operations that allows for the provision of critical services.,
Although Oregon law lists many forms of emergency, including among others a “[f]ire, explosion, flood, severe weather, landslides or mud slides,” as well as, “disease, blight, infestation, civil disturbance, riot, sabotage, acts of terrorism and war,” the natural disaster that is most threatening to the Pacific Northwest is the Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake (CSZ-EQ). Scientific study, and mention in a New Yorker article, have earned this looming disaster infamy with the public. The CSZ-EQ is on a scale of significantly different magnitude than other disasters. With the potential to extend from Northern California to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, the CSZ-EQ is frequently referred to by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and others as a catastrophic disaster whose occurrence is considered a certainty. In fact, according to The Oregon Resilience Plan: Reducing Risk and Improving Recovery for the Next Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami, “[t]he calculated odds that a Cascadia earthquake will occur in the next 50 years range from 7-15 percent for a great earthquake affecting the entire Pacific Northwest to about 37 percent for a very large earthquake affecting southern Oregon and northern California.” Chris Goldfinger, a PhD professor at Oregon State University, is one of the leading scientists studying this massive earthquake. He notes that although we cannot predict when it will unleash its impacts across the region, we can study regional earthquake history and the intervals between ruptures. According to this evidence, “[p]erhaps more striking than the probability numbers is that we can now say that we have already gone longer without an earthquake than 75 percent of the known times between earthquakes in the last 10,000 years, and 50 years from now, that number will rise to 85 percent."
Expectations are that the CSZ-EQ impacts will overwhelm local resources, outstrip traditional mutual aid partners, and incapacitate critical infrastructure for months or years. Injuries and deaths are expected across three states (California, Oregon, and Washington), with estimates for deaths in Oregon alone anticipated to reach as high as 10,000. The appropriate prioritization and allocation of scarce resources by government plays a critical role in effective disaster response. This will only be accomplished by a quick and efficient response from public servants. Protecting entire communities from suffering devastating losses will depend on a prepared, empowered, competent, and confident workforce.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of County government to provide training and support that creates a workforce poised in a disaster-ready posture. As the Division Chief of Operations for Multnomah County’s Office of Emergency Management, it is my role to ensure this is accomplished. A review of literature reveals that even traditional first response agencies, like the fire service, have surprisingly low levels of personal and family preparedness, a key factor in the willingness and ability to respond to a disaster. The Ready Responder toolkit quotes a 2004 survey of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy, in which “only 34% of the departments they represented had taken steps to prepare themselves and their families for the implications of a multi-day disaster response.” 
Research also indicates a correlation between an individual’s understanding of their role and their likelihood to respond. While county staff demonstrate an intrinsic motivation for the services they provide and an understanding of their role as a safety net for the community on a daily basis, they are navigating a much less defined path toward the fulfillment of their critical roles in disaster response. Therefore, while local governments have statutory responsibilities and arguably ethical responsibilities to prepare in order to protect their communities from known potential disasters, the reality is that emergency management is a relatively new field, and there is much to learn and implement to help create a response-ready workforce.
This capstone explores lessons learned from past disasters, both locally and across the country, and includes a review of related literature. A synthesis of the practices most relevant to Multnomah County has been captured in the Disaster Service Worker Project Charter (Appendix A). This Charter serves as my workplan and provides action steps for Multnomah County leadership and my middle managers colleagues to adequately prepare the over 6,000 public employees, working across eight departments and nearly 40 divisions, for their pivotal disaster response and recovery roles and responsibilities. The Disaster Service Worker Project Charter provides clear guidelines for filling the gaps that currently exist, with an end goal of creating a catastrophic disaster readiness posture across Multnomah County government.

This Applied Research Project is an exploratory study seeking to establish a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery efforts. Through the use of qualitative interviews conducted with senior managers of national nonprofit agencies working on Hurricane Katrina recovery, this research first tests the feasibility of Jane Addams' social democratic theory and ethics for use as a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery. The research also explores the degree to which nonprofit organizations already implement elements of Addams' theory and ethics in their long-term disaster recovery programs. This is tested through the administration of a questionnaire with case managers working with Katrina survivors in Houston, Texas.

The findings of this research strongly support the use of Jane Addams' social democratic theory and ethics as a theoretical framework for long-term disaster recovery efforts. Not only do leaders of nonprofit organizations view the Addams framework as feasible, but case managers report that their organizations are already implementing the main tenets of Addams' theory and ethics in their daily provision of services to Katrina survivors. Therefore, this research suggests that the long-term disaster recovery community may immediately look to Addams' social democratic theory and ethics as a theoretical framework upon which to construct its efforts, both for Hurricane Katrina long-term recovery and for that of future disasters.

This integrative review highlights the potential contribution of human psychology to disaster management, in terms of mitigation, advance preparedness, acute responses to events, and longer term psychosocial effects. The aim is not to conduct a detailed systematic review of the evidence in any one area, but rather to plot out a broad overview of the areas where work has been done, and highlight gaps where there is potential for further development.

a. Do the different methods of backing up your data have a dependency on the type of recovery site that you use? Justify your answer. (7 points) The data is very important for any company; either it is a bank or an educational institution. The organizations and enterprises rely on the availability of their important data all the time. The companies cannot afford to lose even a bit of data from their data centers. The companies try hard to keep its data secure from different attacks like a virus or malicious software. The companies spend a lot of money on the security the data stored containing information about their employees, staff, customers and other sensitive information related to the future plans. However, there are certain cases when the measures taken to secure the data are useless. There can be natural disaster like, tornado, flood or fire causing the whole data center to vanish as it never existed. If the company faces such disaster, it will ruin and face billions of dollars. That is why the companies prefer to make a backup of all the data stored in their data centers to avoid loss. The companies and organization use different methods and techniques to keep a full record of all the data in a different location that can be accessed if there is loss of data at the data center. Making a backup of the database by the enterprises and organizations, mainly depend on the storage devices and the methodologies being used. There is no limitation of the data being stored at the data centers in the organizations. As the company grows and its business moves on, the amount of data also exceeds with the increasing number of transactions being done every day. However, the size of data becomes larger or smaller; the data needs to be backed up for the hard times. If the company holds terabytes of data and it relies on taking the backup on a daily basis, then it will be facing many challenges in order to do so daily. There are different types of backing up data, like normal, differential, incremental and daily. If the company needs to take a normal backup of data then it will need to have huge amounts of storage devices. The main issue in this normal backup is that, it backs up all the data either it is changed or not. It is like making an exact copy of data every day it will occupy hundreds of terabytes for making a backup on a daily basis. The other issue in making the daily normal backup is that, it will take a lot of time while doing so daily. Mostly, tape drives are used for backing up huge amounts of data. The speed of tape drives for storing data is faster than the

A Field Report by EEFIT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On 30 October 2020 at 2:51 pm Turkey and 1:51 pm Greece time, a Mw= 6.9 earthquake hit the Aegean
coasts of Turkey and Greece. The epicentre (37.879°N 26.703°E) was 14 km northeast of Avlakia in
the Greek Island of Samos and some 25 km southwest of Izmir, Seferihisar Doganbey. The event’s
magnitude has been announced as 6.6 by the AFAD and 7.0 by the USGS. Notably, the event triggered
a tsunami that affected a significant coastline between Alaçatı to Gümüldür in Turkey and the northern
coasts of Samos. The event was followed by more than 4000 aftershocks with up to Mw=5.2.
The worst affected area in Turkey was the Bayraklı and Bornova districts in Izmir, located some 70 km
away from the epicentre. This is where the death toll, and building and infrastructure damage was
concentrated: 116 out of the total 119 casualties took place here, and almost all of the 17 collapsed
buildings were located here. In these two districts alone around 200 buildings were heavily damaged.
The reasons behind such a high ground motion intensity in Bayraklı (estimated as XIV), despite peak
ground accelerations (PGA) lower than what the service and design codes suggest are several: The
soil amplification given soft soil conditions (V=100 m/s) combined with poor construction practices, noncompliant
design to building codes and post-occupancy modifications on the structures. Samos island
was significantly affected with almost 2000 buildings deemed as unsafe for use. There were 2 fatalities
due to the collapse of old abandoned buildings, few injuries and extensive damage to a number of
churches.
The mission launched by the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) for this event
was carried out the 16th November and the 17th December, inclusive of five-day field investigations in
Izmir and its surroundings (30 Nov-4 Dec), and 8 days in Samos (2-3 Dec & 7-11 Dec). The team was
composed of 20 members and a support crew of 4. The mission covered multiple aspects of the event
in the form of five working groups in seismotectonics, geotechnics, structures, tsunami, and relief,
response and recovery. In addition to these, a team focussed on data analysis and representation
including social media analysis, in support of the other sub-teams.
The earthquake hit during the global COVID pandemic. This mission therefore adopted an
unconventional strategy, and combined field and remote survey methods for assessing damage to
buildings, critical infrastructure, and geotechnical structures. This hybrid strategy was achieved through
a large remote team supported by two local field crews in Turkey and Greece. One of the main
objectives of this mission was to assess this hybrid model’s usability for future missions and investigate
the extent in which other data sources can be used for remote reconnaissance in support of field work.
Other mission objectives were to carry out a systematic analysis of the impact of earthquake and
tsunami over the affected areas in both countries; to develop an understanding as to how the EEFIT
Mobile App can be tailored to address the specificities of this event; and to develop a multi-stakeholder
understanding of the event and of its impacts through a public survey and interviews with various
professionals in Turkey and in Greece.

Universitas XYZ sebagai perguruan tinggi terkemuka di Indonesia bagian timur bertekad untuk mewujudkan pelayanan dalam penyedia sarana dan prasarana yang memadai, pelayanan prima juga senantiasa diwujudkan melalui layananan Sistim Informasi Akademik yang berkualitas (akurat, terkini, lengkap, aman, konsisten, tepat waktu dan relevan) dengan tuntutan atau kebutuhan stakeholders. Muara dari pelayanan prima ini adalah kepuasan stakeholders di Universitas XYZ yang meliputi mahasiswa, dosen, karyawan.
Posisi geografi Indonesia yang secara natural memang rawan bencana setiap saat, banyak lembaga pendidikan, selain bencana alam, ada pula bencana yang disebabkan situasi wilayah tersebut, misalnya bencana yang terjadi pada sebuah gedung atau bangunan-bangunan disekitarnya. Biasanya karena akibat factor manusia seperti demonstrasi, tawuran mahasiswa yang mengakibatkan kebakaran, kerusakan fasilitas kampus, dll.
Oleh karena itu pendidikan tinggi yang berada kawasan Indonesia timur seperti Universitas XYZ sendirinya tidak menyadarinya bahwa dampak bencana tersebut. Pada ujian semester ini penulis membuat dokumen ini akan dilakukan perumusan BCP yang sesuai untuk Universitas XYZ yang memiliki proses bisnis pada dunia pendidikan, dan yang menjadi asset penting dalam setiap Universitas adalah data mahasiswa yang terintegrasi dalam suatu sistem TI yang dinamakan sistem informasi akademik, Sistem informasi akademik Universitas XYZ memiliki pengguna antara lain adalah mahasiswa, dosen, karyawan dan bahkan alumni Universitas XYZ tersebut. Keberadaan Universitas XYZ tentu saja tidak terlepas dari pertumbuhan peminat dan menjadikan Universitas XYZ menjadi salah satu Universitas pilihan di Indonesia timur, khususnya di tanah papua.
Oleh sebab itu untuk mengantisipasi dampak bencana tersebut maka dibutuhkan sebuah kebijakan yang mengatur tentang pencegahan resiko dan dapat melindungi infrastruktur dari serangan yang terjadi, kebijakan yang dibuat ini berasumsi bahwa kejadian buruk telah terjadi.
Dokumen yang dibutuhkan adalah dokumen Busines Continuity Plan (BCP) dan dokumen Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) kedua hal ini sangat penting dalam proses bisnis, namun pada kalangan lembaga perguruan tinggi hal ini jarang menjadi prioritas karena alasan memerlukan biaya yang mahal dan sulit penerapannya. Apalagi bencana adalah hal yang umumnya diyakini karena faktor alam yang tak dapat diprediksi dan tak dapat dicegah atau pun dihindari, sehingga kalangan lembaga pendidikan berkeyakinan bahwa para pengguna fasilitas Universitas XYZ akan memaklumi hal ini.
Dengan memiliki rencana kongkrit mengenai apa yang harus dilakukan selama dan setelah gangguan serius terjadi, Universitas XYZ dapat memastikan bahwa gangguan itu hanya berdampak minimal pada proses bisnis utamnya, dan layanan yang layak kepada pengguna tetap bisa berlanjut.

Recovery is as a “process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.” (SAMHSA 2012) This is a direction for those who are ready to recover, or to help others live a life worth meaning.  This is an outline for those who seek to regain or maintain sanity and wellness in a context of holistic wellness.  Let us examine recovery by the numbers, and form a solution information base for the sick, and struggling who may become inspired toward recovery based living.  If human and social capital can be leveraged to help others recover let us provide support for our peers and share with them.  It is part of the human condition that we need the support and encouragement of others to become content with life, and to feel connected.

Since the turn of the century the global tourism industry has been impacted by an increasing and diverse range of external shocks including, terrorism, pandemics, earthquakes, civil unrest, tsunami, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and a global financial and economic downturn.  As an industry that generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually through income revenues, employment, investment and infrastructure, there has been a growing interest in trying to develop more effective management strategies to prevent and/or mitigate the adverse effects of such events, particularly at the localised region or destination level. Central to this endeavour is appreciating the direct relationship between tourism, risk, and hazards, and recognising that the tourism industry is inherently susceptible to crises and disasters.

As a relatively recent area of research, existing literature on tourism crisis and disaster risk management reflects numerous definitions and academic approaches.  Advocating the ideal of sustainable tourism development, discourse in development studies examines the broader historical, social, political, economic and environmental context of tourism development to better understand the dynamics of destination vulnerability and capacity.  While disaster risk management is similarly premised in understanding the context, it elaborates on the functional phases of a disaster, promoting proactive hazard prevention and mitigation.  Utilising this functional strategic management approach, scholars such as Faulkner (2001) and Ritchie (2004) have developed prescriptive crisis and disaster management frameworks specifically for the tourism industry.

Despite the incidence of crises and disasters continuing to affect entire tourist destinations and host communities, there have been limited attempts to synthesise key measures of destination vulnerability and sustainable development within the existing tourism disaster risk management modelling.  Similarly, as disasters and crisis events are frequently detailed in autonomous linear models of specific duration, occurring in an identifiable time and space, it remains difficult to realise the complex diversity of additional factors and longer term issues that influence the outcome of management and recovery efforts.  The advent of the Bali Bombings (October 2002, 2005) and South Asia Tsunami (26 December 2004) within communities characteristic of tourism dependency provided an opportunity to directly assess the value of a more holistic integrated approach to understanding tourism disaster management strategies and destination recovery.

Consistent with contemporary disaster management and tourism research, case studies are utilised as “a holistic empirical inquiry … to gain an in-depth understanding of a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, using multiple sources of evidence” (Beeton 2005:42).  The longitudinal case studies in this treatise have been established in intensive fieldwork periods reviewing the full continuum of disaster management from response and recovery to prevention and preparedness.  Fieldwork methods involved observation, participant observation and informal and semi-structured interviews with a diversity of individuals from key stakeholder groups.  Supplementary and secondary data included photographs, official reports, print media, web material, journal articles and continued email correspondence with key informants. The significant data set collected was organised temporally to correspond and compare with the progressive linear phases or anatomy of a crisis/disaster as characterised in Faulkner’s (2001) and Ritchie’s (2004) tourism disaster management frameworks. 

The synthesis of case study results demonstrates that linear tourism disaster management models focused specifically on the tourism industry are unable to appreciate or address the broader context of destination vulnerability and capacity for sustainable recovery.  In the absence of integrated, proactive, participatory planning, recovery management efforts supported a return to the pre-crisis “normalcy” of tourism dependency rather than sustainable transformation aimed at disaster risk reduction.  While conventional tourism statistics suggest gradual industry and destination recovery, conditions for many host community stakeholders including individuals, families, small and medium enterprises (SME) and members of the informal sector, remain tenuous.

Recommendations for comprehensive disaster risk management and greater sustainability for tourist destinations are premised in a more holistic, integrated approach to crisis and disaster management encompassing: all hazards, all phases, all resources and all stakeholders.  Additionally, in recognising the unique and dynamic nature of each destination and potential hazard, practical disaster management needs to be continuous, flexible, adaptable, and self-appreciating.

As an industry that is heavily reliant on public perceptions of safety, security and reputation, tourism will always be susceptible to crises and disaster.  While impacts are experienced most significantly at the localised region or destination level, understanding the broader context of vulnerability and capacity is integral to the planning and implementation of more effective and sustainable tourism disaster risk management strategies.  Although crises and disasters are inevitable, case studies of afflicted destinations facilitate industry and organisational learning to build better management capacity and mitigate adversity.

Desastres e calamidades sempre despertaram uma forma de governo diante do acontecimento de crise. Perante plantações ressecadas pelo Sol, submersas pelas águas da inundação ou destruídas por pragas, faraós, imperadores e demais governantes estabeleciam reservas de alimentos em celeiros, distribuíam alimentos e roupas para toda a população, perdoavam impostos nas áreas atingidas, etc.

No mundo contemporâneo, tais mecanismos e dispositivos de poder se aperfeiçoaram. Desastres têm sido objeto de uma biopolítica: são inseridos numa série de acontecimentos prováveis, passam por cálculos de custo, elaboram-se métodos de observação, entram numa estatística, etc. Ademais, adotam-se técnicas de governo para declarar estado de exceção e criar fissuras no ordenamento jurídico, como Situação de Emergência (SE) e Estado de Calamidade Pública (ECP). Tais declarações são desconexas às demandas sociais de reconstrução e recuperação no médio, curto e longo prazos.

A partir do desastre de São Luiz do Paraitinga (SP), analisa-se o processo de recuperação do município, no período de janeiro de 2010 a junho de 2013. No enredo oficial do desastre há agentes que detêm a fala e produzem seus entendimentos imediatos sobre o mundo do outro, falando pelos atingidos e definindo o que precisam, o que é melhor para eles. Neste livro, analiso o desastre como expressão de relações de poder para entender o campo de forças que conformam os discursos e as práticas. Para tanto, destaco lógicas de poder que se entrecruzam: a do fazer viver, a do deixar morrer e a do fazer resistir.

In January 2015, Malawi faced its worst flood disaster on record that affected 15 of its 28 districts. A post-disaster needs assessment was conducted that culminated in the development of a national recovery framework. This paper presents results of a study conducted to assess the process of developing and implementing the framework. Data were collected through review of relevant documents, key informant interviews and participant observation. The paper finds that the development of the framework has facilitated a mindset shift from the traditional focus on response and risk reduction to factoring in recovery. However, the development process was largely government-driven vitiated by inadequate consultations with non-state actors and communities. Its overall focus on ‘visible’ recovery was another drawback. Implementation of the framework has also encountered several bottlenecks, to the extent that the majority of planned interventions have not been funded. In developing and implementing post-disaster recovery frameworks, the paper recommends reflexivity and flexibility, focusing on addressing vulnerability, consideration of ‘invisible’ recovery aspects, ensuring availability of adequate financial resources, and enhanced coordination and involvement of a wider stakeholder group. When not done properly, the recovery framework may just be another mechanical tick-box exercise that fails to speak to reality.

This dissertation aims to explore the use and impact of social media in natural disaster response. The research project will seek to evaluate the impact of social media through the examination of the case study of typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) which made landfall in the Philippines in 2013 and severely damaged the region and other parts of South East Asia. It has been argued that Twitter, Facebook and third party applications enhanced the efforts of non-governmental organisations and rescue teams’ capacity to respond and save lives. Moreover, news media coverage emphasised the case stories of beneficiaries who have received aid when communicated their crisis situation via social networks.

Disaster Mental Health Community Planning is a step-by-step book to developing mental health disaster plans, assisting communities to act on long-term resilience and recovery.

As disasters continue to increase in severity and number, with 20% of survivors identified as potential PTSD victims, if they don't promptly receive care, this book is a critical read.

Chapters outline how to prepare, develop, and implement a trauma-informed collaborative process that prioritizes lasting emotional wellbeing along with survivors’ short-term needs. The manual demonstrates how to form this partnership through effective communication, assess those individuals at greatest risk of distress, and deliver trauma-specific treatment. Readers will appreciate the book’s practical, user-friendly approach, including case studies, checklists, and follow-up questions to better define goals. Cutting-edge treatment interventions are included along with basic information on trauma's impact on the brain and the types and effects of human-caused and natural disasters to help readers make sound planning decisions.

Accessible to mental-health providers, community leaders, organizations, and individuals alike, Disaster Mental Health Community Planning is a Road Map for anyone interested in delivering a trauma-informed mental health supplement to their community's medical disaster preparedness and response plan and to best prepare for climate changes and future pandemics.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction  2. The Four Principles of Disaster Mental Health  3. Action Planning through Collaboration  4. Collaboration Outreach and Education  5. Assessing Community Mental Health Needs and Assets  6. Natural and Human-Caused Disasters 7. Essential Mental Health Services  8. Resilient Individuals and Communities  9. Lessons Learned 10. Roadmap

Author(s)
Biography
Robert W. Schmidt, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor who lives and practices in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. He was given the ACA Samuel T. Gladding Unsung Hero Award for his work in Sandy Hook.

Sharon L. Cohen, MA Com, is a corporate/nonprofit communication and collaboration specialist with a background in the mental health field.

Featured Profiles
Author - Sharon L. Cohen
Author
Sharon L. Cohen
Author, SLCommunications
Newtown, CT, United States

Learn more about Sharon L. Cohen »

Reviews
"Robert Schmidt and Sharon Cohen have written what is destined to be a classic in the mental health field. Disaster Mental Health Community Planning contains comprehensive information on creating community-wide emergency plans for handling traumas, including a psychological component. The text stresses collaboration, communication, assessment, and lessons learned from various types of natural and human-made disasters. It is pro-active, beautifully organized, reader-friendly, and chock full of essential information for dealing with catastrophes and their aftermath. In an age of unpredictability, this book is a stable resource." -- Samuel T. Gladding, Ph.D., LPC, CCMHC, professor of counseling, Wake Forest University; former American Counseling Association president and ACA Foundation Trustee

"Disaster Mental Health Community Planning is a must-read for community leaders and mental health professionals before disaster strikes. This book provides invaluable information for considering, creating, and establishing a sustainable resiliency plan in the face of natural and human tragedies. Unfortunately, the necessity for this kind of planning is all too real and necessary in the U.S. today. Having established Evidence Based EFT trauma-healing programs in Sandy Hook, CT, Parkland, FL, as well as for genocide, indigenous, and refugee communities in Rwanda and Australia, I understand the importance of having a plan in place to bring communities back to resiliency as quickly and effectively as possible, otherwise these kinds of traumas have the potential to debilitate communities for generations." -- Lori Leyden, PhD, MBA, international trauma specialist

"Disaster Mental Health Community Planning is a comprehensive handbook for communities to plan for and recover from communal trauma. Written as a guide from a first-hand perspective and directly influenced by Schmidt’s experiences as a Sandy Hook resident and counselor and Cohen’s background in communication and collaboration, it highlights the importance of addressing the psychological and emotional impact from communal trauma and explains evidenced-based trauma therapies that most effectively promote recovery. The authors effectively explain in layman terms the importance of translating chaos into collaboration as a means of promoting community healing following a communal mental health disaster." -- Deb Del Vecchio-Scully, LPC, NCC, BCN, DCMHS, diplomat, clinical mental health specialist in trauma counseling, former clinical recovery leader, Newtown Recovery & Resiliency Team, co-founder and clinical director of Center for NeuroPotential and PTSD

"Mental health in the U.S. is unfortunately often overlooked or ignored in all aspects of our society. Case in point, many people who are traumatized from a disaster do not receive the treatment needed for long-term care. I hope that communities will use the information in this book to develop a plan specifically aimed to help the needs of these distraught survivors." -- John T. Broderick, Jr., former chief justice, New Hampshire Supreme Court.

"Collaboratives, such as those mentioned in this book and the one we established in California, provide an important way to provide immediate and long-term mental health needs to natural disaster survivors. We recommend such collaborations highly." -- Debbie Mason, CEO, Foundation of Northern Sonoma County.

"Congratulations to the authors for distilling the very complex topic of disaster mental health and providing all that is needed to develop a plan for effective preparedness and response after a serious incident." -- Cindy Ehlers, licensed professional counselor and vice president, operations, Trillium Health Resources.

At the national level, the role of education in promoting social cohesion, economic growth, and technological and scientific advancement cannot be underestimated. For individuals, education helps to develop the skills, attitudes and behaviors necessary to lead healthy, productive, and meaningful lives. Yet, it is estimated that each year approximately 175 million children have their schooling interrupted by a disaster (Global Campaign for Education 2016; Nicolai, Hine and Wales 2016). When the education sector is poorly prepared to recover quickly from a disaster, the impact on children and young people can be severe.

A government that takes El Niño occurrences as serious
quasi-periodic threats and seek to enact policies to protect
their citizens and their livelihoods and properties, public
and private, can be considered an El Niño-ready nation.
El Niño is a recurring phenomenon in the tropical Pacific
Ocean, appearing on average at least once in a decade but
often returning at 2-to-7 year intervals, and generally
lasting from 9 to 12 months or longer. It results from
anomalous air-sea interactions that enable a warm pool of
water in the western Pacific to shift eastward toward the
central and eastern Pacific. As a result of such a shift, El
Niño is associated with many adverse anomalous climate,
water, and weather impacts around the globe also often
lasting several months to years.
The most obvious impacts appear in the form of drought,
flood, flash floods and fires each of which has ripple effects
in society and ecosystems. These adverse impacts tend to
recur in many (but not all) places and can, therefore be
anticipated, planned for, and mitigated, if not avoided
altogether. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) through informed
prevention and preparedness merits greater visibility in
political decision-making processes, given the adage that
“an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” As a
known spawner of hydro-meteorological hazards, focusing
on the El Niño phenomenon is a good place to start for
early warning for risk reduction.

The study was conducted after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti and focused on disaster impact and recovery, as well as discourses of recovery, media, policies, and interventions. A key concern of the research was the interplay between discourses and practices of local participation in rural areas in relation to outside actors.

The final report details ten key findings and offers specific recommendations for practitioners and policymakers. Pyles, Svistova and third co-author, Josué André, Heart-to-Heart International, make suggestions for disaster preparedness and risk reduction in a way that enhances local community connections and resources, while also calling for transformation of economic arrangements where environmental protection is centered. Overall, the results of the inquiry into discourses and social production of disaster recovery, ask everyone working on recovery issues in Haiti, from policymakers to development workers to local community organizers, to pose key questions about their projects – Whose vision of recovery is it? Who participates? and Who benefits?

The Air cushion vehicle floats above the ground surface on a cushion of air supplied by the lift fan. Air is blown into the skirt through a hole by the blower .The skirt inflates and the increasing air pressure acts on the base of the hull thereby pushing up (lifting) the unit. Small holes are on skirt to provide the cushion of air needed. As soon as the assembly floats, a blower incorporated in the thrust engine blows air backwards which provides an equal reaction that causes the vehicle to move forward. Steering effect is achieved by mounting rudders in the airflow from the blower or propeller. Military and disaster or distress & medical help applications Design and development of prototype with basics functions, design analysis is done to determine the relevant standard requirements for air cushion vehicle model .Solid and fluid interactions in the skirt and hull part are analyzed for different weak points. Analysis on Bag, Segmented, pericell, combination type skirts for materials like, polyurethane coated nylon, rubber reinforced tarpaulin for improving the effectiveness of braking and by enhancing attachment between skirt and hull for increasing safety of hull.

This text later appeared as Chapter 7 of the book The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism. It incorporates much of the material from the articles entitled "A Letter from New Orleans" and "Postscript to a Letter from New Orleans."

After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico experienced the second-largest blackout in modern history, with parts of the island left without power for up to 18 months. Because the problems of Maria are multifold, this case study and review presents the historical, political, social, economic and cultural context of Puerto Rico, including a review of post-Maria solar interventions, along with two novel unconventional hybrid approaches to solving the problems of Maria: (i) Solar de Autogestión, a solar-energy racking that permits panel removal and storage in advance of a storm's arrival and reinstallation after the storm passes-a system that was developed through (ii) collaboratory-action parachuting, a novel community-interaction method developed as an oral history-based applied-scholarship hybrid of conventional parachuting research and community-based participatory research. This paper finds that addressing the problems of Maria involves understanding the holistic context of a place and its people; working in partnership with communities to form collaborations; and providing disaster response, addressing climate change, and expressing allyship and solidarity with communities through hurricane-resilient solar energy to help create energy citizenship and an energy community. Befitting its unconventional methodologies, this transdisciplinary paper-which by its nature may not fit neatly into any single discipline-also takes an unabridged, critical and hybrid descriptive-normative approach to subject matter and style, coupling academic sourcing and discourse with quotes, narrative details and fluid writing in order to be accessible to academics, policymakers and practitioners alike.

This paper conceptualizes a social repair orientation to disaster recovery for policy makers and programmers. It locates the concept of social repair in a variety of academic disciplines and identifies two distinct understandings of social repair: resumption of everyday life and re-humanization/re-constituting the self. The paper then theorizes the agency of memory, hope and resistance as strategic tools for achieving social repair. Additionally, social learning is used to describe the use of these tools by disaster survivors to achieve social repair. Finally, the paper delineates the differences between a social repair orientation to disaster recovery and existing disaster recovery praxis, offering guidance for policy makers and programmers.

Food insecurity within households is a risk to people's livelihoods. If not addressed in good time it could results into a disaster that will require foreign intervention for that affected community. Households in Bungoma county of Kenya were noted to be vulnerable to food insecurity due to low productivity and this state threatened peoples livelihoods. The objective of this study was to examine the physical, economic, environmental and social factors that led to low food production in Bungoma County, Kenya. A cross-sectional survey design was used in the study and a cluster (multi-stage random) sample size of 384 households was selected. Tools used for data collection were questionnaires, interview guides, focus group discussions and observation checklists. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that land size was small; the road network was poor and disorganized market systems. The cost of farm inputs was high as well as high poverty levels. Climatic variability affected crops and animal production. Social support, traditional beliefs and culture which discriminated against women were key risk factors that contributed to low farm production, making households vulnerable to food insecurity. Based on the findings, the study concluded that low farm productions were attributed to physical (Poor road networks and small land size), economic (poverty and high cost of farm inputs), environmental (climate variability and deforestation) and Social (cultural belief and negative attitude) factors. The study recommended that costs of farm inputs should be subsidized, improve road network system and sensitize people on positive cultural practices and attitude change to allow both gender participation on issues of food security.

Government recognizes the valuable contribution of the private sector during disasters. In the Philippines, we have witnessed how the private sector has pulled together their resources to respond to disasters during the relief and emergency phase. From distribution of food packs, shelter kits and other basic goods needed by the affected communities to mobilization of resources such as telecommunications and cellular sites, water facilities, transportation facilities, and power lines. During the early recovery and rehabilitation phase we see the assistance of the private sector through livelihood opportunities provided to the affected communities, building of classrooms and donating permanent houses to the people affected. These interventions are very helpful but there is value in institutionalizing mechanisms for sustainable private sector participation during the response, recovery and rehabilitation phases. For a country that experiences an average of 24 typhoons a year and other disasters, it is crucial to be able to optimize the assistance of the private sector, harness the limited resources, and deploy them to where it is needed to avoid duplication of interventions.

For disaster survivors, recovery requires more than regaining material losses and includes a need to incorporate the profoundly disruptive experience into individual and collective memory. Contemporary literature on post-traumatic stress notes the vivid sensory and recurrent qualities of traumatic disaster memories. By constructing a narrative from this sensory data, both individually and as a community, survivors create a recollection which is less likely to produce the same anxiety and allows individuals to incorporate disaster events into personal and community history. This narrative is also embedded in the landscape through the creation of sacred spaces, memorials, and monuments. This article explores the formation of post-disaster identities through the application of memory by survivors of the May 22, 2011, tornado in Joplin, Missouri.

There is no doubt that as the world’s population continues to grow and expand in hazardous environments, so too does our vulnerability to disaster. Researching disaster risk is therefore an ongoing challenge requiring a continual process of generating understanding of the changing environmental and societal characteristics that influence disaster vulnerability. Iceland, as the land of fire and ice, is of no exception. With a changing population, exponential growth in tourism and a volcanic eruption on average every 3–4 years, disaster risk research is of critical importance. Based on questionnaire survey results, interviews with key stakeholders and data derived from Statistics Iceland, this paper considers how residents might respond to a future eruption by examining their experience of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruptions against the changing demographic, economic and political landscape. While authorities were pleased with public response to evacuation orders in 2010, some residents did not evacuate. The reasons for not evacuating were due to caring for others or thinking the warnings were not applicable. Yet, most residents showed respect for authority and acknowledged the necessity of the evacuations. The relatively small, homogenous population of Iceland coupled with its peoples’ desire to cooperate contributed to this success. Within these communities, people are bound together by common beliefs, values and activities. However, the changing social landscape will test this phenomenon. In particular, the region’s economic base is evolving from traditional farming practices to one that is increasingly reliant on tourism. Demographic changes most notably include greater international migration to the South, as well as from the capital region. As the communities diversify, so too will people’s beliefs, values and activities. This paper explores the challenges this diversity brings with respect to generating a proactive public response to future evacuation orders. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of capturing narratives of actions and activities to enhance our understanding of the process of decision-making and the situational factors that add to its complexity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0205-6

Los desastres constituyen siempre la manera más contundente e inobjetable de evaluar la eficacia de los esfuerzos que hacen los países, tanto para evitar y/o reducir sus escenarios de riesgos socionaturales, como para responder articulada y eficientemente a la hora de registrarse uno de estos eventos. Penosamente las evaluaciones que se han hecho tras la ocurrencia de los últimos desastres que se han registrado en Venezuela - y muy particularmente aquellas desarrolladas luego de Vargas 1999 -, solo han servido para demostrar las profundas debilidades institucionales preexistentes, y para disparar procesos espasmódicos de reingeniería institucional en los que, a la larga, parecieran reconstruirse invariablemente las mismas malas prácticas y errores que posibilitaron el desastre previamente vivido.
A lo largo de este artículo se describe como este fenómeno pareciera haberse registrado en el marco del desastre de Vargas de diciembre de 1999 y se esbozan algunas teorías que sugieren que las causas de estas recurrentes formas de debilidad institucional, lejos de deberse exclusivamente a elementos circunstanciales o coyunturales, pudieran obedecer a razones de fondo propias del contexto social, cultural y político que fundamenta el quehacer de la reducción de desastres socionaturales en el contexto latinoamericano.

In Japan as well as in other countries social media is now part of daily life. During
fieldwork, researchers are confronted with decisions to be made concerning the
engagement in social media activities in the course of ongoing research, or with their
informants in general. Taking experiences from several years of ethnographic field
research in Northeast Japan after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
disaster as examples, this paper analyzes the opportunities and challenges regarding
the use specifically of Facebook in fieldwork. I argue that social media can become
a tool for building rapport and enacting reciprocity, as well as for providing informants with agency. At the same time, challenges regarding privacy, the distribution of information, and possible influences on ongoing research projects have to be kept in mind. Therefore the usage of online tools should be extensively discussed among scholars, while ethics boards have to consider the interdependence of online and offline social dynamics — so as to incentivize greater reflection on this issue among researchers.

This research report introduces a social repair orientation to disaster recovery for humanitarian policy makers and practitioners. It draws on four months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two remote Himalayan valleys in Northern Pakistan: Neelum valley (Pakistan administered Kashmir) and Siran valley (Khyber Pakhtun Khwa Province).

This document was prepared for the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Humanitarian Research and Innovation Grant Program).

A largely undistinguished, former politician who briefly led an extremely minor (territorial) jurisdiction in the outback of Australia a long time ago wants the city of Lismore moved. To higher ground. Where it will cost taxpayers less. You should be careful who you appoint to positions such as Coordinator General of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency. And occupants of these kinds of positions should be especially careful what they say immediately following disasters. Shane Stone has been lambasted for his gross insensitivity after his awful contribution last week: On Friday Stone, the coordinator general of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, told the Sydney Morning Herald that "the taxpayer and the ratepayer cannot continue to pick up the bill for these huge, catastrophic damage events". "You've got people who want to live among the gum trees-what do you think is going to happen? Their house falls in the river and they say it's the government's fault," Stone reportedly said.

In order to better understand and respond to the tropics as part of the global environment, we need to accept the unique features of the regional weather, such as cyclones, and be prepared to embrace their larger meaning for life in the tropics. In a physical landscape impacted by some 207 tropical cyclones since 1858, Queensland writers have attempted to incorporate both the terror and the sublime of the cyclone into their sense of place as they have attempted to find context for the unpredictable, chaotic and destructive tropical cyclone within their ostensibly tamed and ordered natural landscape. Consequently, the cyclone has become a defining symbolic metaphor of not only physical but also of literary tropical Queensland. Some Queensland writers have perceived within cyclones the Burkean sublime or personal revelation, while others have seen it as motivation for community strength, cooperation and compassion. For some, the purpose of the cyclone is divine retribution, but to others it's an apocalyptic event revealing a rare second chance for revelation and renewal. This paper will examine a range of such perceptions within Queensland literature as part of the search for meaning within cyclonic chaotic events. Tropes and cyclones In Meteorologica, Aristotle theorized that there were only two habitable areas of the earth: one near the northern pole region and the other near the southern pole. Within the latitudes of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, no-one could live (II. v. 362a. p.181). He also suggested that somewhere on the other side of the world in the southern hemisphere, " there must be a region which bears to the other pole the same relation as that which we inhabit bears to our [northern] pole " (II. v. 362b. p. 183). The passing of time and further exploration eventually proved the ancient philosopher right about a Southern continent, but he could not have been more wrong about that area between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn now known as 'the tropics.' Contrary to Aristotle's predictions about being uninhabitable, the tropical region is

Drawing on interviews with the chaplains and archival material from Disaster Chaplaincy Services--NY, this article discusses the formation of the chaplaincy at the Temporary Mortuary at Ground Zero after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It describes the initial chaplaincy response in New York by local clergy and the SAIR team of the American Red Cross. The first 6 weeks of chaplaincy at Ground Zero are explored highlighting the significant contributions of the Archdiocese of New York and Episcopal Diocese of New York out of St. Paul's Chapel. The mission and impact of the Temporary Mortuary chaplains' ministry of presence and blessing is discussed with some final reflections for the future of Disaster Chaplaincy.

Business Continuity Management processes aim at getting businesses backup and running after a crisis or disaster, but do not necessarily have a focus on the longerterm, people-related challenges that can follow. This study, based on a longitudinal, action-research case study, demonstrates how employee well-being and organisational performance of an organisation were affected over 2 years after the Canterbury earthquakes (2010-2011), in New Zealand. It details the organisational actions taken to improve staff resilience and well-being, and their performance, including: acknowledgement, increased autonomy, process flexibility, and focus on well-being. These lessons are presented to guide organisational strategies for crisis recovery. The strategies can strengthen organisations' adaptive capacity and increase performance in the long-term aftermath of a disaster. 1 | INTRODUCTION Business Continuity Management processes traditionally aim at getting businesses backup and running after a crisis or disaster. However, business continuity plans (BCP) do not necessarily focus on the longer-term, people-related challenges that follow many crises. In this study, we use a case study to argue that recovery following a major natural disaster represents a long and complex process that far exceeds the immediate resumption of services. An in-depth longitudinal case study offers an account of how the performance of a large organisation was impacted more than 2 years after the Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011, in New Zealand. The case study illustrates a significant conflict between the organisation's imperative to get the business backup and running as quickly as possible and employee reality in the disaster-affected area, requiring a longer-term focus on well-being. The case study also highlights the close relationship between employee well-being and organisational performance. We focus particularly on site managers' influence and significance to their staff well-being and detail the initiatives driven by both organisational leaders and staff to improve well-being and performance. The results of this study highlight successful organisational strategies that support employees in a postdisaster environment. These lessons can be used to guide organisational recovery planning, beyond the contingencies put into place to address immediate financial and infrastructure needs following a disaster. 2 | POSTDISASTER RECOVERY IN ORGANISATIONS Research suggests that it takes communities years to recover following a disaster (Allen & Toder, 2004; Rubin, 2009). The longer-term effects of a natural disaster on individual wellbeing are also evident in recent surveys conducted by the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) in New Zealand following major earthquakes. The findings suggest that the local residents perceived their quality of life as still being lower 3 years postdisaster than that of those living outside the city. In addition, over 20% of residents reported feeling stressed most or all of the time (CERA, 2014). In April 2015, over 4 years since the most damaging quake, there had been an increase of 43% in adult community mental health cases, and a 69% increase in child and youth mental health service cases in Christchurch (Humphrey & Renison, 2015). Empirical studies suggest that mental health impacts intensify over a period of years following a disaster (Spittlehouse, Joyce, Vierck, Schluter, & Pearson, 2014). Organisations require functioning individuals to perform optimally, yet they also have a responsibility to look after their people. Organisations are a key enabler of recovery as they provide key goods and services, along with employment, and are therefore integral parts of communities. Importantly, organisations can contribute to people's sense of normality after a disaster, thereby supporting

This paper brings together the findings of two projects, one on citizenship and the other looking at community responses to climate change-driven disaster. Citizenship and community resilience are central to each project. The findings are neither surprising or unexpected: strong communities with citizens that experience a sense of agency and social capital establish "cultures of resilience" that respond quickly and competently when confronted with disaster. Such communities also have strong links been local propulations and governance systems, a sense of accountability, and a thick, two-way flow of information between expert knowledge systems and localised knowledge. Yet despite some exceptional research, discussed in greater detail below, this area is often under-investigated in resilience literature

In the early morning hours of December 21, 1946, a M 8.0 earthquake struck off the coast of southern Japan, triggering multiple tidal wives, causing major destruction and death in 15 prefectures, and other damage in a total of 25 prefectures. More than 1360 people died. As this occurred during the Allied Occupation of Japan, when the latter country had its military demobilized and it was without its present Self-Defense Forces, U.S. and British Commonwealth Occupation Forces helped in the response, making it an early and first postwar example of an "Operation Tomodachi" in which civ-mil and international cooperation in humanitarian assistance /disaster relief was demonstrated. Part 1 looks at the scale of the disaster and Part 2 looks at the response.