What Is Response?
The
response function of emergency management includes actions aimed at
limiting injuries, loss of life, and damage to
property and the
environment that are taken before, during, and immediately after a
hazard event. Response processes begin as soon as it becomes apparent
that a hazard event is imminent and lasts until the emergency is
declared to be over.
Response
is by far the most complex of the four functions of
emergency management, as it is conducted during periods of very high
stress, in a highly time-constrained environment, and with limited
information. During response, wavering confidence and unnecessary delay
directly translate to tragedy and destruction.
The
task of limiting injuries, loss of life, and further damage to property
and the environment is diverse. Response includes not only those
activities that directly address these immediate needs—such as first
aid, search and rescue, and shelter—but also includes systems developed
to coordinate and support such efforts. Response involves the rapid
resumption of critical infrastructure (such as opening transportation
routes, restoring communications and electricity, and ensuring food and
clean water distribution) to allow recovery to take place, reduce
further injury and loss of life, and speed the return to a normally
functioning society.
Exercises
and training may improve responders' skills, but many unknown variables
unique to each hazard confound even the most well-planned response.
Further, especially during response to disasters that are international
in scope, many groups and individuals from all over the world suddenly
converge upon the affected area, each with their own expectations,
equipment, and mission.
Disaster response
is centered upon information and coordination. Unique to each event are
the participants, needs of the victims and the community, the timing
and order of events, and the actions and processes employed. This
section approaches the various functions and processes associated with
response in a general sense, as they would apply to all hazards and all
nations.
Hazard
events, regardless of whether they turn into disasters, are
emergencies. They are situations in which the split-second thinking of
both trained and untrained individuals must address conditions outside
normal life. The emergencies continue until these extraordinary needs
have ceased and the danger to life and property no longer persists.
Emergencies occur in three phases, with different response activities applying to each:
1. Prehazard.
During this period of the emergency, the hazard event is impending and
may even be inevitable. Recognition of the impending hazard event may or
may not exist.
2. The emergency: Hazard effects ongoing.
This period begins when the first damaging effects begin and extends
until all damaging effects related to the hazard and all secondary
hazards cease to exist. It may be measured in seconds for some hazards,
such as lightning strikes or earthquakes. However, for others, such as
floods, hurricanes, wildfires, or droughts, this phase can extend for
hours, days, weeks, or even years. During this time, responders address
the needs of people and property as well as the hazard effects.
3. The emergency: Hazard effects have ceased.
During this final phase of the emergency, the hazard has exerted all of
its influence, and negligible further damage is expected. Responders
are no longer addressing hazard effects, so their efforts are dedicated
to addressing victims' needs, managing the dead, and ensuring the safety
of structures and the environment. The emergency still exists and the
situation still has the potential to worsen, but the hazard or hazards
that instigated the emergency are no longer present
Search and Rescue
Many disasters result
in victims being trapped under collapsed buildings, debris, or by
moving water. Earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, storms, tornadoes,
floods, dam failures, technological accidents, terrorist attacks, and
hazardous materials releases, for example, all may result in the need
for organized search and rescue. Search and rescue involves three
distinct but interrelated actions: locating victims; extracting
(rescuing) victims from whatever condition has trapped them; and
providing initial medical first aid treatment to stabilize victims so
that they may be transported to regular emergency medical practitioners.
Average
citizens, victims' friends, family, and neighbors, perform the majority
of search and rescue in the initial minutes and hours of a disaster.
These people locate victims by listening for calls for help, watching
for other signs of life, or using information to estimate where the
trapped person may be (such as knowing that someone would have been at
home at a certain time of day). It has been estimated that half of those
rescued are rescued in the first 6 hours after a disaster happens (with
only 50% of those who remain trapped beyond 6 hours surviving; so the
contribution of ordinary citizens is significant. These untrained
responders, operating without adequate equipment or expertise, often
place themselves at great risk. But despite the incidence of rescuers
being injured or killed, many more lives are saved than lost.
For
more organized and technical search-and-rescue effort needs—where
average, unequipped citizens are unable or unwilling to go—there are
formal search-and-rescue teams. These teams train regularly and operate
with a full cache of equipment, supplies, and animals. The teams may
focus on general search and rescue or have specialty areas such as
wilderness rescue, urban search and rescue, or swift water rescue. Their
equipment, which includes medical equipment, rescue equipment (ropes,
saws, drills, hammers, lumber), communications equipment (phones,
radios, computers), technical support (cameras, heat and movement
detectors), and logistics equipment (food, water, special clothing),
greatly increases their ability to locate and save victims.
Many
nations train, equip, and maintain search-and-rescue teams that are
deployable anywhere in the world, with all of their equipment, at a
moment's notice. These teams are able to perform several or all of the
following tasks:
- Search collapsed buildings for victims and rescue them
- Locate and rescue victims buried in earth, snow, and other debris
- Rescue victims from swiftly moving or high water
- Locate and rescue victims from damaged or collapsed mines
- Locate and rescue victims lost in wilderness areas
- Provide emergency medical care to trapped victims
- Provide dogs trained to locate victims by sound or smell
- Assess and control gas, electric service, and hazardous materials
- Evaluate and stabilize damaged structures
