Abstract
Hazards are problems that occur unexpectedly with enormous tests to communities and agencies ability to protect the population effectively, reduce both property and human loss, and how quick it recovers from the disaster. Climate changes effects cause increased severity of floods and the government finds it is necessary to address the issue as it is becoming a risk to many people, especially after the springs. The randomness of hazards requires effective and cost efficient management plan solutions to curb the problem. Emergency management and planning involve addressing any hazard or threat that a state like Ohio may experience and offers ways to prevent, protect, respond, recover, and mitigate. Ohio Emergency Management Agency and any other EMA should be able to manage disasters, maintain civil defense and homeland security services while working with the local, federal, and state agencies. Those are the key areas that are addressed to produce an advance overall preparedness. Prevention planning helps in mitigating opportunistic threats that may occur after the first hazard. This paper will discuss Ohio Emergency Management Agency planning process and evaluate exercises that the organization may use to improve its management planning and response. It also provides emergency management practices and principles of Unity of Command and National Incident Management System.
Introduction
Almost every year businesses or industry experience unplanned events affecting their lives and financial standing of the firm. However, some emergencies are inherently local. The damage can be prevented or controlled so that the businesses can go back to normal operations through planning ahead. Ideally, emergency management should start before the occurrence of an emergency such as the flooding in Ohio. Planning is incorporated through training, testing equipment, conducting drills or coordinating with the community members for its effectiveness. Emergency Management is the actions that an agency, levels of governments or individuals take to prepare for, attend to, and recover from an emergency. Emergency management involves a continuous process all in the effort to reduce the effect of disasters or avoid disasters from natural, technological or human-caused hazards. The processes include mitigation, preparedness, response and, recovery.
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Methodology
The study primarily relied on secondary data and thus used secondary data analysis methodology. The method involved collecting and putting together secondary data from different sources. The process involved collecting articles from the web, news articles, research articles, and reports. It also involved collecting data sources and documents from for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency such as operation manuals, operation reports, and technical reports among other documents. Once collected, the documents were critically reviewed for information or details on the operation of the agency.
Discussion
Personnel involved with the Emergency Management planning of the organization
Ohio EOP (Emergency Operations Plan) creates a framework through which designated agencies which do not belong to the states and the State of Ohio Agencies offer help to local jurisdictions to respond to disasters and recover from them especially disasters that affect citizens health, welfare and safety. Ohio EMA conducts the re-entry planning course and FEMA G-358 Evacuation every two years and incorporates some personnel to get it done. Ohio, Emergency Management Agency objective, is to manage an emergency, maintain civil defense and homeland security services working closely with the local, federal, and state agencies. There is a close relationship between FEMA and federal, local partners, and the state. All have different roles and responsibilities for effective operations (Ohio Emergency Management Agency).
Partnerships
State’s Emergency Management Agency has financial management support annex that provides financial help to state agencies to help communities recovering from disasters. Ohio Emergency Management Agency consists of the department of natural resources, taxation, treasurer of state, and insurance, among other.
The agency further works in cahoots with the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ohio Department of Health which addresses public health related incidents and provides medical services, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio Public Utilities Commission and the Ohio Attorney General’s office.
It also works with the National Transportation Safety Board. The national transportation safety and the department of transportation are actively involved in the recovery process and the mitigation of transportation (U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, n.d.). Also, Emergency Management Agency receives support from the Recovery and Mitigation agency which helps in restoring communities affected by the hazard through the support of local government jurisdictions. Last, it also collaborates with the law enforcement which maintains law and order within the legal authority coordinates law enforcements and helps with the dissemination.
Emergency management planning components
The Emergency Management Agency first process is hazard mitigation assessment. In mitigation phase the agency takes necessary actions to prevent hazards from developing into unmanageable disasters, that is, reducing effects of disasters that might occur. The mitigation phase concentrates on long-term control measures that will reduce risk or eliminate the risk. Activities that take place in this phase occur before the occurrence of the disaster; it is an element of preparedness. It is also a part of recovery process when rebuilding after the occurrence of a disaster. Mitigation activities can be non-structural or structural. For example in the case of floods or earthquakes emergency plan, a structural activity involves building strong bridges that can withstand earthquake while non-structural will involve passing laws that will prevent the citizens from building in dangerous areas, that is established flood zones. Ohio is prone to severe storms and flooding, and the Emergency Management Agency encourages damaged facilities protection from future events. It provides help to the citizens under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for mitigation measures during the recovery process. Most of the mitigation plans involve the transportation infrastructure which is under the management of the State DOT. Private contractors work on Transportation infrastructure mitigation (Ohio Emergency Agency, n.d.).
The second phase is the preparedness where the emergency managers create measures of action for implementation in case the emergency occurs. The phase involves, identifying the common threat, planning, training, exercising and identifying after actions improvements.
The Identifying the common threats and hazards that the state faces is the first primary measure of this phase. For example, Ohio is vulnerable to storms and floods. The agency conducts risk assessment which helps in focusing efforts and plans towards the greatest threats. The state’s transportation infrastructure in Ohio will focus on bridge supports and roadbeds because of erosions from the floods. The other measures include training teams and individuals to undertake response operations; testing response plans through conducting exercises and authorizing training; following some of the real disasters that have happened, the agency can incorporate lessons learned from the event to improve the people on their level of preparedness; and the agency develops emergency response plans that show how the entity will manage response operations.
The third phase, response, the government assumes direct action to save lives, care for affected victims, protect property, and mitigate damage caused. The government involves the local levels offering emergency services such as medical, police or fire activities. According to the level of damage, people may need to evacuate and relocate to an emergency shelter, and transportation plays a major role in response operations. Risk operations aim at reducing physical, social, psychological, and economic effects of an incident. Therefore, the agency should have a response planning which provides quick and disciplined emergency actions to ensure flexible response, adaptable and scalable response to an emergency.
The last phase is the recovery which is concerned with rebuilding destroyed property, repairing essential infrastructure, and other activities. During this phase, mitigation involves reconstructing damaged property in such a way that in a case of a similar event, the consequences will be minimal. Depending on the level of damage, the recovery process can take years or even a short period while the response phase is relatively short. The recovery plan should provide quick and adaptable response activities such as restoring damaged utility services, providing displaced people with food and shelter, and reestablishment of transportation utilities and routes.
Planning should be community-based where the whole population is addressed and their needs too. Therefore, it is important for the EMA to understand the composition of the population in question and not only the representatives. Effective management planning should also involve the participation of all stakeholders in the community that is the planning team should be diverse, including civic leaders, businesses, representatives from the departments of jurisdiction and agencies ( Sylves, 2014) .
Unity of Command and National Incident Management System principles in its emergency management practices
NIMS is not a resource allocation plan neither is it an operational incident management, it represents a set of concepts, doctrines, and organizational processes that enable efficient and effective incident management at various levels. NIMS provides a flexible and adjustable national plan within which all entities can work together as a team to manage domestic incidents throughout all the phases of incident management. NIMS provide standardized organizational structures that are set to improve the preparedness among jurisdictions in various areas such as incident command system, public information systems, and multiagency coordination systems. NIMS contains only one ICS and agents follow ICS principles as established in the NIMS. The NIMS Integration Center together with federal and state train emergency providers to ensure that their offerings are in line with the NIMS. Unity of command shows that the whole individual under the department have one designated supervisor to whom they receive and report information at the scene of the incident (EMA, 2014). Under Unity of Command, the involved personnel report to only one ICS supervisors and receive all their work assignments from him/her. In Ohio, every jurisdiction with over 5,000 populations has an account in NIMSCAST to report the progress of implementation of NIMS in the case of state agencies.
Pros and a con of the Ohio’s Emergency Management Agency process
Emergency Management Agency role is to coordinate activities to mitigate, show preparedness for, respond to, and maintain the current status of the community from natural, technological and accidental disasters. Emergency Management Agency process involves pre-planning of the unexpected, in the process of recovery after the occurrence of a disaster; the agency saves valuable time and resources. The recovery process can take years or even a short period depending on the level of damage, but with emergency management agency it takes minimal time. It allows the agency to make effective and efficient management decisions during an incident (Ohio Emergency Agency, n.d.). One of the phases includes mitigation which entails reconstructing damaged property in such a way that in a case of a similar event, the effects will be minimal, therefore, the agency and the community offer quick and less costly recovery after the incidence. This action boosts the resiliency of the community. Ohio Emergency Agency process improves communities’ adaptations to hazards or threats that are likely to affect them. The emergency management process involves the local levels offering emergency services such as medical, police or fire activities, and the state thus strengthening their relationships (The National Academics Of Sciences Engineering Medicine, 2006 ) .
Analysis of how the agency coordinates with other local state and federal agencies and agency anticipation emergencies that law enforcement will be responsible for
In 2011, spring in Ohio exceeded the normal rainfall causing flooding and earthquakes, especially in Wilmington region. The flooding caused major effects on the citizens and their property. There was coordination between Ohio EMA and the local and federal agencies trying to help the affected group. The Perry County Emergency Management Agency for example, as part of damage assessment, provided Ohio EMA with necessary photos. The Agency reconstructed damaged property after the flooding in 2011, and in the case similar event were to occur, the effects will be minimal. Ohio is vulnerable to storms and floods, and the agency coordinates with the federal agencies and local state to ensure the community is safe especially during spring seasons (Ohio Department of Public Service).
The local jurisdictions provide basic fire services protection to the community and primary emergency medical services. For example, if an individual has a heart attack or stroke in Ohio, the Emergency Medical Services give the individual highest quality of care. Ohio EMA agency also trains and prepares Ohio residents thus strengthening them and improves communication across the state.
Ohio Emergency Management Agency developed plans for handling emergencies
Emergency management involves some plans what many consider as emergency operations plan. A good EOP should be flexible in such a way it can be used in all emergencies. It should describe the planned purpose, the situation, organization responsibilities, plan development and maintenance of the plan, CONOPS, and authorities. Emergency planning involves addressing any hazard or threat and providing ways to prevent, protect, respond, recover, and mitigate in case it happens. Those are the key areas that are addressed to produce an advance overall preparedness. Prevention planning helps in mitigating opportunistic threats that may occur after the first hazard. The agency incorporates prevention methods into the planning process to help the parties involved identify necessary intelligence and information that will support the emergency response. Protection plan reduces or eliminates the level of threat damage causes the people, environment and the property. It is a way to safeguard the citizens, economy, and critical infrastructure. Protection planning involves measures to cover or protect assets from destruction, exposure, or injury. Protection actions in the planning process can occur before, during, or after a threat, the aim is to reduce, minimize the effect of the incident.
Ohio emergency management agency plans a link with private, local, and federal organizations that are to be activated to address emergencies in Ohio. The plans also ensure stability with the current policy guidance and show the relationship between other levels of government and the agency. Flooding, storms and flash floods are the most common natural disasters in Ohio which occur after spring rains. When planning for such incident: the EMA should establish warning and evacuation plans for the people. The plans should assist individual affected and may need transportation. The local emergency management should also get all the people who reside in flood prone areas secured in a safe place before the springs. Another planning consideration is identifying equipment and records that are movable to a higher location in case of flood and purchase a weather radio to listen to flood warnings and watches. Individuals should also participate in community flood control projects (The National Academics of Sciences Engineering Medicine, 2006).
Conclusion
Emergency responses and plans to floods is a crucial element when it comes to the development of integrated flood management policy. Flood management in Ohio and other states involves allocation of responsibilities among different agencies, coordination of plans, tasks, and activities. Natural or induced hazards are of increasing concern to management Agencies. Emergency Management Agency should aim at reducing physical, social, psychological, and economic effects of an incident. The plan should provide quick and disciplined emergency actions to ensure flexible response, adaptable and scalable response to an emergency. Emergency management is a protection plan minimizes the damage that the disaster causes people, environment and prevents the level of threat on property damage. It is a way to safeguard the citizens, environment, economy, and critical infrastructure.
References
Edwards, C. (2014). The Federal Emergency Management Agency: Floods Failures, and Federalism. Policy Analysis. (764). Retrieved from https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa764_1.pdf
EMA (2014). Ohio Emergency Operation Plan Emergency Support Functions, Tabs and annexes. Retrieved from http://ema.ohio.gov/Documents/Ohio_EOP/Ohio%20Emergency%20Operations%20Plan%20-%20ESFs%20and%20Annexes%20-%20Nov%202014.pdf
FEMA. (2010). Developing and maintaining Emergency Operations Plans. Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101. Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1828-25045-0014/cpg_101_comprehensive_preparedness_guide_developing_and_maintaining_emergency_operations_plans_2010.pdf
Ohio Department of Public Service. Ohio Department of Public Service. Retrieved from http://www.publicsafety.ohio.gov/aboutodps.stm
Ohio Emergency Agency. State of Ohio Emergency Operations Plan. Retrieved from http://ema.ohio.gov/EOP_Overview.aspx
Ohio Emergency Agency. State of Ohio Emergency Operations Plan. Retrieved from http://ema.ohio.gov/Plans_EvacGuidance.aspx
Sylves, R. (2014). Disaster policy and politics: Emergency management and homeland security . CQ Press.
The National Academics Of Sciences Engineering Medicine. (2006). Improved Seismic Monitoring-Improved Decision-Making: Assessing the Value of Reduced Uncertainty . National Academic Press. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/11327/chapter/9
U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. (n.d.). Highway Infrastructure Security and Emergency Management Professional Capacity Building. Retrieved from https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/security/emergencymgmt/profcapacitybldg/docs/hsemexecsrrleaders/hsem_srexecs.cfm
