The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is tasked with emergency issues in the homeland. It is a federal agency that is responsible for making emergency arrangement, creating disaster awareness, and decreasing risk. Its mission statement is to provide support to the US citizens and disaster responders to promote teamwork that will build, maintain, and enhance their capacity to curb disasters ( Anderson, 2002) . The FEMA has five mission areas, which include prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. These mission areas are dependent on the emergency management phase and they comprise of capabilities needed to execute their function before, during, and after an emergency (Chertoff, 2006).
The prevention mission entails capabilities required to evade or foil a terrorism threat or act. Attaining this involves proper planning that includes engaging the community so as to come up with the best approaches to meet its objectives (Jenkins, 2011). Any information regarding eminent threats is passed to the community and assistance availed where necessary. Preventing such threats will be attained through passive and active search procedures, which may involve physical investigation or sensor technologies.
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The protection mission comprise of capabilities required to keep the homeland secure from terrorism acts and both natural and manmade disasters. The mitigation mission aims at minimizing the loss of property and life trough reducing disaster impacts (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2016). The response mission of FEMA focuses on saving lives, protecting people’s property as well as the environment, and also meets the basic need of citizens after a disaster occurs. Finally, the agency carries out recover missions where it offers help to the affected communities towards an effective recovery.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission is to improve security and prevent terrorism, secure the US borders, safeguard cyberspace, and enhance resilience and disaster preparedness of the nation (Ellis, 2014). The FEMA supports the DHS mission through provision of security against terrorist attacks and helping victims to recover from a disaster. In every emergency related undertaking, proper prioritization is essential in ensuring that the impacts of a disaster are brought to a minimum. The FEMA should have a proper prioritization of its missions such that prevention of hazards becomes the main focus. Putting in place all strategies that ensure evasion of terrorist attacks will help the country live peacefully and reduce cases of life and property loss (Anderson, 2002). Since perfection is almost impossible, the agency should also ensure that it puts in place robust strategies for recovery missions upon an occurrence of a disaster. This will minimize loss of life and enhance chances of survival.
Posting response 1
The posting from my classmate shows the extent to which the student was able to understand the roles and duties of the homeland security. The student had a good knowledge of the FEMA mission areas and the capabilities involved in each area. He was also able to bring out clear information regarding the scope of the homeland security. From this posting, the question that comes up is what is the working relationship like between homeland security and other security agencies? Clarification should be made on what new technologies the agency use in identifying threats.
Posting response 2
In this posting, the student is able to correctly relate how FEMA missions support the DHS missions. He was able to come up with examples on how such missions intersect hence, showing a support system where the two entities reinforce one another. After reading this post, the question that comes into mind is to what extent does FEMA carry out security roles that are supported by the DHS mission? The similarities that exist between my posting and those of other classmates are the mastery of the agency’s missions and capabilities. Almost all the students understood these missions and were able to explain them clearly.
References
Anderson, C. V. (ed) (2002). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2002
Chertoff, M. (2006). Strengthening FEMA to Maximize Mission Performance. Vital Speeches of the Day , 72(10), 288.
Ellis, J. W. (2014). Fundamentals of Homeland Security: An Operations Perspective . Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas
Federal Emergency Management Agency (2016). Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 1p.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2016). FEMA's Mission Statement . Retrieved from <https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/videos/80684/>
Jenkins, O. W. (2011). Emergency Management: Preliminary Observations on FEMA's Community Preparedness Programs Related to the National Preparedness System: Congressional Testimony . Darby, PA: DIANE Publishing Inc.
