Disaster Relief Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This example Disaster Relief Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

Disaster relief is the assistance provided to individuals, families, and communities to help them cope with disruptive, disorienting events. These events can be caused by natural hazards, like hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, or tornadoes, or they can be triggered by humans, such as nuclear accidents, health epidemics, or terrorist attacks. Thus, the scope of disaster assistance has expanded to encompass a wide variety of emergency situations.

Disaster Relief Programs

Governmental institutions play a key role in the development and implementation of disaster relief in contemporary societies. Governmental involvement is necessary, because many disasters cannot be addressed through private efforts. As a result, most countries have created a set of policies and procedures to guide their governmental operations. These policies identify when government will become involved and the types of assistance it will provide.

In most nations, governmental disaster relief policies cover four primary areas: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Mitigation programs are designed to reduce the potential damages of a disaster. These programs are undertaken before a disaster occurs, and they include such activities as building up coastal areas to better withstand storm surges and flooding, establishing stricter building codes in earthquake prone communities, and using immunization programs to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Preparedness programs are also initiated in advance of a disaster, but they tend to focus more directly on ensuring that emergency management organizations are ready and able to respond to disasters. They also strive to inform individual citizens and prepare them for potential hazards. Preparedness programs include the establishment of emergency operation plans, the activation of early warning and alarm systems, the development of public education programs, and the use of simulations and exercises that replicate emergency situations.

Response programs are designed to address the immediate problems of disaster situations. The objectives of these programs are to save lives, minimize damage, and help facilitate the recovery efforts that will follow. If possible, officials activate warning systems, issue evacuation orders, and set emergency response plans into motion even before a disaster strikes. However, most response activities focus on those operations that take place after an event has occurred, for example, opening relief shelters, providing medical care and essential services, reestablishing power and communication systems, and clearing debris. Once the hazardous conditions have subsided, response activities often evolve into efforts to assess the extent of the damages and to initiate longer term relief.

Recovery programs are undertaken to restore communities to their prior conditions, or in some cases, to actually improve their situation. These include operations to help repair damaged property and provide more permanent housing as well as broader programs aimed at stimulating economic development. Many recovery programs focus on helping individual citizens, but they can also provide assistance to entire neighborhoods, communities, and economic sectors.

Models Of Disaster Assistance

In the majority of nations, disaster relief is implemented in a fairly centralized manner, from the top down. That is, the national or central government is primarily responsible for developing and administering emergency aid. Subnational governments (e.g., those of villages, towns, states, or provinces) may also be involved be the process, but their actions are guided by national-level directives. In countries with centralized structures, the national government would be in charge of the nation’s disaster relief operations—from mitigation and preparation through the response and relief operations. This structure of disaster relief is most prevalent in unitary political systems like those of France, China, and Great Britain.

In federal systems with more decentralized governmental structures, the process operates quite differently. Instead of a top-down pattern, disaster relief is supposed to work from the bottom up. Municipal and county governments are expected to be the first responders and deal with emergencies that occur within their jurisdictions. If they are unable to handle the situation, they can ask for outside assistance from the state, provincial, or national governments. But the basic assumption is that most disasters will be handled at the local level with little involvement by higher level jurisdictions. This bottom up approach is evident in countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia.

Commonalities Of Disaster Relief Systems

Regardless of structural differences, there are similarities in the disaster relief policies of contemporary political systems. Perhaps the most striking characteristic is the key role that governmental agencies play in this process. These organizations have a variety of different titles (e.g., emergency preparedness, disaster relief, civil affairs, homeland security), locations (some are free-standing units, others are housed within military departments, and a few are spread across multiple agencies), and capabilities (e.g., some can act on their own, while others have to be called into service). But, they all provide the glue that ties together a nation’s disaster relief activities.

Another trend is the change that has occurred in the focus of governmental activity. In most nations, disaster relief policies were initially construed to be quite reactive in nature; governments took action only after a disaster occurred, and their involvement was highly limited in scope and time. Current governmental policies place much greater emphasis on proactive measures—such as preparing society and specific local communities for emergencies before they arise—and they cover a broad range of operations.

Perhaps, the most common element of contemporary disaster relief policy is the use of an “all hazards” or generic approach to emergency management. Instead of creating a multitude of policies to deal with different types of disasters—for example, one for hurricanes or typhoons, another for earthquakes, still another for terrorist activity, and so on—nations develop a general set of procedures to cover any type of emergency situation. This enables them to respond to a wide variety of situations in a more coordinated and effective manner.

Problems And Prospects Of Disaster Relief

Disaster relief is an important aspect of governmental activity in contemporary societies. As the demands on governmental disaster relief systems have increased, so too have the problems with these systems. Recent events—the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster in the United States, and the 2008 Sichuan Chinese earthquake—demonstrated all too clearly the extreme difficulties that confront governmental disaster relief systems. All governments face the same challenges in this policy area: planning for the next disruptive event, coordinating the activities of those who are involved in disaster relief, meeting the needs of affected populations, and balancing the costs of disaster relief against other governmental policy responsibilities.

Bibliography:

Blaikie, Piers,Terry Cannon, Ian Davis, and Ben Wisner. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters. London: Routledge, 1994.
National Research Council. Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2006.
Schneider, Saundra K. Flirting with Disaster: Public Management in Crisis Situations. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.
Silverstein, Martin E. Disasters: Your Right to Survive. McLean,Va.: Brassey’s, 1992.
Waugh,William L., Jr. Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disasters: An Introduction to Emergency Management. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2000.