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Managing the Human Dimension of Disasters provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis on how individuals cope with tragedy and loss.Kjell Brataas gives a voice to those who have suffered and have been affected by unimaginable trauma. Noted experts recount stories and share their knowledge of how they assisted victims following tragedies such as the Manchester Arena bombing, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, terror attacks, several aircraft disasters and school shootings, the 9/11 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. The book focuses on those affected by a disaster, including the bereaved, survivors and first responders. Leaders of support groups formed after these tragedies, trauma therapists and psychologists from three continents offer their experiences dealing with victims and the aftermath of disaster. Chapters provide guidance on memorializing tragedies, site visits, donation management, media relations, social media, grief counseling and human resilience. Readers will be shown that psychological support is critical after a disaster and learn from those who deal with emergencies.Brataas'unmatched volume offers new understandings, recommendations, best practices and benchmarks on how best to assist victims in the aftermath of disaster. A valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners.

This book explores the significant role of grassroots organizations in complementing that of governments and intergovernmental organizations in situations of disaster relief and shows how creative local initiatives can result in the mutual reinforcement of emergency relief and development programs.

Resilience as a concept has become embedded in public policy discourse within countries across the world in a wide range of contexts--planning, education, emergency management, and supply chains. The goal of this book is to assist future community leaders and professionals with the subsystem components and the actions that must be taken to insure community resilience, and to alert them to the potential pitfalls when adapting their community to the challenges that continually change. The development of trust among and between diverse members of communities and the political and economic leaders is essential if our views of how to build resilience are to change. The book is divided into five sections. The first section explores the challenges of transformational change, building community resilience with alternative frameworks, and resilience in time and space with lessons from ecology. Section II covers the building of hazard resilient communities through technology, microscale disaster and local resilience, the building of resilient cities by harnessing the power of urban analytics. and the failure to describe and communicate the possible future climate change scenarios. Section III examines challenges for urban theory when conceptualizing financial resilience, the role of social capital in community disaster resilience, the challenges of citizen engagement and resilience in the Dutch disaster management, and the rationalities of extraction and resilience of fossil-fueling vulnerability in an age of extreme energy. Section IV explores shifting from risks to consequences when building resilience to mega-hazards, resilience and small island nations, the sea level rise, demographics and rural resilience on Maryland's Eastern shore, and the epicenter of community resilience in the California's San Francisco Bay Area. Section V discusses observations and challenges on building community resilience in the twenty-first century. This highly informative and indispensable volume will be meaningful for future community leaders, citizens, stakeholders, government officials, emergency management, and crisis interveners.

Subsidiarity is not a new idea, having been discussed either implicitly or explicitly for centuries. From Aristotle to the International Criminal Court, subsidiarity has been considered a means of framing the interacting spheres of sovereignty and levels of responsibility between individuals and the social and political order. The Catholic Church and the European Union have put forward the two clearest definitions of subsidiarity, representing the social order in the former and the political order in the latter.This book explores the possibility of a new humanitarian principle: subsidiarity, which means recognising that, in humanitarian response, local populations can and should be best placed to make decisions and take action. It argues that the humanitarian system should be designed to support this in the first instance and only to take action and make decisions at a higher level when this can be justified by a humanitarian imperative and the exigencies of the context.Subsidiarity as a humanitarian principle offers the possibility of a decision making framework that puts disaster affected populations at the centre of humanitarian response.

The collection of papers in this ebook clearly identify how cities have become hubs not only of opportunity, development and economic growth, but also of risk accumulation. In hazard-prone regions, risk has become a defining characteristic of the urban landscape. The first set of papers in this ebook tackles the complex processes of risk accumulation, of cascading and interdependent risks in a world of connected cities. The second set of papers presented, take us into the critical area of how to better understand risk and resilience and discuss limitations to and different approaches and tools available for this.

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act authorizes the President to issue “major disaster” or “emergency” declarations before or after catastrophes occur. Emergency declarations trigger aid that protects property, public health, and safety and lessens or averts the threat of an incident becoming a catastrophic event. Given their purpose, the emergency declarations may precede an event. A major disaster declaration is generally issued after catastrophes occur, and constitutes broader authority for federal agencies to provide supplemental assistance to help state and local governments, families and individuals, and certain nonprofit organizations recover from the incident. Since the decision for a declaration is at the discretion of the President, there has been some speculation regarding the influence of political favor in these decisions. Some have posited various connections between the political party of the governor requesting or the prominence of some state's congressional delegation on committee's important to FEMA. This book discusses the evolution of this process, how it is administered and recent changes enacted in law as well as amending legislation that has been introduced. The book then provides background on key elements of the Public Assistance (PA) Grant Program, which provides financial grant assistance to states, tribes, and local communities both in the response to and recovery from significant disasters. Finally, this book concludes with discussion of several policy issues that Congress may wish to consider when evaluating the PA Program in the future, including considerations of significant prospective changes to the PA Program and the role of the PA Program in the context of other federal agency disaster assistance authorities.

Hurricane Sandy struck the United States in October 2012, causing an estimated $65 billion in damages. FEMA provides assistance to survivors through IHP and other programs. Part of its mission is to provide assistance quickly, but the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) previously identified weaknesses in FEMA's ability to do so while protecting government resources. Moreover, GAO's 2006 reports on Hurricane Katrina and Rita showed that FEMA did not consistently validate the identity of applicants or inspect damaged properties. This book discusses the extent to which FEMA implemented controls to help prevent IHP payments that are at risk of being improper or potentially fraudulent; and challenges FEMA and states faced obtaining information to help prevent IHP payments from duplicating or overlapping with other sources in its response to Hurricane Sandy. This book also discusses the the timeliness of SBA's disaster assistance to small businesses; the loan approval rates for small businesses and reasons for decline for Hurricane Sandy and previous disasters; the extent to which SBA has implemented programs mandated by the Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2008; the progress DOT has made allocating, obligating, and disbursing DRAA surface transportation funds; how FTA's new Public Transportation Emergency Relief program compares to FEMA's and FHWA's emergency relief programs; and the extent to which FTA and FEMA have implemented their memorandum of agreement to coordinate their roles and responsibilities when providing assistance to transit agencies.

This volume presents eighteen case studies of natural disasters from Australia, Europe, North America and developing countries. By comparing the impacts, it seeks to identify what moves people to adapt, which adaptive activities succeed and which fail, and the underlying reasons, and the factors that determine when adaptation is required and when simply bearing the impact may be the more appropriate response. Much has been written about the theory of adaptation and high-level, especially international, policy responses to climate change. This book aims to inform actual adaptation practice - what works, what does not, and why. It explores some of the lessons we can learn from past disasters and the adaptation that takes place after the event in preparation for the next. This volume will be especially useful for researchers and decision makers in policy and government concerned with climate change adaptation, emergency management, disaster risk reduction, environmental policy and planning.

The all new Third Edition of Public Health Management of Disasters: The Practice Guide will provide an updated operational field and desk guide for public health personnel who are preparing for or responding to disasters, and for the emergency management community who must work with public health in any response. The entire book has been updated and additional chapters and sections have been added. Updated information on roles and responsibilities, the organization of federal preparedness and response, working with emergency management, surveillance and information systems, emergency communications, environmental issues including food security, emerging diseases and bioterrorism, mental health services, people with disabilities and chronic disease, recovery and reconstruction, evaluation and the appendices. In addition, sections/chapters have been added on current legislation, vulnerable populations, ethics, social media, resilience, whole community preparedness, response systems and capabilities. This book can be used by anyone in the field responding to a disaster, and is also designed for use by anyone working in emergency management preparedness or the delivery of public health services, as well as public health students and those at training institutes, health departments, and any community agency that either delivers public health or clinical services or works with the public during an emergency, and the public health role in emergency management. Linda Young Landesman, DrPH, MSW