Brandon Woodrow 
Disaster management is an ongoing process that involves planning for, mitigating the effects of hazards, responding to a disaster quickly after it occurs and recovering afterwards. Each stage builds on one another in a cycle-like process.
Disaster management as a comprehensive concept offers opportunities to refine both rhetoric and reality by including political considerations, resource and time management more systematically than before.
Preparedness
Preparation involves creating safeguards to mitigate disaster risks. This may involve considering potential threats such as earthquakes and blizzards as well as active shooters and hurricanes.
Disaster-management leaders focus on devising plans that can be executed locally, such as fire drills, active shooter training sessions and evacuation rehearsals.
These plans provide an essential service in protecting individuals from danger and recovering their property, and recovering any lost assets. In addition, these plans can assist people in taking steps to prepare their homes and businesses for emergencies in a region, such as floods and tornadoes. This field might also focus on decreasing community vulnerability by moving schools and hospitals away from seismic fault lines or suggesting ways to use land more safely such as not building on floodplains – helping keep communities safe while decreasing relief efforts costs.
Response
Disaster response involves taking immediate steps to mitigate hazards and restore community functions after natural or man-made disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires or chemical accidents. In the US, Federal Emergency Management Agency is responsible for providing operational and logistical disaster response capabilities upon request from States, Tribes, Territories or Insular Areas that have been affected by an event, as well as local jurisdictions affected by it.
First step of any disaster response should be an evaluation of damage and severity to determine which resources to deploy, such as specialized equipment and personnel not generally available, as well as local volunteers. Organizations responding may include both global and local entities bringing unique skillsets and assets to assist the response effort.
An effective disaster response plan must be as straightforward and flexible as possible in order to meet the unique requirements of each crisis situation. Therefore, this means the plan must be easily understood by all parties involved, with minimal bureaucracy or stringent procedures involved.
Recovery
Recovery Phase The recovery phase aims to restore key community functions and manage stabilization efforts after the response phase has concluded, as well as assist individuals in moving beyond survival considerations and beginning their lives anew.
Disaster recovery requires organizations to identify business-critical applications and data. This enables them to select an appropriate backup, recovery, and restoration strategy for their organization – often employing tiered recovery models that enable businesses to tailor data loss tolerance according to business requirements and budgetary considerations.
Disaster recovery aims to quickly restore business operations following an event of any magnitude, so having a detailed, well-documented plan that includes detailed procedures is key in order to minimize disruption during recovery. It can also reduce time and effort necessary for formulating an effective disaster recovery plan; creating standard formats for documents can further streamline this process.
Prevention
Prevention in disaster management refers to taking measures that lower the risk of disaster occurring or lessen its impacts when they cannot be avoided. For instance, communities may use evacuation plans during wildfires or defensible space around homes to guard against flooding – all measures which reduce loss of lives during emergencies while speeding up their recovery timeframes.
Disaster management professionals address factors that exacerbate the impact of both natural and human-caused disasters in this phase. For instance, poor levee maintenance in New Orleans contributed significantly to catastrophic flood losses caused by Hurricane Katrina; mitigation efforts can include reviewing building codes, zoning requirements and other standards to ensure they are up-to-date and reviewed regularly as part of mitigating measures.
Even though no one can predict when disaster will strike, effective leaders have the knowledge and tools available to them to mitigate its most devastating repercussions. By using the disaster management cycle as a framework for disaster preparedness in their organization or community.
