Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.
The World Trade Center bombing of 1993 awoke the United States to the realization of the lack of preparedness to disasters(Emergency preparedness in the United States). The terror attack was intended to bring down both the north and the south towers. This would have killed thousands of people. Fortunately, only the north tower was destroyed. Six people were killed while over a thousand were wounded. Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.Later on, in the Murray Federal Building was attacked in 1995.
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During these attacked, the United States government saw the need to create a disaster management organization called disaster relief agency. The agency had various agencies within it. For instance, there was the Federal Emergency Management agency whose purpose was to respond to the catastrophe, by setting up search and rescues of those injuries and trapped (Rodger, 2007). Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.
The American Red Cross was intended to provide aid to the disaster victims. It was passed by Congress and given the mandate to provide food clothing and support during disasters. The September 11 attack increased the disaster preparedness of the United States. The country focused more and more on both preventions of further attacks as well as means of dealing with any attack if it so happened. The first step was the passing of the Homeland Security Act by the Congress (Emergency preparedness in the United States) and its signing by George W. Bush. Later on, the department of homeland security was created and tasked with prevention of terror attacks in the United States. (Brown, 2015). Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.
The government also tightened the anti-terror legislation. Scrutiny of all the people traveling to the United States as well as the recent immigrants into the United States. These measures were put in place to prevent further terror attacks as well as management of casualties in the case of another attack by emergency preparedness. We can, however, note that the measure taken were not enough to prevent other attacks. For instance, there were other terror attacks such as the famous September 11 attack (Langley, 2006). The country was expected to be vigilant and prepared for emergencies but apparently the attack happen. Also, the emergency preparedness department focused more on disaster management in the case of terror attacks. They left out other forms of disasters such as hurricanes and tornados. Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.
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There are still vulnerabilities on the response time of the disaster management teams. The teams also lack proper coordination due to lack of proper chain of command. For instance, during the hurricane Katrina, the emergency teams from the other states took too long to be approved before they could join the rescue teams (Langley, 2006).
In the same year 1993, the same a devastating storm in the United States. The storm is famously known as “The Storm of the Century. It was among the worst storms ever experienced in the United States. The country had suffered a terror attack and was, therefore, alert on disaster management protocols. However, the storm wasn’t exactly what the emergency teams such as the American Red Cross and the F.E.M.A were expecting (Tarshis, 2006). There was massive loss of lives and distraction of properties. The rescue teams took months to recover bodies of the victims. The response to this disaster was quite inefficient. Due to the ineffective and lack of proper’s rescue equipment’s such a boats and choppers, many lives were lost. Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.
Having encountered the Storm of the century, the nation through the emergency response organizations realized the needs to prepare for more disasters of their nature. However, years later, the Hurricane Katrina, a disaster of the same kind took the nation by surprise. The response of the emergency teams was still slow and inefficient; the disaster management equipment was not good enough to deal with such disaster. For this reason, more than 1800 people lost their lives while properties worth billions were destroyed (Rodger, 2007). Emergency preparedness in the United States Paper.