Population evacuation plan is one of the plans of specific operations, which are covered within the region's emergency plan according to Decree No. 328/2001 Coll.Evacuation belongs among the basic methods of population protection, being a summary of principles and organisation measures to ensure moving the persons, animals and material assets from the area endangered by an extraordinary event to other area. In the case of an extraordinary event endangering larger territorial unit, not only the populated agglomerations and industrial facilities may be included in the area evacuation, but also the inpatient healthcare facilities, where the situation difficulty is amplified by the patients depending on care by medical personnel and provision of healthcare services. Presently, there is no clear legal standard imposing an obligation on organisations to elaborate a complete evacuation plan. This issue is covered only partially in the sphere of legislation concerning fire protection. Nevertheless within the region's emergency plan elaborated for solution of extraordinary events requiring declaration of the third level (in the case of endangering more than 100 and less than 1,000 persons) and special level of alarm (when more than 1,000, a part of a municipality or enterprise grounds are endangered), all organisations with more than 100 persons should have the evacuation plans prepared. In the case of inpatient healthcare facilities, elaboration of evacuation plans is absolutely inevitable. The theoretical part of the dissertation describes the general principles and methods of performing the population evacuation. Attention was paid also to professional coverage, evacuation authorities and organisations and their structure according to the scope of the taken measures. In the chapter called "Application of the evacuation plan to inpatient healthcare facilities", the general principles and procedures concerning evacuation were applied to the inpatient healthcare facilities. In the practical part of the dissertation, an analysis of preparedness of the inpatient healthcare facilities for possible area evacuation to all-nation extent was made and the hitherto experience of the personnel of the inpatient healthcare facilities with any type of evacuation and their preparedness for possible complete evacuation were examined. Such examinations were made by questionnaire surveys. The collected data have been processed by statistical methods. The evaluation of results is presented in the "Results" chapter. On the basis of the acquired knowledge, a proposal of evacuation plan was drafted for the inpatient healthcare facilities. At the end of the dissertation, the procedures are suggested that may help manage perfectly the potential complete evacuation. Expected utilisation of the dissertation results was directed to definition of the optimum procedures and measures leading to successful management of evacuation of an inpatient health care facility. The dissertation conclusions may be used not only as the document for creating evacuation plans for other health care facilities, but they may contribute to considerable extent to elaboration of uniform evacuation preparation methodology within the emergency preparedness of the healthcare services.

Cultural competence is critical to public service, yet it is often ignored and underutilized, especially in post-disaster response and recovery. The current literature on cultural competence and frameworks developed by the private sector do not fully consider the complexities of a post-disaster public service context. This project explores the importance of cultural competence in post-disaster response and recovery, identifies effective training methods and organizational policies which may present barriers to competence acquisition, and proposes a new theoretical framework by which to assess cultural competence in international response and recovery work. This study used focus groups with Haitian beneficiaries (n=7), in-depth interviews with response and recovery workers (n=50), close ended surveys with both groups (n=226), observation, and a review of secondary sources (e.g. job announcements, training manuals) to explore cultural competence from the perspectives of international response and recovery workers, their agencies, and Haitian beneficiaries after the January 2010 Haitian earthquake. The analysis revealed that although 88% of participating aid workers identified cultural competence (CC) as critical to program effectiveness, 42% had no training before or during deployment. An analysis of the job announcements revealed that only 37% of agencies required cultural competencies. While aid workers and beneficiaries identified experiential strategies (e.g. immersion, mentoring) as critical to cultural competence acquisition, organizational policies (e.g. curfews, restrictions on travel) were often found to be at odds with these methods and more than 1/3 of participating aid workers felt that these policies were a barrier to cultural competency. Findings from this study may help aid workers better understand the importance of cultural competence and how it can improve the effectiveness of aid programs, and provide ways in which aid agencies can enhance cultural competence acquisition by their employees.

In this thesis, I examine the politics, poetics, and logics of uneventful human harm in the United States by tracking the life and afterlife of a chemically contaminated emergency housing unit. In 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) deployed 120,000 trailers to the US Gulf Coast to house those displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Chemical testing, spurred by reports of inhabitant illness, revealed elevated levels of formaldehyde emanating from the plywood walls of the trailers. After being reclaimed by the federal government and beginning in 2010, the FEMA trailers were resold at auction to every corner of the country. Resold trailers gravitated to precarious populations at the poles of rural capital accumulation—from oil patches in North Dakota to reservations in Washington. These trailers serve as an exceptional substrate for an investigation into the anatomy of the uneventful as they once approached the apex of eventfulness as a national controversy and now reside in the shadows of the everyday. This thesis apprehends and theorizes these dispersed and ordinary instruments of domestic harm across multiple registers: epistemological, material, spatial, and affective. I examine how failures of matter and meaning shaped and patterned the lives of those who inhabited the FEMA trailers as their lives became framed by chemical off-gassing, architectural insufficiency, material deterioration, and electrical short-circuiting. Crossing scales and venues, I interrogate the modalities of scientific incomprehension that erode the perception, admittance, or substantiation of mass chemical exposure. These technical processes, along with cultural horizons of eventfulness and the chronicity of disaster, foreclosed avenues of toxic harm accountability. These ‘economies of abandonment’ bring into relief the contemporary biopolitical priorities in which the FEMA trailer—an ostensible protection from harm that fosters illness—becomes possible. FEMA trailer residents attend to the minute, gradual, and ongoing symptoms of exposure to discern the reality and magnitude of residential contamination. The body of the exposed becomes both an epistemic instrument and, across time, the means of making low-level, chronic, and cruddy chemical exposures into eventful instances that drive individuals to action.

Extreme weather events have become a common occurrence and coastal communities are adversely affected by it. Studies have shown that the changing climate has increased the frequency and severity of storms, surging sea levels, and floods, as was seen with Hurricane Sandy (2012) and Typhoon Haiyan (2013). The need to be proactive in preparing for these events, as a means of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, is evident. This study focuses on the formal definition, measurement and simulation of coastal community preparedness and response to severe storm events. Preparedness and response requires resources, emergency plans, informed decision making and the ability to cope with unexpected events. A suite of preparedness indicators is developed using a three level hierarchical framework in the construction of a coastal community preparedness index to evaluate resources and plans. Informed decision making for emergency management personnel in the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is evaluated through a table-top exercise using a five-phase approach. Lastly, decision making with risk is introduced with a storm decision making simulation model. This study is applied to the case of the breakwater failure in the coastal community of Little Anse, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The issue of rising number of disasters, the overwhelming increase in number of older adults, and historically flawed evacuations presents real challenges. Disasters can strike anywhere, any time, and have devastating consequences. Since 1900, the number of Americans 65 and older has increased 12 times (from 3.1 million to 36.3 million). During the next two decades, the number of American baby boomers, now aged 45-64, who turn 65, will increase by 40%. As evidenced by recent disasters, the imperfections and vulnerabilities of flawed evacuations for older adults are still present. This study examined the level of willingness to evacuate among older adults in the event of a disaster. Despite the extensive literature on disasters and evacuation, some significant questions regarding evacuation and older adults have not been addressed. This study addressed the following concerns: (1) What is the willingness among older adults to evacuate when asked to do so by emergency management officials? (2) Does the call to evacuate being mandatory versus voluntary influence the willingness of seniors to evacuate? (3) Do preconditions (Gender, Marital Status, Age, Ethnic Origin, and Education Levels) influence the willingness to evacuate among older adults? The sample population consisted of 765 voluntary participants aged 60 years and older from thirty senior/community centers within seven counties in the State of Oklahoma. A group administered survey (The Disaster Evacuation Survey) included a total of 15 questions. This study revealed the following findings: older adults are more likely to comply with a mandatory evacuation order. Individuals with college degrees are more likely to comply with mandatory evacuations. African Americans are more likely to comply with a voluntary request. American Indian/Alaskan Native are more likely to comply with mandatory evacuation orders from emergency officials. Important practical implications for emergency officials responding to vulnerable older adults in disaster situations are also provided.

Orientador: Leonardo Castro Botega / Resumo: No contexto de gerenciamento de emergências, onde as informações são provenientes de fontes heterogêneas, é necessário que as tomadas de decisões sejam assertivas e dentro de um intervalo de tempo hábil. O tempo possui grande relevância por ser fundamental no domínio deste contexto, pois é criando uma linha do tempo, ou seja, ao decorrer dele, que se torna viável a percepção e compreensão de todas as características de uma situação, além de possibilitar a melhoria da qualidade da informação, a qual torna-se imprescindível no contexto de gerenciamento de emergências, considerando a complexidade e dinamicidade dos dados. Este trabalho objetiva a melhoria dos processos informacionais da recuperação da informação por meio da criação de um modelo com suporte semântico e temporal para que seja possível atender tais requisitos. A natureza deste trabalho é qualitativa, de finalidade teórico-aplicada e de tipo exploratória, sua metodologia conta com uma prova de conceito envolvendo situações de emergências de incêndio, na qual foi possível avaliar o comportamento da qualidade informação e inferir novos conhecimentos temporais que poderão servir de insumos para tomadas de decisões mais assertivas. / Abstract: In the context of emergency management, where information comes from heterogeneous sources, decision-making must be assertive and within a timely interval. Time has great relevance because it is fundamental in the domain of this context, because it is creating a timeline, that is, in the course of it, that it becomes feasible to perceive and understand all the characteristics of a situation, besides enabling the improvement of quality of information, which becomes indispensable in the context of emergency management, considering the complexity and dynamicity of the data. This work aims to improve the informational processes of information retrieval through the creation of a model with semantic and temporal support so that it is possible to meet these requirements. The nature of this work is qualitative, of theoretical-applied purpose and exploratory type, its methodology has a proof of concept involving situations of fire emergencies, in which it was possible to evaluate the behavior of quality information and infer new temporal knowledge that may serve as inputs for making more assertive decisions. / Mestre

Crisis communication systems (CCS) in educational settings have been challenged by mass casualty events including shootings, natural disasters, and health outbreaks in the United States. The U.S. federal government and the U.S. Department of Education have created safety and security instructions to manage these complex and diverse security issues, yet they do not address the role of school leaders within a CCS. Using complex adaptive systems as the theoretical construct, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine CCSs utilized by school leaders within a single public school district in the United States. The research questions are focused on the influence of components in a CCS, CCS influence on safety and security, and the school leader's role. Data were collected through interviews with 20 school principals and assistant principals of the school district. Interview data were inductively coded and subjected to thematic analysis. Findings indicate that approximately 40% of interviewees believe that communication behavior was the most critical component in a CCS. Methods of communication are varied and include a combination of technologies and behaviors. In addition, the majority of participants reported that internal decision making used by human agents in a CCS influences safety and security in an educational environment. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to the school district to enhance communication systems with both human and nonhuman methods, which may contribute to creating safer educational settings for students, faculty, and communities.

School shootings and emergencies have created the need for educators to be proficient in emergency response procedures; yet they do not always receive the requisite training. The lack of an established delineated training program for New Jersey, kindergarten to Grade 12 institutions has created a situation where educator preparedness varies immensely at schools. Numerous national events of targeted school violence have exemplified the need for quick and proper responses by educators to mitigate the tragic results until first responders arrive. The purpose and goal of this study was to assess educators’ perceptions and to determine the best practices in creating a comprehensive safety and security training program to prepare educators for school crises in order to offer a model for stakeholders to follow or gain ideas to improve their institution’s specific school safety and security emergency plans. Guided by the U.S. Department of Education’s best practices in developing high-quality school safety plans, this study analyzed the perceptions of 60 educators in one New Jersey kindergarten to Grade 12 school on the effectiveness of training. A mixed-methods approach, using a survey questionnaire and interviews, measured changes in the perceptions of these educators after the 15-week program. Data results included a revelation of the implementation of a comprehensive school safety and security plan with related training program resulted in a statistically significant increase in the perceptions of educators’ knowledge and abilities to respond effectively to school targeted violence and emergencies. These findings support the concept that best practices in the field of school safety and security management include appropriate and comprehensive school safety and security plans and training for educators to combat and mitigate school targeted violence and emergent events.

No description available.

With the increase of severity and scope of disasters, collaborative networks have become the main tool to tackle with complex emergencies. Networks, however, are mostly effective to the extent they are maintained over time. This study analyzes whether organizational goal convergence, information-communication technology utilization, and inter-organizational trust impacts network sustainability. The main research questions of the study are: (1) How are organizational goals, technical/technological capacity of organizations, and trust among organizations of a network are related to the sustainability of collaborative network relationships? (2) Which of the above-mentioned factors plays the most significant role in affecting network sustainability? Covering the context of emergency management system in the United States, this study utilized a self-administered survey that was electronically distributed to county emergency managers across the country. The data consisting of 534 complete responses was analyzed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Inc. software‟s PASW (Predictive Analytics SoftWare) Statistics version 18.0 and transferred to Amos 18.0 software for structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The findings suggest that organizational goal convergence, information-communication technology utilization, and inter-organizational trust have positive and statistically significant relationships with network sustainability; and, interorganizational trust is the strongest factor followed by information-communication technology utilization and organizational goal convergence. The study contributes to the literature on network sustainability with specific suggestions for emergency management practitioners.