AMU Health & Fitness Resource

The Phases of EDM — a Primer

Emergency & Disaster Management is typically thought of in terms of four or five specific phases or activities: planning; mediation; response; recovery; and now increasingly, adaptation as well. These are useful distinctions because a different set of skills and resources are required to accomplish each effectively.

We don’t do all of them with equal effectiveness. Take for example response. We’re REALLY good at response. We build federal and local response agencies, military forces, fire departments, police forces, volunteer organizations–all in the name of responding to emergencies and disasters and effectively resolving the situations.

By comparison, we do recovery poorly. New Orleans has still not been completely rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, nor has New York after Superstorm Sandy. Societies decimated by war often never recover–witness pretty much the entire Middle East. The problem with recovery is that it is long and costly, and attention to the need fades quickly as we get distracted by the next emergency.

How effectively we accomplish mitigation and adaptation is still to be seen. Mitigation has one of the same issues as recovery–projects to avert disaster can quickly become expensive and long-term, and the competition for resources results in there never being enough to go around. Adaptation is uncharted territory–we’ve never faced the specter of cities swallowed by [link url= “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming_on_humans” title= “sea-level rise“] or [link url= “https://amuedge.com/water-water-nowhere/” title= “droughts“] or [link url= “https://amuedge.com/groundwater-not-an-infinite-supply/” title= “groundwater depletion“], making swaths of the country uninhabitable–at least, in modern times. The [link url= “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse” title= “Mayans“] and the [link url= “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans” title= “Anasazi“] may have lived through these events, but it’s safe to say we’ve learned nothing from them.

Planning is the one activity that influences all others. A great plan can lead to a great response. A great plan can allow recovery to follow through to completion. A great plan selects and resources the most effective mitigation activities. And adaptation will turn out much better if we plan for it rather than have to make it up as we go along.

So that’s a quick primer on the EDM field. There’s little that we teach or study that doesn’t somehow fit into one or more of these five categories. Next time, I’ll expand on the planning activity and point out some important distinctions between tactical and strategic planning.

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