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Service Organizations in Disasters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2017

K.A. Handal
Affiliation:
New York City Emergency Medical, Services, 333 E. 66 St., New York City, New York, USA 10021

Extract

Our belief that there is a superagency that goes to work when a disaster occurs is unfounded. What does exist is a network of integrating expertise and resources that are escalated from different routine activities to cooperatively respond to one event. This paper concerns the governmental approach in one area, New York City.

In the United States, federal and state laws exist to minimize the effects of disasters, by identifying measures to prevent or mitigate them, developing mechanisms to coordinate the use of resource and manpower during disasters, and by providing recovery and redevelopment following a disaster. These functions and services are coordinated to the maximum extent with comparable activities of local state and federal governments, and many voluntary private agencies. Organizational responsibility follows a bi-directional flow from federal to state to county-, city-, town- and village level, and in the reverse (Fig. 1). The roles and responsibilities depend on the type of disaster (Fig. 2) and hence the response and activity needed. Response activities include need for clothing, crisis counseling, debris removal and disposal, disease and pest control, equipment and supplies, evacuation, food provisions, fuel provisions, housing and shelter, identification and disposition of the dead, labor pools, law and order, medical care and treatment, power provision, protective measures, search and rescue, sewage control, transportation, the need to waiver codes, water provisions, and weather forecasting.

Type
Section Three—Organization
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

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