Journal of Emergency Management最新文献

Introduction: Periods of civil unrest pose significant operational and security challenges to those seeking to provide emergency care to patients. For emergency departments (EDs) and their staff, effectively operating in this potentially hostile environment requires careful planning. Understanding the challenges posed during periods of civil unrest is paramount for emergency medicine staff and emergency planners to ensure continuity of care.

Objective: To provide ED and hospital staff with an understanding of the challenges faced during periods of civil unrest and to offer recommendations to maintain safety and operational viability.

Discussion: Preplanning before any anticipated civil unrest is essential to a well-coordinated response. During the period of civil unrest, maintaining effective communication between command elements and clinicians in the ED is vital to ensure bidirectional sharing of information. Deviations from normal operating procedures should be expected and relayed to clinicians as quickly as possible. Similarly, staff may need to shelter in place or relocate to a more secure area within the hospital. Civil unrest is highly dynamic, and hospital leadership must follow developments closely to protect staff and facilities.

Conclusion: This review provides ED and hospital staff with an understanding of the significant challenges during periods of civil unrest.

Flooding is the deadliest and most damaging natural hazard worldwide. Despite efforts to make communities more flood-resilient, global flood impacts are on the rise due to ongoing climate change. Amid the expected increase in the intensity and frequency of flood disasters, there is an urgent need to understand the roles of network governance in ensuring coordinated efforts in response to floods. The goal of this study is to examine interorganizational coordination and collaboration in the aftermath of the New South Wales (NSW) Floods in Australia in 2022. Specifically, this study addresses two primary research questions: (1) Which agencies coordinated and collaborated during the response to the NSW Floods? (2) What were the characteristics of the interorganizational coordination system in response to the NSW Floods in 2022? This study uses Natural Language Processing techniques to extract relevant information from the NSW Government (2022) Flood Inquiry Report and the NSW Legislative Council Report (2022) to answer the research questions. The findings indicate that several agencies played a critical coordinating role and collaborated during the response to the NSW Floods. In addition, the analysis of the collaborative networks indicates strong connections between certain entities and weak or absent connections among other entities in the response network. These results provide valuable insights into the relationships and thematic focus of flood-related policies in Australia and underscore the need for enhanced collaboration and coordination among key stakeholders, including government agencies, to ensure a unified and effective approach to flood resilience.

This study highlights spatial responses and displacements following Hurricane Michael by analyzing X® (formerly known as Twitter) data across various states in the United States over a multitude of periods, regions, and demographic characteristics. This study finds that the top three states damaged by the hurricane (Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina) show a significantly higher proportion of tweets during the hurricane week than the prehurricane and post-hurricane weeks. Furthermore, people's responses on social network services have some similar and dissimilar characteristics compared to the census data. For instance, Hispanics show significantly low responses to the hurricane event in all the three states compared to other races/ethnicities, as reflected in the census data. Finally, the gender and region variables play an important role in displacements within the binary logistic regression model, whereas the race/ethnicity and age variables are not related to displacements. To be specific, females show 0.4 times more displacements than males, and Georgia and North Carolina exhibit 1.3 and 0.8 times more displacements than Florida.

The critical importance of access to water has been recognized both nationally and internationally. In the United States, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and other planning documents highlight the potentially dire public health implications of impacts on public water systems. According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, safe and reliable potable water supplies are at risk due to climate change, flooding, drought, and sea level rise, and such risks are expected to increase going forward. Internationally, the Sustainable Development Goals include ensuring availability and sustainability of water and sanitation. Despite this fact, acute shocks and long-term stressors may cause contamination or otherwise limit access to safe drinking water. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Community Lifelines approach encompasses access to water and other necessities, and requires emergency managers to take a whole-community approach to response and recovery. However, preparedness and mitigation efforts have not historically taken this same approach. Recent water crises, such as the ones in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, have shown a disconnect between water system managers and emergency managers. Inclusive emergency management demands consideration of both current and future needs, and consideration of Community Lifelines, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the adverse event. The recent saltwater intrusion threat along the lower Mississippi River in southeast Louisiana has provided yet another example of vulnerability in the drinking water sector and the intersection of emergency management and public health.

This research analyzes the content and performance of the public relations tactic of press conferences published on the World Health Organization's YouTube® channel during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This study examined 3,506 videos-focusing on 142 press conferences published between May 27, 2020, and May 5, 2023-and their audience impact and engagement correlations. In contrast, nonpress conference videos, spanning from the channel's inception up to the data collection date (March 16, 2024), were analyzed as a benchmark for evaluating the performance of press conferences. Moreover, the 13 most-viewed press conferences were qualitatively analyzed using framing theory to determine their dominant frames and sentiments. The analysis revealed that audiences who perceive a risky situation are willing to watch longer videos, post more comments than on other videos, and emit negative or neutral frames when they feel gaps in the official information.

Environmental disasters are inherently political phenomena, shaped by systemic inequalities and entrenched power dynamics. This article analyzes how the securitization paradigm and slow violence frameworks explain the disproportionate impact of Hurricane Katrina on marginalized communities. While the territorial securitization paradigm focuses on reactionary military preparedness, it fails to address the long-term systemic issues-such as racism, socioeconomic inequality, and inadequate -infrastructure-that exacerbate vulnerability to environmental events. Using qualitative case study analysis, this article draws on federal reports, congressional records, academic literature, and media sources to examine structural neglect and racialized disaster response, and it draws parallels between Hurricanes Katrina and Maria. The disproportionate impact of Katrina on New Orleans' Black and low-income communities underscores the intersection of structural violence, slow violence, and environmental vulnerability. By reframing environmental security within the context of systemic inequities, this article calls for a renewed focus on resilience-building measures and inclusive disaster planning to address the root causes of vulnerability and mitigate future disasters.

In recent years, Texas has experienced intensified damage and increasing costs from natural disasters due to climate change. This highlights the need to evaluate ongoing information technology (IT) initiatives that can guide better preparedness and mitigation strategies. In this paper, we establish a baseline by showcasing the benefits of humanitarian free and open-source software in addressing critical challenges faced by IT-driven relief efforts during Hurricane Harvey. Additionally, flooding has emerged as Texas' most pressing disaster, prompting a complete examination of existing IT, data, and free and open-source software initiatives focused on both inland and coastal flooding. Finally, we will analyze the most promising current initiative and offer insights into future developments.

Charismatic leadership has long been attributed to a select few individuals with exceptional personal qualities, often described as possessing a mysterious and extraordinary capability. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge presents a case study of leadership during an emergency. Crises such as this not only affect organizational effectiveness but also shape leaders' behavior and influence the outcomes of their actions. The increasing frequency of natural disasters in the United States, with an average of 18-billion-dollar climate-related events annually in recent years, provides growing opportunities for leadership emergence. In the case of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, Maryland Governor Wes Moore demonstrated charismatic leadership, earning public recognition for his response efforts. According to Judge, self-confidence is one of the few traits consistently associated with leadership emergence, closely linking it to charisma and the ability to attract and inspire others. Applying Judge's theory and those of others, this study argues that charisma plays a critical role in shaping how leaders are portrayed and remembered by both the public and the media. Through a qualitative analysis of Governor Wes Moore's communications, this study explores the lasting impact of charismatic leadership during emergency management situations.