By Allison G. S. Knox
Columnist, EDM Digest
Early last Thursday morning, Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm, churned its way toward the Texas-Louisiana coastline. Numerous reports labeled the storm a monster with “unsurvivable” storm surges that sent area residents into a panicky state of worry.
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As severe storms like this churn their way toward coastal areas, people rush to board up their homes and evacuate, but not everyone is lucky enough to take precautions and be ready when the high winds and storm surges make landfall.
As we saw with Hurricane Katrina, there are always people who can’t evacuate and get out of the storm’s way. While emergency management officials and other professionals note the importance of community resilience, there needs to be a stronger voice for community resilience and compassion at the national level. There needs to be much more compassion from society as a whole. Not everyone can evacuatem and not everyone will have a plan to do so.
Preparedness Can Take Us Only So Far
While Laura was a particularly dangerous storm, it is important to recognize that in emergency management, preparedness efforts must always be ongoing. Most Gulf Coast localities work to prepare effectively for such storms. They have resources, plans and equipment in place and are often ready to use them.
However, not all storms will develop and track in the same way and strike the same towns and cities. Thus, preparedness efforts can only go so far because numerous other societal factors will affect preparedness plans.
What Is Always Needed Is More Compassion
Most large-scale emergencies endanger residents who simply can’t get out of the storm’s path. There are individuals who cannot leave their home because of personal illness or physical condition. Some are too poor to have transportation or have pets and livestock they couldn’t leave behind. At least 1,400 people in Katrina died simply because they could not evacuate safely.
Insensitive Comments Detract from the Need to Strengthen Emergency Management Efforts
When major storms happen, we often hear comments about how people shouldn’t live in areas that are prone to major storms. What we understand about large-scale emergencies is there is always an administrative component to them; how we work to manage disasters has everything to do with how catastrophic the emergency will be. Thus, such ill-informed comments are insensitive and detract from the need to strengthen emergency management efforts.
Compassion Is Needed on a National Level
Ultimately, what is needed is more compassion for people who are experiencing large-scale disasters. We have learned a tremendous amount about how to create support systems in local communities. The concept of community resilience includes numerous components such as infrastructure and volunteer groups which are very fabric of a community and allow a community to recover from an emergency faster.
Compassion can be a concept of resilience as when church groups get together to bring meals to parishioners affected by a life-changing event. We need this same compassion on a national level whenever anyone experiences a major disaster.
Emergency management is a complicated area of government administration with many different components. It is important, however, that as a national community, we must rally around those who are affected by disasters and help them heal. We need to include more concepts of community resilience on a national level because they aid an afflicted area in the recovery process.
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