Emergency Management on the Pacific Rim: From Global Warming To Globalization

Abstract

Emergency management has professionalized. It is no longer the province of officials unschooled in the application of modern information technologies and it is no longer the province of those inexperienced in natural and technological disaster management. While many communities and some nations still rely upon untrained and inexperienced emergency managers, the costs of that choice are often very high. It is essential to have competent and capable people who understand modern decision support systems, remote sensing, satellite imaging, and other essential technologies. More importantly, it is critical to expand the involvement of elected officials at all levels and the public in disaster management. Centralized decisionmaking is seldom effective in disaster response, political and social support is essential for sustained hazard mitigation efforts, and local and regional capacity-building can make communities more resilient and more capable of responding effectively with minimal outside help. It is within the context of these changes that emergency managers are trying to create effective policies and programs to deal with the hazards that their communities and nations face. It is also within this context that they are building an international community of emergency management professionals and linkages between and among policymakers responsible for reducing natural and technological hazards.