Disaster Response and Recovery: Strategies and Tactics for Resilience, 2nd Edition

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RECOGNIZING ALTERNATIVE MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

Disaster Response and Recovery Theory

Starting Point

Pretest to assess your knowledge on management approaches.Determine where you need to concentrate your effort.

What You'll Learn in This Chapter

• The traditional perspective of response and recovery operations
• The professional approach to disaster, including its assumptions and conclusions

After Studying This Chapter, You'll be Able To

• Identify strengths and weaknesses of the traditional and collaborative models.
• Determine which approach is most applicable for any given disaster situation.

Goals and Outcomes

• Recognize traditional and collaborative models in response and recovery.
• Evaluate which approach to use in each disaster situation.

INTRODUCTION

Whether we recognize it or not, our lives are guided by theory. The same is true about disasters and emergency management. Our notions regarding disasters determine how we deal with them. In the past, people viewed disasters as acts of God. Accordingly, repentance or sacrifices were regarded as the means to appeasing deity. Later on, scientists equated disasters with the natural hazard agents that trigger them. Therefore, early warning systems and containment devices such as dams were seen as ways to give advanced notification of adverse weather or control rising floodwaters. In recent years, some have come to believe that technology will provide a “silver bullet” for all the disaster problems that confront us. Satellites, communication ...