Emergency Management

Permanent URI for this communityhdl:10365/32484

Research from the Department of Emergency Management. The department website may be found at https://www.ndsu.edu/emgt/

Browse

Browsing Emergency Management by browse.metadata.type "Video"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Context and Concept of Individual and Household Preparedness: The Case of Fako Division in Cameroon
    (North Dakota State University, 2015) Nojang, Emmanuel Nzengung
    Almost every day, we see and hear about disasters impacting individuals and households in communities worldwide. Impacts experienced include loss of life and injury, loss of property, and more. Disasters are often devastating for those who experience them. It is for this reason that preparedness is advocated by national and international organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United Nations. And, it is for this reason that researchers have often attempted to assess how prepared people are. Yet, what is this thing they call preparedness? What does it look like? What is involved in becoming a wholly prepared person? One might have assumed that organizations like FEMA and researchers would have addressed these fundamental questions prior to recommending that people become prepared or measuring how prepared people are, but that is not the case. The absence of an understanding of what preparedness is and entails is a critical theoretical gap with significant practical implications. This research explored the basic issue of what preparedness means and entails to people in Fako Division, Cameroon—a place threated by many hazards and which has experienced many disasters. From the analysis of the 33 interviews conducted in this study, the researcher found that preparedness is a dynamic state of readiness that is dependent on context, a social process, and a process of completing activities to save lives and minimize the effects of disasters. In addition, the researcher found that Cameroonians view a wholly prepared person as a) one who would have knowledge about hazards and what to do about them, b) one who would engage others, including their families and neighbors, in discussions about activities related to hazards and what to do about them, and c) one who would engage in activities to minimize loss from hazards, sustain themselves in the face of hazards, and flee from hazards. The findings from the interview data synch to a large extent with what is implied, but not clearly stated, in the existing research literature. The researcher address this synchrony and posit a definition of preparedness and identify the theoretical components of preparedness.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    A Foundation for Factors that Explain Volunteer Engagement in Response and Recovery: The Case of Flooding in East Texas 2016
    (North Dakota State University, 2017) Montano, Samantha
    Volunteers are important contributors to response and recovery. Little is known about their engagement, particularly in terms of comparing the engagement of response volunteers to recovery volunteers. This study sought to explore volunteer engagement in response and recovery in the case of flooding experienced by a number of communities in East Texas following flooding in 2016. Data was gathered through interviews with 72 response and recovery volunteers and key informants, an analysis of key documents, and first-hand observations. This study developed a list of factors that were found to explain volunteer engagement in East Texas and factors suggested by the literature. These factors should be systematically tested in the future to expand our understanding of volunteer engagement.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Red River Flooding in Fargo: Organizational Learning Through Repeated Events
    (North Dakota State University, 2016) Thompson, Steven Andrew
    This research is a case study of the spring flooding from the Red River in Fargo, North Dakota. The 1997 record flood level broke a long standing record. However, in the last 7 years there have been three additional major floods, with 2009 breaking the 1997 level. The purpose of the study is to understand what was learned from repeated major flood events. This qualitative research gathered pertinent data from leaders involved in the flood management. In-depth interviews gathered rich data on these topics. The results from this case study found evolution in coordination, communication, response organizations, and mitigation. Specifically, the data revealed the expansion of the leadership team, expansion of communication, reduction in hazard vulnerability, increased focus on logistical planning for sandbags, and reduction in volunteer variability. All of these actions learned from these flood events are transferable and therefore add to the current emergency management body of knowledge on flood planning.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The Role of the County Emergency Manager in Disaster Mitigation
    (North Dakota State University, 2020) Savitt, Amanda Miller
    Scholarship on disasters in the United States would suggest that emergency managers should play a role in hazard mitigation. Yet, little empirical research has investigated precisely what role or roles emergency managers actually do play during this phase. This study explored the role of county-level emergency managers in hazard mitigation and the factors that might influence those roles. Data for this study was collected through 42 in-depth, telephone interviews with county- level emergency managers in FEMA Regions III, V, and X, which includes the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States. Grounded theory was utilized in order to organize and analyze the data. The data suggests that emergency managers play several roles within mitigation: a generic role, a support role, an administrative role, a promoter role, a public educator role, and a planning role. These roles are explained by a number of factors, including conceptual confusion, response and preparedness orientation, financial resource factors, planning factors, additional resource factors, competition between mitigation and development, resistance to mitigation, and engagement in mitigation. It is also important to note that emergency managers spend only a small amount of their time in mitigation. The results of this study suggest that there is a gap between the theorized role and the actual role that emergency managers play within mitigation. Closing this gap will likely require additional resources for mitigation and county-level emergency management, as well as greater consistency in defining mitigation through policy and education.