Emergency Management: The Whole Community

Scott E. Kensinger, Emergency Management Coordinator, City of Winchester

Scott E. Kensinger, Emergency Management Coordinator, City of Winchester

The old African proverb ‘it takes a village’ to raise a child focuses on the entire community interacting with children to help them experience and grow in a safe and healthy environment. In the world of emergency management, this proverb relates to the whole community coming together to prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from a disaster.

"As a nation we need to understand that all disasters, whether natural or manmade, begin and end at the local level"

Each disaster that we encounter in America brings on a new set of issues. Learning from those issues can help steer the future and improve preparedness for the next disaster. In the post 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina world, significant changes have occurred in how the nation prepares for, manages and responds to disasters.

Our nation’s goal is to be resilient to natural and man-made disasters. The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have built upon years of legislation that were a resultant of past disasters and created the National Preparedness System. This doctrine is an organized process for the whole community to come together and employ preparedness activities to achieve the National Preparedness Goal.

Integrated in the National Preparedness System is the National Response Framework (NRF) and its five mission areas– Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. Each mission area explains how the whole community executes the core capabilities of the System’s processes. Among each mission area’s intended focus, there are common core capabilities that apply to each – Planning, Public Information and Warning, and Operational Coordination. Understanding and executing each of the needs can have a great impact on the outcome for any disaster.

The whole community, as defined by FEMA, refers to a ‘philosophical approach in how to conduct the business of emergency management by including everyone in the community in the process.’As a nation we need to understand that all disasters, whether natural or man-made, begin and end at the local level. By leveraging the community together to achieve the core capabilities of the NRF, we begin to reduce the reliance on state and federal resources that could be limited or delayed due to the nature of the given disaster.

By bringing private businesses, non-profits, faith-based organizations, and individual citizens together with local, state, tribal, territorial, and Federal government partners, we foster a community that can recognize deficiencies that could affect the outcome for the community prior to, during, and after a disaster occurs.

It is the job the Emergency Manager to lead this coordinated effort by reaching out and instilling the concepts of the whole community. Through public education, training, and exercise, communities can help themselves by embracing the concepts adopted by the nation. This shared understanding adds a greater resiliency within. No matter what role we play in society, our ability to understand and coordinate within a defined system can save lives and reduce harmful impacts for everyone. It takes the whole community to come together to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover when disaster strikes.

For more understanding of the whole community concept and how it applies to the National Preparedness System, visit www.fema.gov.