Disaster Response and Relief
If being provided with a list from the Department of Homeland Securities of potential risk factors I would first look at these key issues and ways that I could improve the city’s chances of survival in a terrorist attack. I would look at the issues that were involved with these issues. My personal choice for order of dealing with the issues would be done so by my deciding which issues were more crucial and which ones needed to be dealt with first.
With the list that was provided the order for these issues to be dealt with would take place in a specific order in order to promote the best chances of security and safety for all of the citizens involved. The first thing that would be done is that the airways would be secured and all incoming and outgoing air traffic would be stopped for some time. The next thing to do would be to secure waterways. This would include making sure that there were security efforts involved in protecting the city’s water sources as well.
This would include the stopping of all water traffic and the security of the different ports and waterways that are surrounding the city. Next transport would be secured and stopped in order to allow for a more smooth evacuation of the city if necessary. This would mean that there need to be an exit strategy plan in the disaster plan that is on location at the town hall and other area disaster planning sites like the American Red Cross. All areas that produced power would be secured by as many forces as could be spared as well as trained disaster volunteers.
This would be done so in order to help reduce the chances of harmful chemicals or toxins being released into the air in these areas. All food sources would be secured and there would be limited access to these sources in order to reduce the likelihood of contamination. During the beginning phases of this plan there would be specialists that would be involved in securing the computer systems and making sure that there was no one who was able to hack into important information. This would be handled at the same time as some of the other issues just by different specialists.
There would be many different agencies that would be contacted. The first agencies to be contacted would be local law enforcement and area military. These would be first initiated in order to work on the security and safety of the city. The next agencies to be contacted would be those that are listed in the disaster plan including the local chapters of the American Red Cross, ESDA, and any other agency that has quick access to high volumes of volunteers. Schools and churches would be looked at as possible places for there to be shelters and food banks would be contacted as part of the process of having food and other goods.
Other places that would be contacted are local grocery stores and other discount stores that would have access to high quantity of needed supplies. This would be done in partial efforts on putting limits on what each person could buy or have in order to ensure that supplies lasted for the most people possible. There would be limits placed on needed goods to ensure that all citizens could have some of them. The potential list of areas of vulnerability would need to be dealt with on a level where they were noted in the city’s Emergency Management Plan.
Each of these issues would need to be discussed and there would need to be a plan for the emergency situation and how these issues would be dealt with. Whether or not the Incident Command System would need to be changed would depend on what was currently in place and what was needed. Basically if they were capable of addressing and dealing with all of the issues then there would not need to be any changes. However if they were not capable of this then there would need to be changes in order to ensure that they were capable.
