This is a three-part question. Part I Choose one “Critical Thinking” problem/question(s) from one of the assigned Introduction to Emergency Management chapters to thoroughly answer and discuss. Please first repeat the chosen question before answering. Chapter 3, page 83, " What mitigation measures are best suited to address hazards faced by your community (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011)?" The first thing that one must do before one can look at mitigating hazards is to conduct a hazard identification assessment (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). It is hard to mitigate a hazard if the hazard is unknown. Here is San Angelo Texas we deal with many hazards. Some of these hazards are natural and some are man-made. On the natural hazard side of the house, we deal with tornados, flooding, droughts, high winds, dust storms, etc. On the man-made side of the house we have chemical plants, airport, military base, etc. Each of these hazards require a different type of mitigation. For example, the town of San Angelo is surrounded by mountains and these mountains have proven in the past to help prevent some events as tornados and flooding. The mountain range surrounding San Angelo somehow seems to divert storms around the area or causes the most severe storms to dissipate. Because we are in a area that is part of the tornado alley path, it is amazing that the mountain range seems to act as a barrier or preventer of tornados. Now we still have tornados, but they are few and far between. Being in Texas and in areas that can have sudden rains or little rain, we are susceptible to flash floods and droughts. The area of San Angelo has attempted to mitigate the flooding by restructuring its drainage system and redirecting the water flow to offsite water lines as seen by changes to design and construction codes concerning mitigation of hazards (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). While this system cannot handle massive amounts of water at a given time, over time, the system allows the water to dissipate and helps the city mitigate the flooding that can occur with massive rains. Along with floods, we are currently experiencing a massive drought. With a drought and the area in which San Angelo is located, Fire is a big hazard that is currently being mitigated by the city. They are using burn bans, controlled burns, and code enforcement to help mitigate the chances of fire. They are also using land-planning mitigation when conducting the controlled burns around the city (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). One the man-made side of the house, we have several hazards that are mitigated through the community of San Angelo. The chemical plant produces ammonia for it business and there are procedures in place in the event of a ammonia leak or explosion. The local community has a local agreement with the military base to assist them in the event of a chemical spill. Because the base trains military fire fighters, they have many of the mitigation and response resources the town cannot afford. This includes a fire team that is fully hazmat certified. The mitigation used here in cooperation between the civilian and military agency when it comes to exercise practice. The base and community practice together to ensure mitigation and response actions are working as implemented. We also have a local airport that provides the potential hazard of chemical and mass destruction. This is because of the size of the airframes that enter the airport airspace and the fuel barns that hold the fuel for the aircraft. The airfield has several mitigating factors that help in its implementation of everyday business. They are located outside of the city residence. This reduces the potential for damage to community and life in the event of a aircraft crash or chemical spill. They have built their control towers and structures with enhanced architecture designs that are able to withstand high winds and tornados rated up to the F5 scale. The airport is easily accessed from several locations by local emergency response services in the event of a disaster. While we have both natural and man-made hazards in San Angelo, the community has accomplished hazard identification and implemented several mitigation factors throughout the community to help mitigate the hazard (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Although these hazards are mitigated to a point, there will eventually be an event and the mitigation tools in place now will help to mitigate the damage done when an event does occur. Part II: Choose and “fully” answer and “discuss” “one” of the end of chapter “Self-Check Questions” listed at the end of each Introduction to Emergency Management chapter. Your single selection can come from any assigned chapter. Please first identify the chapter the question originated from and repeat the question before answering. Chapter 3, page 94, Question 1, " How does the function of mitigation differ from other emergency management disciplines (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Mitigation is different from other emergency management disciplines in the aspect of their mission. Mitigation is the practice of implementing procedures that will mitigate a risk over a long term period verse a short term response as with other emergency management disciplines (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). In the mitigation stage of emergency management, the idea is to prevent the potential risk of an hazard over a period of time. For example, the enactment of the National Flood Program was a mitigation implemented by the government to assist citizens in the event of future floods (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). It provides a resources that citizens can use to help themselves mitigate the damage caused by flooding. Most other disciplines of emergency management are triggered by the actual event itself. For example, the Department of Homeland Security was created after the events of September 11, 2001 (Fisher, Halibozek, & Green, 2008). The initial purpose of the DHS was to look at not only immediate protection of Americans and assets but the future mitigation of terrorist events. Most actions of the DHS have been reactions to events. FEMA is another agency that does not focus on mitigation but on the response actions needed in a given event. When Hurricane Katrina hit, many people were looking to FEMA to provide answers for how to stop a future event. People became upset with FEMA as they learned that FEMA was not mitigating future events. This is not a surprise because this is not the mission of FEMA. FEMA focuses on reacting to a event verse mitigating a hazard. While agencies such as FEMA do provide actions that can seem like mitigation, they are really only providing resources in response to the event. When people saw FEMA starting to stockpile trailers after Hurricane Katrina, many people thought that FEMA was building a resource of trailers as a mitigation for future hurricanes when in fact, FEMA was only using the trailers as a temporary resources do to the increased risk of a active hurricane season that was predicted by the National Hurricane Agency. Mitigation and emergency management complement each other. They rely on each other to help an organization or community to prepare for a hazard that turn into an event. A example is the security proposal that was presented to the Florida transit administration (Florida Department of Transportation, 2007). This plan contained mitigating actions for various hazards that the transit community would face. This plan not only identified various mitigation procedures but it also laid out the actions that needed to be taken in the event of a crisis. Without mitigation, the chances for an event are increased because mitigation helps to reduce the risk over long term verse short term. Chapter 4, page 130, Question 1. " What kinds of organizations must consider disaster preparedness (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011)?" Every organization must consider disaster preparedness within their organizational operations. Disaster preparedness must not only be considered by senior leadership but by the security community of the organization as well (Fennelly, 2004). Disaster preparedness can make the difference between life and death. Consider the following scenario and see how emergency planning and disaster preparedness is important to all organizations. It is a nice spring day and you are stuck in the office? There is a slight breeze and a chance of spring showers. As the day progresses, the storms start to build and the weather turns from cool and breezy to dark and windy. The temperature drops suddenly as the winds pick up. The weather service issues a tornado watch for the local area. Are you ready? What were those procedures we were suppose to follow? All of these thoughts now cross your mind as the sirens blow and you are running for cover. Will you survive? Will your coworkers survive? Emergency planning is the one tool that can help ease the scenario listed above. As security specialist, establishing emergency plans for various events will be help your organization survive an ordeal. Emergency planning should cover procedures from everything from natural disasters, to civil disturbance, to extreme terrorist scenarios. You need to ensure your emergency plans can handle Level 1,2, or 3 disasters and protect the personnel as well as the assets (Fennelly, 2004). Being ready for an event is what emergency planning is all about. It is planning for the event that will happen. We live in a world that even with the best security, events will occur that can throw a curve to the best security teams. When designing a emergency plan for your organization, you need to conduct risk analysis of the potential threats and the probability of their occurrence. This goes form looking at weather reports for the last five years to conducting a criminal risk assessment of the local area around the facility. As you conduct your assessments and risk management, identifying and prioritizing your events will help in the development of the emergency plan. For example, if your facility is in the middle of Tornado Alley, one should have emergency plans for tornado and the various levels of those tornados. Become familiar with the tornado rating scale and understanding the various amounts of damage each level a tornado is rated causes. For example, a F1 tornado does minor damage and operations would be minimally affected whereas a F5 tornado typically means nothing will be left standing. BY knowing the scales of tornados, emergency plans can be developed for the event and recovery. Emergency Plans not only need to have procedures for the event, they need to have the reconstitution plan. This plan helps the organization recover after an event. It is often called a recovery plan (Garcia, 2008). After the September 11, 2001 event, nearly 80% of businesses collapsed and never recovered because they had not accounted for a recovery plan for such an event that occurred (Fisher, Halibozek, & Green, 2008). They were ill prepared and paid the price. Their organizations went under. Emergency plans are only as good as practiced (Fennelly, 2004). An organization can have the best emergency plans on paper and fail in real life. FEMA was a good example of an organization that had developed many emergency plans but never practiced. When Hurricane Katrina, they discovered how their emergency plans actually failed and the victims were left wondering where was FEMA (Fisher, Halibozek, & Green, 2008). Emergency plans need to be practiced and evaluated. This is the only way to identify deficiencies within the plan and also helps to identify potentially new problems that may have been overlooked. In the September 11,2001 attack, many of the lives saved were attributed to emergency plans that had been put into place and practiced. Even though smoke was in areas, people knew where to go to attempt to get out. Some of the survivors even attributed their survival to having practiced evacuation plans on a regular basis prior to the September 11, 2001 event. Emergency plans are essential in protecting the organization just as much as any security plan. Emergencies will happen and business must be prepared. If plans are written and filed without being practiced, the organization and security team is looking for problems. Think about this. If I wanted into your secure building and I knew you never practiced fire evacuations, could you spot me accessing your building after I initiated the fire alarm and mingled with the mass evacuating crowd of panicked employees? Part III Choose one end of chapter “Important Term” to define “and” explain. In addition, include an example or illustration with your definition and explanation. Chapter 4, page 130 "Full-Scale Exercise" The nice thing about exercises is that they are scalable. An exercise only needs to be created and practiced to a level that meets the intent of the event. As a member of the base Exercise Evaluation Team, I have been part of many variations of exercises. I have been in drills through full-scale exercises. Full-Scale exercises are not only the most intense exercises, but the most realistic. Full-Scale exercises are typically scenario based and will challenge any and all of a community's emergency services in full operation (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). This means that there will be live actors, full scale damage, realtime responses, and in many cases real time responses from all of your emergency agencies. In a full-scale exercise, a by-stander may actually think that the event is real and react accordingly. As I stated earlier being on an EET Team, I get to run and practice these types of scenarios and they do get very real very quickly. In a recent scenario, we had aircraft with chemicals crash into the local area and disperse its chemical. For this exercise, we used a real aircraft, smoke generators, ground burst simulators, actors, decon units, etc. Nothing was simulated. At the onslaught of the incident, the police and first responders responded on scene and proceeded as if the events were real. They were in full protective suits because of the unknown chemicals. The incident commander established and activated all agencies that would be needed to handle the real event. We had a medical team that used professional theatrical makeup to dress the wounds and cuts of the victims. My daughter was part of the exercise and the glass that was sprouting from her arm was pretty realistic. It was so realistic, that after her part and she was released, she happen to walk into a store downtown to get a drink and people thought that she was really hurt until they got up close and saw the makeup. It is during full-scale exercises that many of a organizations procedures, agencies, and leadership are tested. Full-scale exercise will really demonstrate how well your emergency management plan works and how well your employees will react to the incident. If they have not practiced their procedures, they will be caught off guard and a full-scale exercise can really show emergency managers were weaknesses are within their organizations exist. As I sated earlier, all services are commonly used and exercised. In the exercise that my daughter was a victim, they actual scenario was tested in conjunction with downtown agencies. The pilot of the aircraft (another volunteer) was not only treated but airlifted out of the area in the local life flight helicopter service. This allowed the helicopter service to practice their procedures for airlifting victims out of different landscapes and scenarios. All of the victims were also gross deconed by the local fire department and processed through various clean zones until sent to the hospital. The victims are used to tasks the medical community to check out their procedures. It also allows other agencies, such as funeral directors, finance, and other agencies to practice their operational plans in the event of death and injuries to personnel. while full-scale exercises can expose weaknesses in the organizations overall emergency operations, they are expensive to operate in cost, manning, and time. A typical full-scale exercise for us entails well over 300+ personnel, ties up resources, and often runs into hours and days. All of these factors must be considered by the organization when conducting a full-scale exercise. Because of the expense, we often use smaller more targeted exercises to test specific areas. Once those areas are tested, we then plan out the full-scale exercise to evaluate the whole organization and its procedures and processes to ensure the problems identified and corrected within the smaller exercises are truly fixed and implemented. Full-scale exercises are exercises that should really enhance the motto "train as you fight, fight as you train". References: Fennelly, L. J. (2004). Handbook of Loss Prevention and Crime Prevention (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Fisher, R. J., Halibozek, E., & Green, G. (2008). Introduction to Security (8th Ed.). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Florida Department of Transportation. (2007, 4 18). Safety and Security management Plan (SSMP) for the Central Florida Commuter Rail transit. Retrieved 11 02, 2011, from http://www.sunrail.com: http://www.sunrail.com/Documents/228.pdf Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2011). Introduction to Emergency Management (4th Ed.). Burlington, MA: ButterworthHeinemann.