Case Study
You are the new emergency manager in a city that is prone to tornadoes. In fact, the city has just completed recovery efforts after a storm spawned three different tornadoes at once, causing major damage to the city's buildings and infrastructure. Many people within the city believe that the recovery efforts took way too much time to complete because the city was simply unprepared for a storm of that magnitude. In addition, the multi-jurisdictional agencies that were brought in to help the city recover would not cooperate or collaborate with one another. Each agency leader seemed to have his or her own way of handling recovery issues, and many times, their efforts would work against one another, which delayed recovery efforts by months.
The mayor of the city has called upon you as the new emergency manager to study these issues and determine how the city's disaster response can be improved.
In your written response to this case study, you will address the following topics:
Challenges the former emergency manager likely faced regarding collaboration and coordination among multijurisdictional agencies while managing the tornado disaster event
Ways that you, as the new emergency manager, can overcome barriers regarding the possible lack of collaboration and cooperation among multi-jurisdictional agencies and foster a better working relationship among them, so that the city can recover more quickly when the next disaster strikes.
Your response should consist of at least two pages and should incorporate at least two sources, one of which can be your textbook. All sources used should be cited and referenced properly using APA formatting.
Text book: Kapucu, N., & Özerdem, A. (2013). Managing emergencies and crises. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Journal Entry
Thinking about the community in which you reside, do you believe that your community is prepared for a disaster event? Why, or why not? If you were your community's emergency manager, what steps would you take to ensure that your community is prepared?
Community used is Killeen, Texas.
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words. No references or citations are necessary.