Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas:

• How important do you feel the mitigation phase is in emergency management? Explain.

o What do you think are the most important operations to conduct within the mitigation phase? Explain.

• What is the role of the emergency management community in the predisaster phase? Explain.

• Should emergency managers be working with planning boards and community planners? Why or why not?

• If emergency managers were going to work on the planning boards, how should they do so? What are the best practices?

Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:

• What did you learn from your classmate's posting?

• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?

• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?

• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?