Getting Started

Every inch of land, its resources and structures and all of our air and water are vulnerable to disaster. This includes 100,000 miles of coastline, 2,000 miles of land border with Mexico and 4,000 miles of land border with Canada. It includes more than 500 million people passing through the U.S. each year through 420 U.S. aerial ports, with more than a million international aircraft entries annually. It includes 300 land and sea ports through which 127 million autos and 11.5 million trucks enter annually, Two hundred ships dock at U.S. ports annually depositing 6 million containers that are redistributed throughout the U.S. and 2.3 million rail cars cross into the U.S. annually.

Our vulnerability includes a wide variety of natural hazards and human-made accident or terrorist events. Natural hazards include flood, tsunami, tornado, hurricane, blizzard, drought, mudslide, earthquake, and wildfire threats. Human-made disasters include chemical spills or attack; chlorine tank explosions; nuclear accident or intentional attack; dam or levee breaks, breaches, or attacks; bridge failure or attack; pandemic influenza or pneumonic plague; agro-terrorism to the food supply or disruption of production; bio-terrorism through, for example, anthrax; and cyber-terrorism   

Emergency management provides a structure for anticipating and dealing with emergencies. It involves participants at all governmental levels and in the private and nonprofit sectors. Individuals, in addition, are of central importance to emergency management. They are often the victims of disasters and also the first responders on the scene of an event. Their preparations in anticipation of disaster occurrences often prevent or reduce (mitigate) the consequences. The emergency management professionals deal with all phases before, during, and after an emergency and their effectiveness is based on a smooth network of relationships within the system.