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Emergency Planning (emergency + planning)
Selected AbstractsThe 2004 Madrid train bombings: an analysis of pre-hospital managementDISASTERS, Issue 1 2008Alejandro López Carresi The terrorist train bombings in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March 2004 triggered a swift and massive medical response., This paper analyses the pre-hospital response to the attacks to gain insight into current trends in disaster management among Madrid's Emergency Medical Services (EMSs). To this end, the existing emergency planning framework is described, the basic structures of the different EMSs are presented, and the attacks are briefly depicted before consideration is given to pre-hospital management. Finally, an explanation of the main underlying misconceptions in emergency planning and management in Madrid is provided to aid understanding of the origins of some of the problems detected during the response. These are attributable mainly to inappropriate planning rather than to mistakes in field-level decision-making. By contrast, many of the successes are attributable to individual initiatives by frontline medics who compensated for the lack of clear command by senior managers by making adaptive and flexible decisions. [source] Dating young geomorphic surfaces using age of colonizing Douglas fir in southwestern Washington and northwestern Oregon, USA,EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 6 2007Thomas C. Pierson Abstract Dating of dynamic, young (<500 years) geomorphic landforms, particularly volcanofluvial features, requires higher precision than is possible with radiocarbon dating. Minimum ages of recently created landforms have long been obtained from tree-ring ages of the oldest trees growing on new surfaces. But to estimate the year of landform creation requires that two time corrections be added to tree ages obtained from increment cores: (1) the time interval between stabilization of the new landform surface and germination of the sampled trees (germination lag time or GLT); and (2) the interval between seedling germination and growth to sampling height, if the trees are not cored at ground level. The sum of these two time intervals is the colonization time gap (CTG). Such time corrections have been needed for more precise dating of terraces and floodplains in lowland river valleys in the Cascade Range, where significant eruption-induced lateral shifting and vertical aggradation of channels can occur over years to decades, and where timing of such geomorphic changes can be critical to emergency planning. Earliest colonizing Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) were sampled for tree-ring dating at eight sites on lowland (<750 m a.s.l.), recently formed surfaces of known age near three Cascade volcanoes , Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood , in southwestern Washington and northwestern Oregon. Increment cores or stem sections were taken at breast height and, where possible, at ground level from the largest, oldest-looking trees at each study site. At least ten trees were sampled at each site unless the total of early colonizers was less. Results indicate that a correction of four years should be used for GLT and 10 years for CTG if the single largest (and presumed oldest) Douglas fir growing on a surface of unknown age is sampled. This approach would have a potential error of up to 20 years. Error can be reduced by sampling the five largest Douglas fir instead of the single largest. A GLT correction of 5 years should be added to the mean ring-count age of the five largest trees growing on the surface being dated, if the trees are cored at ground level. This correction would have an approximate error of ±5 years. If the trees are cored at about 1·4 m above the ground surface (breast height), a CTG correction of 11 years should be added to the mean age of the five sampled trees (with an error of about ±7 years). Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] SARS in Canada and China: Two Approaches to Emergency Health PolicyGOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2007JAMES LAWSON China and Canada addressed the transnational 2003 SARS outbreak within a common, multilevel network of public-health expertise. The two countries deployed distinct public-health strategies, and faced distinct levels of resistance. This article addresses this comparison. During this epidemic "state of exception," both countries adopted emergency policy instruments and overall policy styles. However, Chinese emergency boundary policing corresponded better to everyday experience than did hospital-based screening in Canada, and China's policing targeted collectivities where Canada emphasized individual case tracking. While Canadian efforts were smaller in scale and faced infrastructural deficiencies, prior campaigns to address endemic health problems formed a basis for compliant popular subject positions. Power/resistance relations and their cultivation during endemic conditions must become the center of analyzing effective approaches to emergency planning. [source] Noah and Disaster Planning: The Cultural Significance of the Flood StoryJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2003Russell R. Dynes Disasters are both interesting and infrequent. Thus, understanding them usually depends on stories others tell us. Such stories frame our understandings and imaginations. With those stories at hand, we comprehend reality and history on the basis of what everyone knows. At times, however, it is useful to examine what everyone knows. To create a lasting narrative, disaster provides rich raw material to elaborate. ,Natural' disasters involve universal, primordial elements , water, fire, the shaking of the earth. Beyond those physical elements, disasters elicit basic human concerns , death, injury, disruption, broken social relationships, and fractured hope. Ultimate values and meanings can be challenged. Continuity and permanence are challenged. Such crises can lead to new explanations and the reworking of old metaphors. The task here is to take a disaster story, the Biblical flood , often referred to as the Deluge , and to examine its origins, its evolution, and its continuing impact within the Western World. More specifically, it will be argued that the flood story has had a continuing determinative influence on how disasters have been imagined in American society, especially in the ways that imagery has influenced emergency planning. [source] How to handle the threat of catastropheJOURNAL OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 6 2003Carol Sánchez One major task CEOs face is to minimize risk and vulnerability to catastrophic events. Since 9/11, we know that simply having insurance,and conventional emergency planning,is not enough. And in addition to global terrorism, other catastrophes threaten,including cyber crime and new diseases like SARS. Traditional risk management strategies dealt with two types of danger: known and unknown risk. But now we also have a third kind: unknowable risk! So how should we handle catastrophic threats today? © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] | |||||||||||||