Track 22

Unit 12

public administration

risk management

pages 116 and 117

Listen for main ideas and listen for details.

The topic of today’s class is reducing risks from natural hazards. Notice I said natural hazards not natural disasters.

Natural hazards are events in nature, like hurricanes or earthquakes and tsunamis. We know they can be dangerous, but not all are.

There are many small tsunamis and earthquakes. We don’t even; even notice and hurricanes that just died out, by the same token, we know they can create terrible disasters in which many people die in widespread damages sustained.

Three prime examples of this are earthquake in Pakistan 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the US in the same year and the tsunami Indian Ocean in 2004 novel quality, remember those what.

today will examine ways to reduce our risks from natural hazards so they don’t become natural disasters.

We can’t stop earthquakes or hurricanes or tsunamis, but there are things we can do to try to minimize or limit their impact. So, I’m going to divide this lecture into two parts.

First will look at some of the factors that go into designing an emergency plan, you may be familiar with some of this based on what’s in place communities.

Then I want us to turn to the role of education in reducing risks to people in disaster prone regions. But first, let’s go over the terms will be using. The first is disaster preparedness; to prepare means to get ready right preparedness is the state of being ready.

Another term is mitigation; to mitigate means to make less severe not as bad. We use the phrase disaster preparedness and mitigation to talk about what to do to prepare for natural disaster so that the impact will be less severe and people will suffer less.

We can try to lessen or mitigate the damage so that people can quickly return to their normal lives. Now all present some factors involved in generating an emergency response plan.

first government officials need to identify the risks. What are the natural hazards? For example, in Japan there are earthquakes and typhoons in the US, hurricanes and fires.

There are several natural hazards in every country. The second, the government needs to establish a channel of communications with scientists.

Scientists must be able to share information regularly with the government as they collect data about risks.

Third, government officials need to work out a process for briefing the public on what scientists tell them. The problem is experts can’t predict natural hazards with 100% accuracy.

For example, they may know what hurricane is forming, but can’t say exactly when or where it will go. Despite this public official still have to decide what to tell the public and when.

They can wait and say nothing or they can tell people to evacuate. If they wait too long lots of people might get hurt. But if they tell people to evacuate and then nothing happens, people may get angry.

In the future, they may not cooperate, communicating with the public is a huge challenge for officials.

Here’s an example in 2005 before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans people were told to evacuate, but 61% of them didn’t, we know some say because they had no transportation no choice.

But of the 61% who didn’t leave 37% said they simply ignored the order to evacuate. Why?

Because they didn’t want to leave their homes. Scientific information doesn’t do much good if it’s ignored.

Yet, ultimately officials must try to keep people safe. 1/4 factor is evaluating what services are needed. For example, are there sufficient numbers of police, firefighters and emergency workers who are trained to respond to a natural disaster.

Is there network in place for emergency workers to distribute supplies such as bottled water, food, blankets in medicine. Is there a way to inform the public about the emergency plan so that they know where to go and what to do?

Before, during, and after a natural disaster related to this evaluation is the fifth and final factor setting spending priorities, countries have to decide whether to spend money for things they need now like new schools and roads or to allocate money to prepare for an accurate natural disaster that may never happen.

Now, let’s turn to the role of education in emergency planning. Experts agree that educating the public, especially children about the risks is essential.

Here’s one way the United Nations group UNESCO has launched an international campaign called disaster risk reduction begins at school.

In turn, many schools in countries like Turkey, France, Mexico and Cuba now have disaster preparedness and safety programs. The logic behind this UNESCO program is education will help children understand the risks where they live.

We’ll know specific things to do before, during, and after a natural disaster to make everyone in their communities safer. The hope is that as more children are educated there will be fewer victims of natural disasters.

For example, in Turkey, earthquakes threaten the safety of about 5 million children. So, there is now an earthquake education program targeted at students countrywide and Cuba recently with more school programs about hurricanes. There have been fewer hurricane victims. Now that’s great news.

So, let’s review what we’ve covered it. I mentioned the five factors in an emergency plan and how education of children is considered vital to disaster preparedness and mitigation.

I feel a lot of hope now because so many countries see how important a good emergency plan is.

Well, that’s all for today. Will see you next time.