Critique of Dallas' Emergency Response Plan Essay

Critique of Dallas' Emergency Response Plan - Essay Example FEMA’s mission is to support United States’ nationals and first responders in ensuring that, as nation, people join forces to deal with all types of disasters in case they occure. Disasters can strike anytime, anywhere, and usually takes different forms ranging from hurricanes and earthquakes to fires, toxic oil spills, mother nature acts and terrorist attacks. Every year, many Americans are faced with disasters together with their terrifying consequences (Huggins, 2007). As of October 2011, FEMA had over 7,000 employees all over the country working to support citizens and first responders in ensuring that they join forces to improve their capability to respond to disasters. FEMA employees perform their duties all over the country- at the headquarters, the ten regional offices including one in Dallas, the National Emergency Training Centre, Noble Training Centre/Centre for domestic Preparedness, among other locations- so as to support the larger team that deals with man aging emergencies. FEMA comprises of a team that includes state, tribal and local officials, federal partners, the private sector and non-governmental organizations together with the public. The Office of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management provides a 24-hour operation aimed at reducing injury or loss of lives and property. It also aims at protecting citizens of Dallas county from all types of disasters through providing and coordinating resources, skills, leadership and advocacy through a comprehensive security based on risk, an emergency management program of prevention, preparedness, recovery, mitigation and response. The emergency management program for the County of Dallas is derived from the Texas Government statute that requires each county to maintain a disaster plan. The stature is a basis for the state or local relationship, solidified by inter-jurisdiction agreements with Dallas County eleven other intra-county cities for assistance on daily operations, and dur ing disasters. The Building Security force is a section of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management that deals with providing a safe environment to the public and workers who partake of Dallas County’s services as provided by fulltime and contract security officers (Jenkins 2009). In order to perform their duties effectively, FEMA trains its members. Training provides homeland security officials, first responders, emergency management officials, and other persons with the skills, abilities and knowledge necessary to undertake key tasks required by specific capabilities. The National Training Program (NTP) gives a detailed and organized approach to training for emergency response providers and emergency managers all over America that supports the National Preparedness Guidelines. The NTP provides policy, tools and guidance that detail training design, development, delivery and evaluation as necessary. It will also support the promulgation and regular updating of national voluntary consensus standards in training, ensuring that the training is consistent with the standards. FEMA has four training organizations; CDP (Centre for Domestic Preparedness), EMI (Emergency Management Institute), NTED (National Training and Education Division), and NFA (National Fire Academy). CDP, located in Anniston, Alabama, is Homeland security’s only Weapons of Mass Destruction training center that is federally chartered. It began operations in 1998 and offers the best services in terms