Unit 7 Project

Consider the following hypothetical situation background. You are the emergency manager for your city or county, which is still recovering from long term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Your community and citizens received substantial aid through federal initiatives such as the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Federal aid for COVID recovery expired five months ago.

Imagine that you have a natural disaster that has just occurred in your city or county. You may choose any disaster that realistically could impact your area and would rise to the level of warranting a presidential disaster declaration to be requested by your state governor.

There are five distinct parts to this assignment. Ensure you address all requirements for each section.

Part 1: Disaster, Day 1

The disaster has occurred. Local and state resources are overwhelmed, and the governor has requested federal assistance. A decision on a presidential declaration is pending, and your community will likely need to be self-sustaining for 96 hours.

• Briefly describe the disaster and summarize the impacts.
• Using your real, local emergency operations plan, identify what plans, resources, mutual aid agreements, or Emergency Management Assistance Compacts (EMAC) are available to immediately respond to this disaster and initiate recovery.
• Do you believe your community and government can adequately respond to this event, including being self-sustaining for 96 hours? Explain your rationale and support with evidence.

Part 2: Post-Disaster, Day 3

The request for a federal disaster declaration was denied. The governor is appealing. State support is available, but limited, as the disaster has state resources stretched thin (disaster impacted large area of state.)

• Summarize local options for handling a disaster without federal support and with limited state support.
• Do you have any mutual aid agreements with surrounding towns or counties?
• What is the difference between a mutual aid agreement and an Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)? What is the value of an EMAC?

Part 3: Post Disaster, Day 5

Many local citizens have alleged negligence or discrimination in how the local authorities are handling the disaster response. There are claims of a failure to notify all citizens and properly prepare for the disaster (e.g., evacuation or mitigation efforts such as sandbagging for water disasters) and a lack of access to emergency services for people with disabilities. There are also allegations of emergency service discrimination based on race or economic demographics. Some citizens are threatening to protest or cause a civil disturbance. Your local senior government officials (i.e., mayor, city council) want to request military troop deployment.

• In what ways might emergency response and recovery efforts for this disaster potentially impact civil rights and liberties? Explain the rationale and/or justification.
• How do the requirements of due care and sovereign immunity impact response plans for emergency response personnel (local government officials, emergency managers, and responders) in this event?
• Summarize the applicable laws, statutes, or regulations that provide the authority and define immunity for local or state disaster response.
• Can the State National Guard be deployed to assist? If so, under what authority? If not, are there any circumstances under which it would be possible? Explain.

Part 4: Post Disaster, Day 15

The governors appeal of the denial of a disaster declaration has been successful and the President has issued a major disaster declaration for the event.

• What specific resources and aid are now available to the community and the citizens? How long will the aid be available?
• What laws, regulations, or statutes now apply to the response and recovery efforts? How is this authority different from the local and state authorities? In what ways can the shift in authority create conflicts?
• Are immunity and liability protections changed because of federal intervention? Explain.

Part 5: Post Disaster, Day 180

Looking back on this incident, you have been asked to prepare an evaluation of the effectiveness of the disaster response to determine lessons learned.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of your local emergency plan, the National Response Framework (NRF) and execution of the National Preparedness Goal (NPG) objectives.
• Summarize how the NRF and NPG guidelines were applied in this disaster.
• Identify specific areas of strength in local, state, and federal guidelines.
• Discuss areas where improvements can be made. Offer at least two specific recommendations that if enacted, would better prepare or protect your community in the event of another disaster.

Your project must be a minimum of five pages in length.

• You may include relevant visual data (e.g., charts, resource inventory, checklists).
• No image or graphical representation of data may be larger than a quarter page in length, and no more than one graphic may be used on each page. Graphics or images that exceed these limits must be inserted as an Appendix (or Appendices) following the written portion of the document.
• The title page, any Appendices, and the references page do not count toward the length requirement of five written pages.

You must support your project with at least eight credible sources (e.g., federal guidelines such as FEMA documents or legal precedents, peer-reviewed articles, or other academically reliable sources.)