Disasters: Natural, Technological & Human-Made Hazards - Essay Sample

Introduction

Disasters are occasions or situations that lead to loss of human lives, animals, loss properties that environmental distractions as well as disruption of social, economic, and political activities. Hazards can be classified as natural, technological, and human-made disasters. Natural hazards are the events that are caused by natural forces in the natural environment. Technical risks are originated by processes of human activities such as in factories, transport industries, among others. Human-made hazards involve voluntary social activities to disrupt normal operations in the environment, such as terrorism. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the technological and human-made hazards to address the differences between the two, examine the preparedness of the communities for both hazards, and evaluate bio-terror attacks as a human-made hazard.

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Technological Hazards

Technological hazards are caused by human activities in the industrial sectors, and they include nuclear power failures and dangerous material occurrences. Most of the time, there is no warning about the upcoming technological hazard, and thus people realize that they have been exposed to risk after many years. For instance, in New York near Niagara Falls, the population around the site developed health complications due to hidden toxic waste after ten years of the first exposure. The rate of increase in technological disasters is alarming, and it is due to the emergent of new tools and opportunities for human errors in industries and factories. An example of hazards material is chemical (FEMA 2010). People use chemicals in almost all their daily activities, such as to purify domestic water, enhance food production, and quicken house chores. Chemicals can lead to disaster if not utilized in the right way and in the right quantities. Hazards can happen during stages of production, storage, transportation, and disposal. Long term exposure in a chemical atmosphere such as production industries ad workshops leads to health deterioration and can also lead to death. The effect of technological accidents can be short term or long term. For instance, road accidents due to inadequate transport facilities lead to both temporal and permanent injuries.

Man-Made Hazards

Consequently, human-made hazards are also known as anthropogenic hazards. These are disasters that are caused by human intentional human actions or inactions. Unlike technological and accidental hazards, human-made hazards are deliberate. Examples of human-made hazards include criminality, civil disorder, terrorism, and wars. The act deliberately putting other people's lives in danger of injuries and death is referred to as criminality. Any form of a disturbance where large crowds of people are involved is referred to as civil disorder. The civil unrest may occur due to public demonstrations due to unemployment or poverty, common crashes, among others. The use of violence aimed at the creation of fear among citizens to achieve the religious, political, or ideological goal is known as terrorism. Terrorists target a private organization that is well known, private personnel or citizen, government officials to attract the attention of the nation or organization. War is a conflict between two large groups and usually involves the usage of weapons. Examples of wars that are termed as hazards are the First World War and Second World War. Other human-made hazards include fire, power outage, and water pollution.

The difference between technological and human-made disasters is that the former is caused by unintended human actions such as accidents or human error, while intentional human actions cause the latter. The difference between the two types of hazards matters a lot in determining the preparedness of the community and the planning of mitigating procedures. That is, understanding the contrast of the technological risks from human-made hazards will enable the scholars and the entire society in valuation ways in which to take protective measures in case one of it occurs.

Preparedness of Technological Hazards

An effective response to technological hazards requires the readiness to perform that accompanied by a deep understanding of the danger and challenges the responders face. The preparation of the risks from the individuals, communities, private and non-profitable organizations, government depends on the capability of performing decisively (FEMA 2014). For events that occur without warnings such as technological hazards, forward-leaning posture is vital since these events tend to accelerate in size and complexity. For instance, a technological disaster such as a transportation system catastrophe can cause severe economic downfall and extensive mortalities.

I think that the first responder community is prepared to deal with the eventuality of technological hazards. It is known that in one stage or another, accidents do happen. All partners of the whole community are assigned specific roles and responsibilities to execute to enhance effective response preparedness. Individuals, families, and households, even though not essential in emergency management, they perform a crucial role in minimizing risks of hazards around their homes - for instance, caution while using chemicals in the house and the agricultural sector (FEMA 2014). Communities, due to their bond by not only the boundaries but also the social groups such as academia, faith-based, among others, tend to share different opinions and reasoning power. The engagement tends to reinforce the preparedness against technological hazards. Also, in many communities, there are organizations formed, whose responsibilities are to gather information about hazardous materials and make the data available to the public. Therefore, the town is well prepared to respond to disasters caused by accidental human actions.

Preparedness of Man-Made Hazards

Unlike in the occurrence of technological and natural hazards, communities are not well prepared in case of human-made hazards. Cities need to have human-made mitigation planning to facilitate the reduction of loss of lives and properties at the occurrence of anthropogenic disasters. During the cold war, the communities were well focused on ways to manage and recover from the effect of war, but in the 1990s, the focus shifted to natural hazards (FEMA 2003). The massive attacks experienced such as the 2001 anthrax attack, and the bombing at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, calls for preparedness among all communities to reduce the vulnerability of future terrorism.

One way of initiating preparedness of human-made hazards among communities is by integrating anthropogenic disasters into mitigating planning. The process involves four steps, which include organizing of resources required, assessment of the risks, development of the mitigation plan, and lastly, implementation of the program, and monitoring of the progress. The funds that the community should focus on gathering are the interested members and the technical expertise necessary. Secondly, the communities need to identify the characteristic of the potential anthropogenic hazard as well as the complexity of damage, which can be caused by a specific disaster (FEMA 2003). Having gathered the information about a potential risk, the community can determine their priorities and evaluate the possible measures to minimize unfavorable effects. The society can bring a plan to life by implementing it in various ways of day to daily activities.

Bio-Terror Attack

A bio-terror attack is the deliberate release of viruses, harmful toxin bacteria, and other agents to cause illness and death among people, plants, and animals. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), biological weapons are those which are aimed at contamination by the use of illness-causing micro-organism and other agents such as prions, viruses, and infectious nucleic acids (Grigoryev 2002). The bio-terror attack can categories as human-made hazards when biological agents are deliberately released in the open environment through building ventilation to infect a targeted population of people, plants, or animals. He community is not well prepared for this kind of attack since its occurrence is unnoticed until the signs and symptoms are in the later stage.

There is an emerging mitigating condition that detects bio-pathogenic release. It is sensor technology for detecting where many disease agents are concentrated. The sensor detects the existence of the micro-organism at the very early stages before the infection has developed. However, the technology can only be used in a specific location, and due to its cost, it is yet to be evenly distributed (Grigoryev 2002). Due to their limited distribution soon, emergency managers are recommended to develop a working relationship with the local health facilities. The connection will bore beneficial association with the regional, state and federal laboratories as well as the health agencies which in return in ease in identification of pathogens, treatment of the victims as well as decontamination of the infested areas.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would recommend a vaccine as an effective way of combating the bio-terror attack. Disease-causing organisms can be battled using a vaccine that enhances protection by seeking to block the body responses to the agent. Emergency managers can be interested in this kind of therapy as it can be used on a vast population as well as its generic therapeutic mechanism against a wide range of bacteria.

References

Grigoryev, K. (2002). Chapter 5 - Principal Hazards in U.S - Chapter 5 Principal Hazards in the United States. Retrieved 8 December 2019, from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj25anatabmAhVJZMAKHejOA1AQFjAAegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftraining.fema.gov%2Fhiedu%2Fdocs%2Ffem%2Fchapter%25205%2520-%2520principal%2520hazards%2520in%2520u.s.doc&usg=AOvVaw0oQUBXxwx1-xALPsDFtXHw

FEMA, (2003) State and Local Mitigation Planning: how-to guide: Integrating Manmade Hazards. Retrieved 8 December 2019, from https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1524-20490-3869/howto7.pdf

FEMA (2010) Technological Hazards. Retrieved 8 December 2019, from https://www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/technohazards.pdfFEMA, (2014) Disaster Mitigation: Reducing Costs and Saving Lives. Retrieved 8 December 2019, from https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1396640884021-c18768c54fce84aef2f96f486ef685f3/4-3-14_DISASTER_MITIGATION_REDUCING_COSTS_AND_SAVING_LIVES.pdf