Introduction to Emergency Management

Catalog description

This is designed to introduce students to the concepts of emergency management. Students will gain a general understanding of the threats faced by communities. Students will explore the role of emergency management as well as the activities taken during the various phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Topics covered in this class include the history and development of emergency management, hazard identification and risk analysis, mitigation, communications, international disaster management, and the future of emergency management. Through a simulation exercise, the students use publicly available tools to take on the role of an emergency manager. They will be tasked with doing a comprehensive risk assessment of a fictional town and apply the results to a Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA) using different man-made, technological, and natural hazards that culminates in a peer-review assessment.