Community Emergency Response Team And Fire Corps - 1206 Words

Abstract The issue confronting all communities during a large scale disaster is the extreme labor intensive need of responding and recovering. The predicament of most communities is the incapability to employ the large scale of personnel needed to competently manage a large scale disaster. One conceivable solution is to increase the workforce population during times of perilous need is for emergency managers to assimilate community volunteers into their existing disaster management plans. The nationally sponsored Neighborhood Watch, Volunteers in Police Services, Medical Reserve Corps, Community Emergency Response Team and Fire corps programs that are nationally sponsored and marketed by the federal government through county-wide Citizen†¦show more content†¦Success will require a new level of cooperation and commitment to collaborations among the volunteer sector, professional responders and all levels of government. Introduction: Emergency Management organizations cannot adequately provide the colossal workforce necessary to safely and resourcefully manage the response and recovery operations of large scale disasters without the assistance of volunteers. The alacrity of civilians to help in times of need has traditionally resulted in a large number of citizen volunteers to concurrently congregate onto disaster scenes to assist the center of operations. The concern attributed to this type of assistance is the disorderly arrival of a large number of volunteers immediately following a large scale disaster can have negative consequences, such as preventing entry and egress to and from the disaster area by blocking streets with their personal owned vehicles, becoming injured themselves and disturbing evidence in a potential crime scene. Other complications with volunteer management at disasters scenes include liability, security level clearance and the need to verify the skill level or vocational trade specialty o f each volunteer in order to effectively match the volunteer’s sill level with an appropriate job assignment. When a major disaster occurs, the volume of volunteers can be overwhelming. Dynes stated that citizens respond in the aftermath of a disaster wanting to do ‘anything to help the