Think up a hypothetical emergency or large-scale disaster scenario that affects a large

population of people and a vast area. The scenario can be natural or manmade in nature. Some

examples of natural disasters could be hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, volcano eruptions,

tsunamis, floods, infectious disease outbreaks, and forest fires. Some examples of manmade

disasters could be suicide bombings, workplace or school shootings, radiological, biological, or

chemical attacks, poisonings, water supply contaminations, mass power outages, arsons, building

or bridge collapses, and infrastructure or food, water and heating supply sabotage. Use this

hypothetical scenario to answer the critical incident response question sets below.

1) What are some of the major challenges emergency managers will confront during the response

phase of this disaster? Why are these problems? Why are these issues important to resolve?

Finally, how can these problems be overcome by the emergency manager and other related

actors or agencies?

2) Who will be the most critical actors to arrive initially at the scene of the incident? Why are

these actors so crucial? What kind of equipment and training should they possess?

3) What are some of the major and pressing considerations to consider when dealing with this

disaster scenario? What are some hazards that will need to be assessed and overcome? Who will

need to be warned or evacuated? Will transportation and shelter arrangements need to be made?

4) List the steps that would need to be taken starting with the most pressing needs down to the

final details. How will emergency medical care be distributed? Will mass triage need to be

established? Will the affected area need to be cordoned off?

5) Why is emergency management so important during this phase? Could an unorganized

response actually lead to more confusion and chaos? How can resources and personnel be

allocated efficiently with a central command post?

UMT

2

Critical incident recovery specific scenario and question sets.

Use the same above scenario to answer the critical incident recovery question sets below.

1) What are the initial steps that must be taken before recovery operations can take place? Why

is disaster recovery so important? Should we strive to make the area better than it was before the

incident?

2) How can the public or nonprofit organizations assist in recovery operations? Should

volunteers be sought and utilized? How could public donations be collected? How could debris

be recovered and removed?

3) Is the management of public relations crucial during the recovery process? How could

information be relayed to the public to assure them that everything that needs to be done is being

done? How could some of the survivor’s mental health have been affected by the disaster?

Should crisis counselors be sought to deal with the survivors and victims of the disaster?

4) How important is it to promote a culture of vulnerability reduction to prevent disasters from

occurring in the first place or at least mitigating their consequences if they do occur?

5) How can technology be harnessed to smooth the recovery process? What are some tools

available to emergency managers for recovery operations? Could the lessons learned from this

disaster response and recovery be used in the future to better help communities respond to and

deal with a disaster? What are some new and possibly unexpected threats that could arise in the

future?