The Plan of Action for Disaster-Preparedness

Preparedness for disasters attempts to lessen or prevent possible losses from risks, ensure early and appropriate aid to disaster victims, and accomplish quick and efficient recovery. The disaster preparedness process serves as an example of the continual process through which organisations, corporations, and the general public prepare for and lessen the effects of catastrophes, respond to them during and soon after they occur, and move to recover from them.

It involves the following components:

• Hazard knowledge: It includes impact and vulnerability assessment, dissemination of knowledge about the hazard to all stakeholders, carrying out an estimation of expected loss, knowledge of different kinds of expected disaster situations (earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, cyclones, etc.) and potential impact on health, safety, infrastructure, environment, economy, etc.
• Management, direction and coordination: The administrative functions related to disaster preparedness include the creation of institutions for disaster management, delineating line of authority, streamlining inter-agency cooperation and coordination mechanism, setting the scope of authority, directions related to the accumulation of required resources, how the resources will be managed and used, ensuring representation of concerned stakeholders (safety, health, law and order, environment)in the management, etc. The management activities also include training, drills and exercises and education programmes for line authorities and the general public to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of disaster management activities.
• Specific planning: Specific planning implies organising man and materials to deal with the disaster not only within the administrative agency but also outside it. Plan deployment of resources, evaluate shelter, communicate, collaborate between state and private players, provide electricity and medical care, and many other things are included in this.
• Resources: Availability of the key resources is an important aspect of a plan of action. It includes manpower, food, water, electricity, fuel, medicines, specialised equipment according to the kind of disaster (e.g., boats and sandbags during floods, ambulances, etc.), transportation, mortuary services, resources for displaced persons, etc. A variety of skills are required, including engineers, doctors, IT specialists, and skilled and manual labour. People should be made aware of the contact list so they know whom to approach in case of a disaster. Law enforcement is necessary so that opportunists cannot take the benefit  of the situation. The local police should be adequately trained, as they will be the first to act in a disaster situation. Technology like Geoinformatics Services (GIS) can provide invaluable support to decision-makers. Adequate and reliable transportation mechanisms to evacuate stranded people, and injured and to make resources available to affected people must be ensured.
• Life and property protection: Adequate arrangements must be made to prevent death, injury and damage to property during a disaster. Shelters should be built to provide people with safe places. Other accidents due to human action or inaction like fire through gas leakage must be prevented. It should be ensured that critical facilities (like electricity, hospitals, water supply, transport, etc.) function properly during a disaster.

A regional emergency management doctrine and an emergency operations centre (EOC) are two effective preparedness measures. Creating volunteer response capacity among civilian populations is another indicator of readiness. Volunteers are frequently deployed on the outskirts of a disaster because their response is not necessarily as predictable and plannable as professional response, unless they are part of a reputable and established volunteer group with standards and training.