Disaster Relief

Defining Disasters

Disasters can be broadly or narrowly defined. In general, disasters are natural or human-made events that cause sweeping damage, hardship, and/or loss of life across one or more strata of society (Bonanno et al., 2010; R. W. Perry, 2018). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines disaster as:

There is not one universal categorization of disasters, however, consistency does exist in that they tend to be organized into 2-3 categories: 1) natural disasters 2) human-made disasters, and 3) a third variation that includes disasters such as technological, infrastructure, or public health disasters. Natural disasters include events such as: flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires. Human-made disasters include events such as: incidence of mass violence, school shootings, terrorism, and human conflicts. Examples often put into the third category include: pandemics, building or bridge collapses, transportation crashes, nuclear reactor incidents, and gas explosions.

The key differentiation between an emergency and a disaster is in the size of the event and the resources needed to support and manage the event. Disasters are larger scale, sweeping across a community, and require response and recovery services that are greater than what local entities can provide. Whereas, emergencies are typically smaller in size and resources needed are usually matched locally. Disaster declarations largely decide the resources requested to support the community impacted by the disaster. Declarations are first declared at the local level; once those resources and local capabilities are expected to be exceeded or are exceeded, the state is requested to respond. This repeats at the state and federal level as needed. For example, when a tornado occurs, the local emergency responders, hospitals, and other local community resources are the first on the scene providing support and help to rescue survivors. As those resources are overwhelmed, additional support from nearby communities is requested. From there the disaster response circle broadens to include state resources and support; if needed federal and international resources are requested. Due to this structure, it is imperative that child life services collaborate with disaster management organizations, managers, and officials on all levels: local, state, federal, and international to maximize their reach and effectiveness and decrease their response time.