Preparedness Of Educational Institutions to Tackle Natural Disasters

Natural disasters are catastrophic ones such as floods, earthquake, wildfire, hurricane, tornado, landslides, tsunami, drought, heat waves, volcano eruptions, mudflow, thunderstorm, typhoon etc.

Due to climate change, the risk of natural disasters is frequent across the world. We have to mitigate measures the severe impact of climate emergency. Children are facing adverse effects of natural hazards. They are into physical and mental trauma. Many of them even losing their academic performance. 

Educational institutions must focus on these type measures, they have to take safety and security concerns. Be at a stage to handle the situations under any circumstances. The school management must include disaster management as part of curriculum. Teach the students about it as not just as a subjective lesson, teach them to face it, tackle in hurdle times. It should be a hybrid approach where it includes wisdom and local knowledge can be used to prevent socio-economic issues.

Proper planning, co-ordination and execution must have, a strategic approach is necessary. There shall be firefighting equipment, fire warning and fire alarm systems in place. The educational institution should take the authority to implement a standard operating procedure (SOP) for access control – SOP were designed to create uniformity of effort, and cohesion, thus resulting in the continuity of standards. 

Create a mock drill like tactics such as – immediate action drills, intelligence gathering, surveillance and counter surveillance, authentication etc. to understand the students easily. It will be useful in future if any situations occur. Familiarize the staff personnel with emergency procedures. Make students aware about the designated assembly areas, exits, staging areas and provide for a functional radio communication grid, dedicated to evacuation and medical emergencies only.

Establish an emergency coordinator in every institution makes it easy to report problems, evaluate after any emergency or event of any nature. Disaster may result into death, injury or disease, damage to property, infrastructure or the environment, disruption of the life of a community.

Disaster management means a continuous and integrated multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary process of planning and implementation of measures aimed at:

• Preventing or reducing the risk of disasters
• Mitigating the severity or consequences of disasters
• Emergency preparedness 
• Rapid and effective response to disasters 
• Post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation  

Disaster preparedness: it means exactly being prepared for anything. Good planning and preparedness activities can significantly reduce the impact of a disaster, and also assist with basic emergencies and may prevent operational failure. A disaster plan is a key part of preparedness. We must take all of the steps necessary to mitigate and to prepare for disasters. This includes incorporating the necessary emergency equipment and services. A disaster is a large-scale emergency. 

Any emergency management initiative must start with an inventory of risks and an assessment of the exposure from these risks. Infrastructure issues will likely be seen as the ones that present the most risk. The key steps in emergency management are:

• Mitigation 
• Preparedness
• Response
• Recovery 

Mitigation – reduces or eliminates long-term risk to people and property from natural hazards and their effects. It involves such activities as avoiding construction in high-risk areas such as floodplains, engineering buildings to withstand wind and earthquakes and more. 

Preparedness – simply preparing for an emergency before it occurs. The key to effective emergency management is being ready to provide a rapid emergency response. 

Response – action of responding to an emergency. Trained and equipped personnel will be required to deal with any emergency situation.

Recovery – process of returning to normal. 

Some of the useful tips/resources necessary required to handle to situations under any circumstances:

• Assign coordinators to review security and accreditation pertaining to
• Accommodation requirements
• Accreditation/facilitation requirements
• Transport and logistics requirements 
• Health, medical and disaster management requirements
• Human resources/volunteers and role player’s requirements 
• Protocol, media liaison, IT, telecom, hospitality 
• Safety and security assessment and compliance requirements