Emergency evacuation

Emergency evacuation is the immediate and urgent movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard.

Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a storm or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or approaching weather system.

Evacuation may be carried out before, during or after such natural disasters as eruptions of volcanoes, cyclones, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis or bushfire. Other reasons to evacuate people include industrial accidents such as chemical spill, nuclear accident, traffic accidents, including train or aviation accidents, fire, military attacks, bombings, terrorist attacks, military battles, structural failure, etc.

Emergency evacuation plans are developed to ensure the safest and most efficient evacuation time of all expected residents of a structure, city or region. Evacuation time for different hazards and conditions is established. These benchmarks can be established through using best practices, regulations or using simulations, such as modeling the flow of people in a building to determine the time. Proper planning will use multiple exits, contra-flow lanes, and special technologies to ensure full, fast and complete evacuation. Consideration for personal situations which may affect an individual's ability to evacuate is taken into account. These are alarm signals that use both aural and visual alerts, and also evacuation equipment such as sleds, pads, and chairs for non-ambulatory people. Regulations such as building codes can be used to reduce the possibility of panic by allowing individuals to process the need to self-evacuate without causing alarm. Proper planning will implement an all-hazards approach so that plans can be reused for multiple hazards that could exist.

The sequence of an evacuation can be divided into six phases. These are detection, decision, alarm, reaction, movement to an area of refuge or an assembly station, and transportation.

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2. Найдите в тексте информацию:

1. о фазах эвакуации;

2. планировании эвакуации.

2. Ответьте на вопросы:

1) Что такое эвакуация?

2) В каких случаях проводится эвакуация?

3) Какие факторы учитываются для определения времени эвакуации?

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Early warning

Early warning is the provision of timely and effective information through identified institutions that allows individuals exposed to hazard to take action to avoid or reduce their risk and prepare for effective response. According to the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction early warning is the integration of four main elements. These are risk knowledge, monitoring and predicting, disseminating information, and response.

Risk assessment provides essential information to set priorities for mitigation and prevention strategies and designing early warning systems. Systems with monitoring and predicting capabilities provide timely estimates of the potential risk faced by communities, economies and the environment.

Communication systems are needed for delivering warning messages to the potentially affected locations to alert local and regional governmental agencies. The messages need to be reliable, synthetic and simple to be understood by authorities and the public.

Coordination, good governance and appropriate action plans are key points in effective early warning. Likewise, public awareness and education are critical aspects of disaster mitigation.

Failure of any part of the system will imply failure of the whole system. For example, accurate warnings will have no impact if the population is not prepared or if the alerts are received but not disseminated by the agencies receiving the messages.

Effective early warning systems embrace four aspects. They include risk analysis, monitoring and predicting location and intensity of the disaster, communicating alerts to authorities and to those potentially affected, and responding to the disaster. The early warning system has to address all aspects.

By providing information that allows individuals and communities to protect their lives and property early warning systems help to reduce economic losses and mitigate the number of injuries or deaths from a disaster. Early warning information empowers people to take action prior to a disaster. If well integrated with risk assessment studies and communication and action plans, early warning systems can lead to substantive benefits. Providing warning more accurately we will be able to manage and mitigate a disaster’s impact on society, economies, and environment.

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2. Найдите в тексте информацию:

1. об элементах своевременного предупреждения;

2. об аспектах своевременного предупреждения;

3. о преимуществах своевременного предупреждения.

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4. Ответьте на вопросы:

1) Что такое своевременное предупреждение?

2) Что такое оценка риска?

3) Какую роль играет система связи при оповещении населения?

4) Что способствует эффективному оповещению?

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