Center for National Preparedness - University of Pittsburgh

Certificate in National Preparedness and Homeland Security

Emergency Management

FEMA characterizes emergency management as being comprized of four cyclic activities: Prepare, Respond, Recover and Mitigate. This is generally portrayed as a "wheel" as shown below.

In actuality, the time consumed by each of these activities is not equal. The pie chart below gives an estimate of the time spent on each activity.

In addition, the resources consumed by each of these activities is not equal. The pie chart below gives an estimate of the resources spent on each activity.

Many people have the impression from the media that emergency management is all about responding to emergencies. However most of the time and many of the resources are not spent in responding to emergencies.

Emergency management is a continuous endeavor that shifts its emphasis depending on the situations at hand. Emergency management is very much like the management of a business. All of the classic business functions can be found in an emergency management organization. These include:

Human Resources: hiring, firing, training, certification, etc.
Finance: grants, allocations, events and other activities
Plant: the EOC (Emergency Operations Center)
Equipment: vehicles, supplies, devices
Marketing: public information
Operations: NIMS and ICS

A successful emergency operation performs each of these activities well.