Disaster exercise manual : guidelines for exercising emergency operations plans for local government.

Includes glossary of terms

Includes list of acronyms

Emergencies and disasters can strike at anytime, causing death, injury, and economic instability. As communities become larger and more iterrelated, numbers and types of potential disasters multiply, and their impact is often compunded by technological, social, and political developments of the modern era. The obligation to respond to emergencies lies, initially, with local government. Local resources are normally closest at hand and can be activated almost immediately. Governement's capacity at any level to protect its citizens however, depends directly upon the abilities of large numbers of organizations, individuals, and jurisdictions to act effectively in emergency situations. This is a difficult task, requiring virtually every public agency and many private groups to coordinate their actions in all four phases of emergency management: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.