Disasters come in different forms and at different times in the lifetime of a community. Some may announce their arrival while others take the community by surprise. Whatever the case may be, disasters will always occur as long as there is an interface or relationship between the human community, their activities and the environment. A succinct analysis of a community’s hazards and vulnerability can determine its risk level in the face a disaster. A hazard in emergency management terminology is “a potential harm which threatens our social, economic, and natural capital on a community, region, or country scale” (Pine, 2009, p.3). This definition tells us that a hazard can be anything capable of causing harm to a human being or property. Vulnerability according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the “…diminished capacity of an individual or group to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural or man-made hazard” (2012). Other agencies have defined vulnerability as “The degree of susceptibility and resilience of the community and environment to hazards” (Pine, 2009, p. 11). On the other hand, risk “…is an estimated impact that a hazard would have on people, services, facilities, and structures in a community” (FEMA). Risk in this regard becomes a statistical possibility for the occurrence of a disaster. There exist a perfect correlation and relation between hazard, vulnerability and risk if we look at these concepts through the prism of social class composition and/or distribution in a community. If hazard is a harmful event (natural or man-made) and vulnerability is the predisposition or susceptibility of being affected by that identified harmful event as a result of one’s social location, status or class; then the probability of being affected (risk) can be estimated in real time. For example, a community or social group that is less privileged, living in a flood prone area (hazard) and is unable due to its low economic and political power, to mitigate or prepare against the event by putting in place the right infrastructure (dams or flood resistant houses) to protect itself from the flood; the community or social group therefore becomes vulnerable to a possible flood event. The probability of that community to be affected by food is high because of its exposure to the hazard. The risk of the community or social group to be impacted in the event of a flood event therefore becomes very high.
Is Protection from Hazards and Disasters a Human Right?
According to the United Nations, human rights are inalienable, invisible and inherent rights that every human being enjoys without distinction of race, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, color, religion or language. The right to life being one of the pillars of human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), it therefore becomes imperative for every human, regardless of his/her social class or status to be kept out of harm’s way. The responsibility to guarantee this right lies in the hands of the community members themselves, the local authorities, the State and/or the Federal government. Disasters constitute one of the highest causes of massive human casualties in the history of humanity besides other causes such as wars and diseases. Following the World Bank 2009 statistics, natural disasters and hazards have claimed approximately 3.3 million lives between 1970 and 2010; meanwhile 60 million others die yearly and 1.27 more million die from traffic accidents alone (WB, 2010. p.23). From the statistics above, it therefore becomes a human rights obligation to design plans and policies that would protect individuals from disasters. A good way to ensure the protection of each individual’s right to live is my engaging in active and proactive disaster management actions and activities to prevent from, mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. Given that the number one priority for any emergency management or response action is to protect lives, failure of which may lead to serious legal or career consequences; it becomes clear that life-safety is a human rights that is highly regarded. Moreover, there exists legislative and civil rights provisions to protect the rights of special groups of vulnerable people and those with functional needs such as the elderly, persons with disability, children, recent immigrants second language English – speaking groups. These provisions include the Rehabilitation Act of 197, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. All of these Acts constitute legal frameworks which enable individuals to receive the necessary protection from and assistance in a disaster.
Ways in which Social Class Affects Vulnerability to Disaster
The notion of social class has often associated an individual to h/her birth, economic/financial assets and the group of people s/he mingles with. In most communities, people have the tendency of mingling more often with those within their social class. Social class stratification has four levels namely: the upper class, middle class, working class and the poor. Of these four categories, it is those in the lower level of the stratification (working class and poor) who often occupy the low standard, less privileged and disaster-prone areas of the community. This trend can be explained by the fact that they (lower class) cannot cope with the expensive and demanding life-style of the upper and middle classes. The lower class inhabitants who usually are the most affected in a disaster due to their proximity to hazards and their exposures to risks; lack the economic resources and/or political and social network necessary to prevent, mitigate or even prepare for a disaster. Due to their unfavorable and dis-empowered position in the community, they are more or less left out or ignored during disaster planning. The assumption that is sometimes made is that, this social group or class is passive and reluctant to take initiatives to protect themselves from perceived risks. Ironically, the problem is not in the people’s capacity to protect themselves. The problem is that the planning process is not often inclusive, and the lower class and their needs are often ignored in the process. Moreover, the ability to heed to warning message and respond accordingly is often hampered by the type of networks and response trends within a social class. Issues of trust in messages/alerts play a vital role this respect. Consequently, when a disaster strikes, the lower class is most affected and is left in more deplorable conditions than it was prior to the disaster. Disasters affect their weak infrastructures and cause more death because this class lives in more concentrated and risk-prone areas. Hurricane Katrina is a good example to support this fact, since the vast majority of those who were affected were the working class and poor African Americans and Latino communities who lived in close proximity to the hazard area.
Key Elements between Dominant View of Disaster and Social Vulnerability
Disasters are viewed differently by different schools of thought or groups. Among these schools of thought are the “Technocrats”, popularly known as the dominant group and the Social Vulnerability group or approach. The dominant group is composed of those who view nature as being the primary cause of disaster in societies and view science and technology as the main tool to manage hazards and disasters. In their perception, humans are seen as beings with limited information and ability to make correct decisions when dealing with a risk. They feel that humans are meant to be directed and led. Dominant view advocates believe that technology and money rules and they focus on reducing the damage of a disaster. In other words, their focus is on the physical process of a disaster and not humans per se. They believe that they can use scientific and technological advancement in a hierarchical style to manage, subdue and conquer nature.
The Social vulnerability group on the other hand, places a high focus on people and not technology or nature. They believe that vulnerability to disaster is an effect of a people’s history. They are of the view that limited access to political power and inadequate wealth to meet certain common needs are the roots of one’s vulnerability to a disaster (Phillips, Thomas, Fothergill & Blinn-pike, 2010. p.13). Since it is people – centered, the group of the view that a community-based approach is needed to resolve the complexities involved in disaster management. It believes that a bottom-up design where the community is involved in every process from design to response and recovery will have better impact. Instead of focusing on science and technology, this group focuses on people’s creativity, local knowledge and networks in society to reduce social vulnerability. Instead of utilizing resources to seek ways of defeating nature, the group sees nature as a partner (Development of Social Vulnerability).
Organization’s Response to the Specific Needs of Elderly and Children
Most first responders in particular and emergency management agencies in general have always had difficulties addressing or meeting the special needs of the vulnerable group of people in the communities. Most attention is often concentrated on meeting the needs of the general population under the impact of disaster while ignoring the specific needs and demands of special groups such as the elderly and children. According to the 2006 US Census, the elderly of 65 years and above constitute 12.4 % (35 million) while children make up 25% (73.5 million) out of a US population of 300 million. This group usually has challenges getting and responding to warning and evacuation messages due to their condition. For the elderly, their age, medical and financial condition and isolated lifestyle constitute an impediment to response in emergency situation. The children generally face similar difficulties due to their young age, ignorance and limited understanding of warning and evacuation messages. In this regard, response teams and emergency management organizations and agencies need to make special plans to need the special needs of these groups. To achieve this, these vulnerable groups should be involved in every stage of the emergency management cycle. The elderly and child protection agencies should be involved in the design and planning processes. Local community emergency plans should include resources to address the special needs of these groups in times of emergency. Shelters should be arranged in a way to provide special activities and space for the elderly such quiet spots, and play grounds for the children to reduce the stress from the incident. Emergency organizations can make use of advance technological facilities in communication to provide elder and child-friendly the messages in times of emergencies. Special ready to use toolkits and pre-packaged emergency response bags could be distributed to these groups. It can include tools such as GPS signal geeks for location and emergency free dialing phones for emergency calls. In addition, emergency organizations can encourage communities to prepare an inventory of elderly people and children, have a way of contacting them and update the list regularly. Immediately after a disaster hits, these people should be checked and assisted first.
References
IFRC , Retrieved from http://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-management/about-disasters/what-is-a-disaster/what-is-vulnerability/.
United Nations. Retrived from http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx
Pine, J.C.(2009). Natural hazards analysis. Reducing the impacts of disasters. Florida: CRC Press.
The World Health Organization (2010). Natural hazards, unnatural disasters. The economics of effective prevention. Washington: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the World Bank.
Phillips, D.B., Thomas, D.S.K., Fothergill, A., & Blinn-Pike, L.(2010). Social vulnerability to
disasters. Florida: CRC Press.
Development of Social Vulnerability Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.studyblue.com/#note/study/1065815
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