ABSTRACT
The field of disaster and emergency management is a new and emerging one, having only established itself in the latter half of the 20th century.In the 1970s and 1980s, limited federal policy was published in an attempt to guide practices, in addition to the formation of Federal Emergency Management Agency within the United States.The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, combined with a changing technological landscape in society, led to the need for emergency managers to rapidly change and adjust their practices.The workforce, typically oriented toward local or regional government, is not always ideally suited to these types of changes, and has struggled to remain current with ongoing recommendations and policy laid out at the federal level.Emergency management as an industry is largely lacking in the industrial process management seen in many other fields, and struggles to measure itself or determine if practices are effective or not.Themes to be explored in this chapter include the following: how successful has major legislation and policy been in emergency management?What is the cost to local governments in adapting to new processes and practices?Recommendations for future research are provided, indicating growing opportunities for industrial and systems engineers in emergency management.
