ABSTRACT
This chapter examines basic disaster management concepts and explains how these concepts apply to individual, organizational, and community-based disaster preparedness. It provides brief discussions about risk, vulnerability, and the history of disaster management. Disasters are measured in terms of lives lost, injuries sustained, property damaged or lost, and environmental degradation. The chapter explains different public- and private-sector emergency management structures and capabilities and the basis of the emergency management discipline. Public education is conducted by the nongovernmental and private sectors. Many NGOs consider disaster preparedness issues as central to their mission, or directly related to their individual programs. Many businesses and nongovernmental organizations go to great lengths to minimize disaster impacts and prevent operational disruptions by conducting hazard and risk management activities. For businesses, vulnerability and risk reduction is required by law or regulation, such as the case of financial risk measures mandated by the Sarbanes–Oxley legislation.
