Emergency management

Emergency Management
Student’s Name
Institution
The Iowa community that is located in the city of West Des Moines is commonly affected by flood disaster that destabilizes human activities in the area. As the emergency manager, I have established strategies to counter the effect of floods such as loss of homes, properties and lives. The mayor and the county council, however, believe the emergency management team should use more resources and update the existing strategies. The mitigation efforts such as recovery, planning, prevention, preparedness, response and mitigation are being applied in managing floods in Iowa community (The BCEM, 2016). Discussing the current preparedness of the community in handling the flooding disaster will enable me, the mayor and county council to reach a common ground.
The emergency management team has implemented the following strategies in dealing with the Iowa flooding disaster; the council initiated the program of educating citizens on survival techniques after the 2008 floods (Charis-Carlson, 2016). The skills in this education involve swimming and avoiding regions that are likely to flood. Water storage reserves have been constructed in the area to store excess water during rainy seasons thus minimize chances of overflowing. Dense walls have been constructed along water bodies that are likely to overflow. The county council has also restored some rivers to their initial flow direction that contains meanders to increase the distance of travel for the water thus minimize the chances of flooding.

More trees have been planted along river banks to help in reducing the flood force and prevent it from damaging the barrier walls. Also, the insurance companies have developed a system of insuring citizens against the flood disaster to minimize the impact on economic development (WDM, 2016).
The disaster preparedness in Iowa is however surrounded by factors such as poor support from the local community that tend to be concerned with the flooding issue only during the rainy seasons. Additionally, there is the issue of flood response team; the members have not been identified and their roles defined. Also, there is the problem of resettling people that live along the river banks. For effective preparedness on floods, the county council requires resources such as funds, human resource, and disaster planners. However, the community already has enough funds for the projects, but it requires employing more human resource. The city can obtain the human resource through training the community citizens on different strategies of responding and managing the flood disaster. Additionally, professional planners for different flood management strategies can be hired from other countries.
If the city flood management unit is unable to update the strategies of containing the disaster, it is likely to experience damage to the existing water barriers along rivers. The economy of the region will be negatively affected since properties that generate income will be destroyed. Additionally, agricultural products will be damaged (Aerts et al., 2014). The floods will sweep the people’s homes leaving hundreds of families homeless; this will affect the local government financially as it will be forced to resettle the displaced individuals (Patane, 2016). The floods will destroy schools thus distracting the education system in the region. Generally, lack of updating the flood management strategies in Iowa may result in massive destruction of properties and distraction of life.
Preparedness level of Iowa community determines the efficiency and effectiveness of the emergency responders for the flood disaster. For instance, high level of preparedness ensures the community is aware of their role in managing the disaster thus they cooperate with responders. Also, high level of preparedness enables the responders to access the facilities for managing the flood disaster within a short duration making it possible to save lives and prevent massive destruction of properties.

References
Aerts, J. C., Botzen, W. W., Emanuel, K., Lin, N., de Moel, H., & Michel-Kerjan, E. O. (2014). Evaluating flood resilience strategies for coastal megacities. Science, 344(6183), 473-475.
Charis-Carlson J. (2016). Online maps let Iowans see their risk of flooding. Retrieved on 12/12/16, from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/education/2016/09/23/online-maps-let-iowans-see-their-risk-flooding/90914026/Patane M. (2016). Iowa flooding 2016: What we know. The Des Moines Register. Retrieved on 12/12/16, from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/09/26/iowa-flooding-2016-cedar-rapids-what-we-know-so-far/91113262/The BCEM. (2016).The Five Phases of Emergency Management. Bexar County Emergency Management. Retrieved on 12/12/16, from https://www.bexar.org/694/Five-Phases
WDM, (2016). FEMAFlood Maps (FIRMs). West Des Moines. Retrieved on 12/12/16, from http://www.wdm.iowa.gov/government/engineering-services/fema-flood-maps-firms