Organisations in disaster

Abstract

In the event of a disaster, communities become the targets of specialist organisations and a concentration of activities. The complex unstructured activities and routines of daily life are disrupted and even totally overwhelmed by a single catastrophic event that requires a redirection of priorities, resources and people to deal with all aspects of the disaster impact as rapidly as possible. The whole community must be mobilised to restore functions and meet needs, to return to the normality of the pre-disaster state. This latter purpose is least likely to be achieved, as the destroyed community can seldom rebuild to the same complex, but randomly haphazard state that existed before the disaster. The mobilisation of the whole community to the single purpose of recovery requires a high level of organisation. Response to a disaster demands that there be purposeful organisations ready to provide leadership and action. Emergency management is predicated for the existence of such purposeful organisations. However, while organisations are at the core of emergency management response and recovery, they are by no means simple or singular. Disaster generates a plethora of organisations, which interact with the community rather than simply organising disaster response. The community also organises itself, re-assigning priorities and using existing organisations and networks.